For this week, I read the introduction of the book Computational Beauty of Nature. The text was centered around reductionism, which is the theory of reducing complex things into basic parts or components. The author points to flaws in reductionism, particularly in observing nature in his example of ants. According to the author, if ants were studied individually as opposed to studied collectively as a colony, scientists would lack a crucial understanding of the complexities of ants and their colonies due to the intricate societies ants form. Through analogies like this one, the author argues that many systems and structures are connected. Thus, the author argues for understanding the interactions between agents being one of the three ways of analysis, with the other two being reductionism and a more holistic perspective. From here, the book is introduced as a way of learning about computer systems and structures.
I am intrigued by the introduction of the book and I look forward to reading more. I did not know about the reductionism theory, and it made me question if this theory can be applied to computers and technology more successfully than it can be applied to nature. As computers are built through smaller parts and components coming together, shouldn’t they be easily dissected and analyzed from their parts and components? Computers are meant to be predictable, while nature is not.