Why does WolframTones work?
It’s a rather direct consequence of a core phenomenon of Stephen Wolfram’s science: that programs with very simple underlying rules can generate great complexity of behavior. (See Chapter 2 of A New Kind of Science.) The presence of simple rules leads to local regularities, and a certain overall consistency in each composition. The complexity leads to “surprises” that our ears seem to like. One day we’ll probably understand more about how it relates to human auditory perception. (Compare the discussion in A New Kind of Science, for example about chords.) It’s presumably connected to why visual images from A New Kind of Science have become so popular.
