In The Computational Beuty of Nature, Flake transforms how I thought about nature and the world from an extremely complex perspective into a simpler one. In this chapter, Flake explores ways in which the world’s complexity can be simplified. From his definition of Reduction, I tried to understand how things work and behave. For instance, when coding something hard I began by thinking of the different elements it encompaces, and put it in simpler words. Through this reading, I realized that the world is like a puzzle. Small pieces of it come together to make something more complex. Additionally, in this book, he argues that there is a significant importance in looking at the world through other different lenses, such as holism and parallelism.
“Choas shows us that even in deterministic systems, predictability is not guaranteed”.
Further, I liked his comparison between natural selection and algorithm because even though someone knows how specific algorithms work and the creator knows how natural selection works we, as users, often do not know. As a result, I think this creates a form of randomness, and he will explain further in chapter three about chaos where algorithmic systems can produce seemingly random outcomes.
Even though the chapter focuses on how to see the world it also briefly introduces the different chapters of the book where he draws a connection to the relationship between the various chapters in understanding one another and nature.
I think this chapter formulates a foundation for the book and how via computation one can understand the complexity of our world.