1/ Aristotle's classification of forces and the idea of quintessence;
2/ Plato's idea that planets move necessarily in circles, because it's the most beautiful and simplest shape. That one witheld progress in astronomy for 2000 years;
3/ Beautiful idea that the market is a statistical system, and thus can be modeled by tools of mathematical physics. That the assumptions of these models are not met in economy, no one bothered much till just recently.
So you take some guiding rule first, and then force world around to accept it.
Um, cellular automata can by definition not be wrong, because they are only what you define them to be. So your assumptions about them can not be wrong.
I think I get an idea where you are coming from, though, and I lost all interest in discussing with you.
[I know who you are] and I lost all interest in discussing with you
Oh, so sorry.
PS. I got that as consciously and purposely insulting.
What I wanted to say, and probably failed, is that beautiful patterns do not form any interesting science, that is they lead to no knowledge. This is a classical dichotomy between intuitionist/inductive and deductive philosophies of science.
I did not say "I know who you are" - I just got the impression that you are not really interested in the discussion, as you started with strawman argumentation ("Plato held back astronomy for 2000 years").
I think cellular automata provide at least one way to study complex systems, which is a relevant field of study.
1/ Aristotle's classification of forces and the idea of quintessence;
2/ Plato's idea that planets move necessarily in circles, because it's the most beautiful and simplest shape. That one witheld progress in astronomy for 2000 years;
3/ Beautiful idea that the market is a statistical system, and thus can be modeled by tools of mathematical physics. That the assumptions of these models are not met in economy, no one bothered much till just recently.
So you take some guiding rule first, and then force world around to accept it.