Slashdot Mirror
Living Earth Simulator Aims To Simulate Everything
H3xx writes "An international group of scientists is aiming to create a simulator — nicknamed The Living Earth Simulator — that will collect data from billions of sources and use it to replicate everything happening on Earth, from global weather patterns and the spread of diseases to international financial transactions or congestion on highways. The project aims to advance the scientific understanding of what is taking place on the planet, encapsulating the human actions that shape societies and the environmental forces that define the physical world. Perhaps this is Asimov's concept of Psychohistory come to fruition."
And isn't the point of modelling to look at a small part of the whole, to abstract the bits you're interested in?
No. The point of a model is to create a simplified version of something that is to compilcated to understand.
Modelling and concentrating on only a small part is a valid approach to that, but using simplifications (even the ones known as inaccurrate) is another one. (i.e. Atoms as pool balls, earth as an exact sphere, even internet as tubes.) You only need to know which simplifications you made, so you know on which scale your results out of that model are valid.
bickerdyke
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Synecdoche,_New_York
If Slashdot were chemistry it would look like this:Cadaverine
It entirely depends on what level of detail you want as to whether the model is valid or not. Consider the attached image of myself as an example - it's highly accurate for that level of detail :)
But, it'll simulate everything, then it will also simulate itself, running the simulation, and so on. Looks like a recursive simulation :)
"Luck is my middle name," said Rincewind, indistinctly. "Mind you, my first name is Bad." -- Terry Pratchett
The big problem with this is that most of the world's and humanity's interesting systems are chaotic. You may get lucky and find an attractor or two.
In any case, simulation can show you plausible futures, but they'll have no predictive value. The outputs will be little more than cybernetic speculative fiction.
On the other hand, there's no explaining chaos to a politician, or to a scientist who believes that more data and higher resolution are all that's needed to clear up the confusion; the grant money will keep flowing.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
simulating everything?
That thought crossed my mind too and reminded me of this town containing a scale model of itself.
I am not a crackpot.