General-Purpose Optimization Through Information Maximization

This book examines the mismatch between discrete programs, which lie at the center of modern applied mathematics, and the continuous space phenomena they simulate. The author considers whether we can imagine continuous spaces of programs, and asks what the structure of such spaces would be and how they would be constituted. He proposes a functional analysis of program spaces focused through the lens of iterative optimization. The author begins with the observation that optimization methods such