Murray:

Actually aside from my little intro line the rest was pasted.

I think Wolfram's work is related to the work that came out of the Santa Fe Institute in its earliest years on the topic of automata, complex systems and phase states. As I recall, one of the arguments was that systems below a certain point gravitate toward frozen states. Systems where the complexity has gone to far enter the chaotic phase where dissipation and chaos ensue. But the phase change in between these two is the endlessly adapting dynamic set of interactions described by or as life. The only serious problem I have with this notion is that it tries to imply that life itself can be explained as a chemical phenomena in that viable phase state. Period. A tad too mechanistic for my preference even when you throw in unpredictability and adaptation. But that's just me. And a few million othe rpeople.

A