This talk of "general principles" is rubbish from a physical scientist's perspective; were what you were saying a general principle there would be no such thing as stochastic resonance, nor would Monte Carlo integration be so useful a technique. And if there is some "derandomized" alternative to simulated annealing that is superior in finding minima (or maxima) in ugly solution spaces, it hasn't been found. "So what?" you might ask, but consider that tens or hundreds of thousands of engineers, scientists, and mathematicians have thought about this problem before you 'blogged it.
Yours is an interesting post, certainly, but perhaps you should substitute modesty for flowery finishes and hasty elevation of a minor finding to "general principle" status.
This talk of "general principles" is rubbish from a physical scientist's perspective; were what you were saying a general principle there would be no such thing as stochastic resonance, nor would Monte Carlo integration be so useful a technique. And if there is some "derandomized" alternative to simulated annealing that is superior in finding minima (or maxima) in ugly solution spaces, it hasn't been found. "So what?" you might ask, but consider that tens or hundreds of thousands of engineers, scientists, and mathematicians have thought about this problem before you 'blogged it.
Yours is an interesting post, certainly, but perhaps you should substitute modesty for flowery finishes and hasty elevation of a minor finding to "general principle" status.