[Noisebridge-discuss] Philosophy and Computer Language Question

[Meredith L. Patterson]

On Sat, Dec 24, 2011 at 06:35:56PM -0800, Caleb Grayson wrote:
> would anyone have a source they can direct me to where i can get an idea of how reality is simulated in computer languages?  Process Philosophy states at there are no substantive objects, but that all ‘things’ are functions that process experience into results that become ‘mortal’ in the Creative Advance of time•space.  this is very similar from my recollection of event driven applications.  
> 
> my particular interest is how simulations handle events in time and space.  how does a simulation taken multiple input from multiple functions or users and align them in time•space.  what would those functions look like? 

You're talking about what we computer scientists call a concurrent system. We have several different formalisms for modeling these; well-known ones, in no particular order, include Petri nets, Lamport's temporal logic of actions, process calculi such as the pi-calculus, and the actor model. There are others as well: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concurrency_(computer_science)#Theory

On the implementation level the actor model is the new hotness these days; http://concurrency.cc (occam-pi on the Arduino) uses the pi-calculus.

Cheers,
--mlp