Randomness Through Computation: Some Answers, More Questions

This review volume consists of a set of chapters written by leading scholars, most of them founders of their fields. The volume is intended to explain the phenomenon of Randomness through the use of Computation, and to explore the connections of Randomness to other areas of scientific knowledge, especially its fruitful relationship to Computability and Complexity Theory, and also to areas such as Probability, Statistics, Information Theory, Biology, Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Learning Theory and Artificial Intelligence. The contributors cover these topics without neglecting important philosophical dimensions, sometimes going beyond the purely technical to formulate age old questions relating to matters such as determinism and free will. The scope of Randomness Through Computation is novel. Each contributor shares their personal views and anecdotes on the various reasons and motivations which led them to the study of Randomness. Using a question and answer format, they share their visions from their several distinctive vantage points.

Hector Zenil (B.Sc. Math UNAM, M.Phil Logic Paris 1, PhD Computer Science, Lille 1) is a researcher at the Behavioural and Evolutionary Theory Lab at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Sheffield; head of the Algorithmic Nature Group of LABORES (France); and senior research associate for Wolfram Research.


He is also a member of the Foundational Questions Institute (FQXi); an honorary associate of ASSRU (Economics, University of Trento, Italy); a member of the Turing Centenary Advisory Committee in the UK; a member of LCCOMP and the C3-UNAM, and expatriate member of the national researchers body (SNI) of the council for science and technology of Mexico (Conacyt).


H. Zenil has held various visiting positions in the U.S. as a visiting scholar at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh in 2008; an R&D Fellow at the Wolfram Research office in Cambridge, MA and a regular faculty member of the Wolfram Science Summer School (at the University of Vermont, USA and the CNR in Pisa, Italy).