As a computer scientist, what's your take on the increasing trend of computer modeling of natural systems? It seems to me that as computers become more powerful, we'll certainly be able to learn more from them. But how much, exactly, do you think it can teach us about complex and chaotic systems? Certainly the supercomputers of the future will be able to handle a great deal more variables than the ones of today - particularly if and when quantum computing is introduced on a large scale.
My fear is that this will lead to an erosion of the notion of uncertainty in the universe and a turn back toward determinism, with more and more variables being introduced and allowing experiments to take smaller variables into account.
In short, exactly what is the predictive potential of computer modeling, both now, and in the future?
We learn a lot from computer models – one of the things we learn is that reality is not a computer.
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