I'm pretty sure that anyone whose mind is not blown by this game does not realize the philosophical extent of what this game implies. With just 4 simple rules that govern the game, any number of super complex structures can be created. This game is meant to be sort of an analogy of our universe. With just a few basic rules of physics, our universe can create vast and complex objects.
Also the philosophical thought of free will vs determinism. This computer program could suggest that everything is determined. In the video the stephen hawking says that the program can determine what will happen in the future, thus suggesting determinism. In reality terms, you don't have free will, you are merely controlled by a set of rules, that you obi by, but you will never really be able to chose yourself.
The problem is that most of the 'complex' things shown in these videos are actually human designs. GoL can do amazing things, but these ultra complicated structures are often the result of people taking those 3 rules into account, and designing their own initial configuration to achieve what they want.
@Ted Love another interesting thing to note is, while you might be able to determine the future here, it's impossible to deconstruct it to determine the past, as any instant could've been the initial configuration I forgot what the thought experiment's called, but the premise is basically that the universe may as well have started 3-5 weeks ago, exactly as it is now, and there'd be absolutely no difference @Cronos there's a lot of information in the universe, you can't really bring probability into this, because there's a nigh-infinite number of ways the big bang could've banged lots of people say that we're "lucky" that the Earth is habitable, but that's just bias- it's not like we've ever not lived
What is even more remarkable about the Game of Life is that it is Turing complete. It is able to make any arbitrarily complex computation. That means that a computer can be built in the Game of Life that runs a simulation of the Game of Life. In fact, it has already been done. The computer is called the OTCA metapixel. It is several thousand blocks wide.
That's actually not surprising. Most sufficiently complex machines are TC. Turing machines, cellular automata, register machines, and all manner of devices which are not commonly referred to by any name, are all turing equivalent.
@@ciarantaaffe5259 This comment was made at a time when I was bedazzled by benign mathematical phenomena. In some sense, I'm still in awe of "obvious" results in mathematics even after studying the subject for the past few years. I guess I can't help but appreciate the little things
@@mountaindrew2241 (1 + 1/n)^n for increasing values of 'n' (starting from 0 ig, though you'd see it mostly start with 1) as n approaches infinity the value of (1 + 1/n)^n approaches Euler's constant i.e. e = 2.71828... put limit and you get 'e'
As another gentlemen pointed out, I think many people are either afraid to entertain the point being made here, or they simply haven't grasped it yet. For the sake of argument, someone mentioned that "computers just do what they are programmed to do." Okay, so there are rules programmed in the computer. Are there not constants in the Universe? What defines those constants? You could in theory view the laws of physics as the rules programmed in this game. Essentially a channel that allows entropy to flow in a certain complex and defined direction. At least temporarily, shifting chaos to complexity. It's amazing to see basic rules develop complexity. Complexity only seems like it is something grand because we have evolved to see it that way when in reality, it might be a very normal product of a defined universe.
not just in theory. this is an exact model of the universe, just with fewer parameters. people are afraid to accept the simple fact that the world we live in is no different from a computer simulation. they are afraid to entertain the idea that our lives do not have some higher purpose, some soul in another dimension, tethered to our bodies in this universe. but while the reality is stark, it is also beautiful. if we accept that we are living in a computer simulation, we still don't have any idea *why* this computer simulation exists. we still don't have any clue whether there's a "grand designer" sitting behind the keyboard. this should calm down all the religious folks. i prefer to simply accept that i don't know... but people can write their own spirituality however they want. all one needs to do is look at the world around him, with an open mind, and he will see that everything works the same way as in Conway's life. it helps to start with simple things, like the shape of mountains vs. the shape of dirt and rocks. the branching patterns of rivers, vs. the branching patterns of trees, lungs, blood vessels, crystals, etc. everything around us is reflecting the same patterns because they are also obeying the same laws. in a three-dimensional shape, these patterns will come about because everything in the world is simply a physical representation of mathematical variables. the parameters of our universe are complex, but they are tangible. i encourage everybody to recognize that you can easily model cellular automata which have the *EXACT* same patterns as things observed in the real world. cowrie shells have a repetitive triangular fractal-type pattern which can be modeled with hundreds or thousands of different equations in a simple cellular automata, 2 dimensions of course. same goes for tiger stripes, giraffe spots, etc. all fractals can be modeled in cellular automata. and of course this includes branching patterns, the most commonly observed fractal in nature. the world abounds with simple patterns, generated by simple rules.
Toxically Masculine Maybe we are going soon to create the beginning of something similar to our ideals of gods in the future with self evolved increasingly complex powers and eternal life: inorganic, self improving and replicating intelligent robots! After all we were always fragile finite imperfect self replicating flesh robots ourselves!
It’s easy to interpret the philosophy behind the “Game of Life” as creationistic, but what it really implies is how given a basic set of laws that govern its universe, complex systems can be formed, in the same way that solar systems and ecosystems have evolved, and were not created.
Ah yes. I remember writing Game of Life for my Tandy Color Computer 2 in the mid 1980s. I found it in a computer magazine. [they used to have those things, that had programs you could type in]. It's a simple program. Pretty neat stuff. It is also an oversimplification of life but fascinating nonetheless. I got to play around with a more complicated version of it in 1990 on the VAX/VMS DEC minicomputers in 1990/91 at college, which was intertwined with some basic neural networking weightings to mimic basic neural decision-making. When I saw Wolfram's 1200 page, a new kind of Science, which was marvelous btw, I loved seeing the knitting patterns he had laid out there. I was also surprised because, by 2002/2003 whenever his book showed up at my library, I REALLY THOUGHT, Artificial Intelligence work was dead and gone. Nice to see it come back. While I think that's "not quite it", it's neat stuff and good food for imagination and will help us develop further tools to help humans out with. Is this what life is? Spontaneously emergent properties based upon simple rules? Might be. Might not be. I honestly don't know. But it's a lot of fun to play with.
My Teacher never explained this the way you did. It makes me appreciate the game a lot more. Imagine creating artificial intelligence and then creating such rules for them to coexist or destroy themselves. And generate energy from their computing power or something ...
The take home message from this, that many of you seem to have missed, is that two extremely simple rules can give rise to incredible complexity. The game of life has been shown to be Turing Complete, therefore it is certainly possible to build a CPU that runs programs inside a GoL simulation. Do a Google search and you will find message boards of GoL enthusiasts who write complicated algorithms like prime factorisation, Fourier transforms, etc., inside GoL simulations. A lot of people like to assert that biology is far too complex to have started or evolved on its own, however if something as sophisticated as a CPU can be produced in GoL, which has just 2 simple rules, then there's no reason to believe equally or more complicated things can't form spontaneously in our own universe which has far richer interactions.
+Ozzah In fact, biological cells are like turing machines, a cell tissues are cellular automata, so cells are computing you!! my own interpretation is that eukaryotes are turing complet, thus they produced more complex tissues, while prekarytotes arn't, then the next step was the brain, what i mean, is the change of scale from individuals to an entity that is above the invidual (system), the next step what the mind from brain, this is my own idea and i have not thought it through, that the human brain's rules are turing complet, and thus produced the mind, (like the difference between simple calculators and computers that have a software)
Great idea. Mr. Conway would verify that the merely simple system is able to create the completely complex system. This verification gives us the way to know the beginning of the Universe in the easier theory than we had before. Thanks,
000-first note 001-second note 010-third note 011-fourth note 100-fifth note 101-sixth note 110-seventh note 111-eighth note. a full octave in total binary. do with same with a shit ton more bits and you can put all the senses in binary as well.
perfect example as to the possibilities of life on other parts of the galaxy/universe...you don't need H2O as a mandatory element, not even silica...life finds a way everywhere
There is a connection between the wave length and the colour. Light of that wave length does exist, but colour might as well be the way we perceive light in that spectrum. The colours observed are a function of the visual equipment used because different equipment interprets that wave length in different ways. That's the gist of my argument.
My hypothesis is that space might be like this too. F.e. cells in space could be connected like in hcp (hexagonal close packing) crystal structure. Then every cell in space would be directly connected to 12 others. Smallest unit of distance would be two cells connected (Planck length?). Matter and energy would be but property/state of space. And the space with it's rules would emerge from limitations dictated by some set of "logical absolutes". Computation without computer. Universe which exists just because it makes sense mathematically, deriving from some very basic axioms. Or it could be messier where the space itself could be subject to coming active or inactive, and amount of connections from one cell to others change because of this. Still brewing...
It said that if four or more cells (if you look up the program the living squares are called cells) are around each other they die, but if you put them in a square form they just, stop.
intelligence has already partially been created in Conway's Game of Life; a pattern that infinitely creates cells and counts them has been made, as well as a pattern that can detect when a cell collides with it. Someone even managed to build the game of life INSIDE the game of life.
How cells move depends on algorithm implementation i.e. if check for cells turning dead / live always start from the same side / end then the progress in which cells travel is deterministic.
"Our universe is defined by information. For example, a particle is defined by its speed, or its wavelength, or its mass, ect." You mean that we define our universe by information? The thing exists without us or anyone else noticing or measuring it.
I don't know about that, though I have also heard criticism of Wolfram, both sharp & veiled. While I can't attest to the provenance of the ideas presented, I did find the book very exciting & stimulating.
me: ugh I have 5 more exams left and I don't feel like studying rn... UA-cam recommendations: Hey wanna watch this video you watched 4 yeas ago and got amazed by? me: absolutely
I assume each step is made simultaneously, with each square changing state at the same time. What happens if each square is changed sequentially, one after another. It would require another rule to deal with which square is "processed" next. It might turn out to be a system that doesnt work, but if anyone has a any links I would be very grateful, thanks....
I was about to say that we don't know that our perceptions of colors means that the colors actually exist. It can easily be the way our eyes perceive light in different conditions. If we would have evolved differently, we might have seen colors differently too.
spending an evening with Stephen Hawking's on the Grand Design - The Meaning of Life - "is there an independent reality or not?" ... the origin of consciousness? ... So many entertaining questions! Stimulating stuffs for nerd as I. as I'm creating my own model of reality, As the Universe is contemplating itself. :)
Many are saying because of this, God is Disregarded for being the creator of the universe. Yet fail to realize, who or what made the rules, the space, the matter, the positions, "alive, "death", the rate, etc. Just like the one who made the game of life, God can also make the rules and let his creation run wild, only, he knows exactly the outcome of the first position.
Those interested in cellular automata, & the broader philosophy of complexity & of the mind surrounding it, might well enjoy "A New Kind of Science" by Stephen Wolfram, chief designer of the Mathematica software suite.
1. A result is avoidable if and only if one of its causes is absent. 2. Therefore a result is unavoidable if and only if all of its causes are present. 3. Therefore all the causes require design at least as much as the result, since they make their result unavoidable. People usually cite _Conway's Game of Life_ as a counter-example to (3). But think about it: If I showed you a complex result (eg. an evolved creature) in Conway's GoL, wouldn't you assume I had "worked it out" or instructed a computer to do so? Would you think the 4 rules had applied themselves by accident? This is problematic because we have an infinite regress of causes, each requiring design at least as much as its result. This means there must be a designer. A *_contingent_* designer requires design too, so that doesn't solve the problem. A *_necessary_* designer doesn't require design. So we must assume there is a necessary designer.
Tim Crinion This last part proposition you apply to correct the "infinite regress" is just based on rhetorical wishful thinking: a "necessary" designer cannot be accepted out of convenience only for complying with your rationale. In the real world this fallacy has being long corrected with many different solutions, the one I can remember for instance is the Alex Friedman's theories of self-contained, non-boundary possible Universes...
I'm not saying an infinite regress is impossible. I'm saying that, even if we have infinite regress, then the infinite regress _itself_ requires design. In fact, the whole of existence (by 1, 2 and 3) requires design. Did I misunderstand you? I'm not sure.
You don't need a different epistemological standard than mainstream science uses. The way we see colors is a function of how our light receptors are. If they'd be different, we'd see colors differently because colors is nothing but light being reflected by an object(different objects bounce light differently and we perceive that as light). The way light bounces off objects IS real, but you can't say that what we see as blue actually is blue.
It would be done just like it is with real computers that use only 1's and 0's; you use more than 1 binary digit to represent some data. If you use 2 bits, you can encode for numbers from 0 to 3. Now you can have red, green, blue, and black, for example.
I have created many, many, initial conditions, aka rules, I can configure them symmetrical, non symmetrical, horizontal, and diagonal. I also have rules that are infinite. They never shrink, and they never die, they only evolve. Conway’s rule is too destructive, on average, it dies off faster than I can toast some bread in a toaster. There’s probably 50 different rules, I created.
Actually, the basic rules of life do contain the ideas or "concepts" of movement and reproduction. When a square is dead and comes to life, that is "movement" from state 0 to state 1. It takes with the the power of the live cells around it to influence the life of the cells around it. This is transference of power specifically called for in the basic rules, a transference of identity called "life" as "coming alive". Movement is clearly contained in that event, as well as reproduction. The same with the movement from life to death. But each cell truly lives out its life only in these alterations of 0 and 1. Sometimes a cell dies, and a NEW cell is born in its place, perhaps from the same dynamic, but from different cells now enacting it. Sometimes this does not happen , as in the simple four cell square, which is immortal if undisturbed. The ideas of motion and reproduction which take hold of our perceptions and thinking when we look at larger scale, more complex or perhaps intricate forms, is a projection of those ideas. The substrates themselves do not "move" or "reproduce" in those ways. The formal structure is all that "moves" and "reproduces". The "content of life" is not present in that alone. The same goes for games of life called "material bodies".
I think visually and this is very close to how I explained the emergent phenomena of our consciousness as pertaining to structural geometry of the particles of matter in our universe. I'm super stoked to see this model running. I was sad when the video ended because I wanted to continue to see how much organization was going to continue to emerge? total mental masturbation. this is brain what I call brain porn.
I think I have a direct D.N.A. Link towards the ingenious necessary to continue proclaiming the genius respecting this subject; why are we life on Earth?
Why was the initial conditions for a square to flip defined at 3? Was there a particular reason for choosing that number, or could you run the simulation with any other number and achieve a similar result? wouldn't 5, 6, or 7 achieve similar results?
What if they made this into a modern video game... Like they grid the whole earth and you can put 100 by 100 input a day. And you do this 100 conway grid drop on your part of the map. And this game/simulation calculates these drops forever and see what comlex patterns emerge using humans as a video game test to drive the original inputs for random "waves" Or maybe let each user drop a 10 by 10 of "on and off" into the world map each day and watch what the ripples turn into If you literally gps grid the map of the world and allow users to drop into a conway map that represents the globe you could see what unique patterns come out of each country Would be very cool if each ripple went on forever potentially and you get to add your daily ripple drop to the forever ripple
Our universe is defined by information. For example, a particle is defined by its speed, or its wavelength, or its mass, ect. We often code information with a binary system, which is composed of two numbers : 1 and 0. Replace 1 by a living square and 0 by a dead square, and you could encode a very complicated universe like ours just with such a simple game. It's not a trick : the cells in your brain work just this way, exchanging information. Life is changing, reproduction, death : as this game.
"You have to assume wavelength and colour are already entangled" That's what physics says about colour. Of course, you can reject the epistemology on which physics is based if you want to argue differently.
At most basic level colors are the way we perceive different frequencies of light. However, the actual perception of colors is a bit more complex than that.
Where is the full documentary? i saw it once when i was a kid, but when i found the actual game it went to, i wanted to watch it again. The documentary got me into video games. someone please link me to the full documentary? (not necessarily this one but this one is preferred)
Then you need to add other properties; like a red dot that appears when there are more than 5 green dots and that red dot is a disease and kills one random green dot next to it.
The real game doesn't use colors, but people have made their own iterations for sure. A notable example is a 3D version of the game with a different yet similar set of rules.
Organized self evolved complexity is an attribute that apparently goes by itself alone in our finite, no-boundaries, self-contained accelerated-expanding Universe. In this simple computer program simulation an initial simple set of rules and numerous iterations suffice to produce a similar effect to Evolution Theory, but even without any extrinsic challenge coming out of the system. The system is totally self contained. Must be a common trend in all the matter-energy transactions. There is a recent hypothesis that says Entropy gradient between the Energy from the initial Big Bang (proportional to the Einstein Gravitational Constant) times the inverse of the Gravitational attraction force is what causes the actual gradual unidirectional gradient of time elapsing and concomitantly decreasing gradual changes in the general global Entropy level of the Universe. The resulting spontaneous trend to organized self evolved complexity dissipates more efficiently the energy thus reflecting this proposed global change in Entropy... Quite elegant and parsimonious proposition...
Wilhelm Guggisberg Cont... and concomitantly decreasing gradual changes in the general global Entropy level of the Universe. The resulting spontaneous trend to organized self evolved complexity dissipates more efficiently the energy thus reflecting this proposed global change in Entropy... Quite an elegant and parsimonious Hypothesis to consider!
Anybody smart or educated enough to understand what you are talking about is not on youtube. You could have spoken complete garbage and i wouldn't know, anyway. Nice idea though
Thank you, I know what you mean, it sounds like taken from Deepak Chopra stuff :D , but in this case it is from a legitimate source: www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-physics-theory-of-life/
well, I'm sure I wouldn't in a situation like that :>, but that machine would still not conceive or perceive, given that it just does what it's programmed to do by someone else.. unless it made itself. Then that would mean that it has a mind, embodied in that machine. Maybe that's what we all are: a machine (our body) controlled by someone else (our brain), haha.
This "game" isn't supposed to explain the origin of life, though it certainly does show how order, or appearance of it, can can come from simple laws and disorder. Note that these laws could be how molecules react with each other, create new molecules, last or not. DNA could have been created this way, certainly with more complex rules, and in a much longer time frame. This game also explains how/why certain patterns are prevalent in biology (e.g., skin patterns that appear to be striped in fish, zebra, tiger, and insects alike.)
***** What are these "cubes" made of? How can you account for the fact that the mass of my body hasn't devolved into a repeating pattern of permanently spawning and dying cells? I don't know if you've played a lot with Conway's, but structures tend to be large and sedentary with few moving parts. That's how things tend to end up. I'll grant you, Conway's Game of Life is Turing complete, so you could SIMULATE a universe like ours in a computer built in Conway's Game of Life. But the idea that our universe is the actual game itself? Go back to whatever drugs made you come up with this drivel.
***** No, what I'm telling you is that it's NOT. It CANNOT be an instance of the Game of Life. There are no physics in the game of life. There is no light in the game of life. There is nothing remotely resembling how our universe works in the game of life. It's completely separate as a concept.
***** This makes no sense. You realize that a planck length isn't like the resolution of our universe, right? It's just the minimum length it's possible for a particle/wavelength to be. It's not like a grid of plancks and you can be in one or the other. Our universe doesn't have quantized dimensions like that. It's a continuum.
@gigahertzish Thank you. I can't seem to find much information on it. The most I can find is the back story and rules. I would like to find out the names of the different 'organisms' that can happen. If you could even call them organisms.
This is a theory, not fact. Until it is fact it should be passed along as exactly what it is, a theory. All of those "is" words in your paragraph is implying that it is fact, which it is not as far as science knows.
You can verify that dogs can't see the colour red by throwing a red toy in a field of grass. They can't see it easily because they can't differentiate between red and green. Just like cats can't feel the taste sweet.
The fact that patterns emerge is not surprising. You had a set of rules to start with. And the real question is, how does this explain what other forms of life may be like?
Alex Li As does our universe. The Game of Life is a simple simulation of the interactions of a simplified set of laws. The complexity of our universe has emerged from the interaction of its fundamental physical laws. How does it explain what other forms of life may be like? It isn't supposed to. It is supposed to simulate how complexity can result from first principles.
Not exactly. While there are deterministic rules that govern out universe, there are also bizarre non-deterministic rules that govern it. The right combination of these different kinds of rules lead to unimaginable complexity.
Im sorry but when you tell a computer to do something, all it will do is exactly what you tell it. So, if you tell a computer to simulate life using squares that respond to 3 squares around it or no squares around it, I cant see how that is a simulation of real life. Computers are not an answer as to how or why we are here. They are only a reflection of the programmers thoughts and wants to gain from the program. Nice light show thought!
The game of life shows that by using very simple rules, you can create incredibly complex objects. This is meant to be an analogy of our own universe, with just a few simple rules(physics) our universe can create incredibly complex objects, like a living cell. In turn, these cells follow some basic rules and can combine to form huge, complex life forms.
Because when the laws of the universe were initially set they were simple and now we have morons like you commenting on videos that are way over their heads. That's the simulation.
james cooper You really don't understand the significance of this, do you? The point is, it's a simulation that shows how complexity can be achieved using simple mathematical laws. My favorite example of the same in nature, are ants. They operate on a very simular logic as this game does. Pheromones used as a signaling compound in on it self makes ants make complex structures and systems even we humans are not capable of reproducing without using simulation software ourself. Ants make creations much more complex than anything we have ever made, only using instincts to do it. It's pretty awesome.
two words. Emergent behaviour. The universe also follows static rules. It also does exactly what it's told. And we still get emergent properties like intelligence/conciousness. That's what complexity does. It makes it seem like you're not following rules anymore.
RIP John Conway
just looked him up :(
respect...
I'm pretty sure that anyone whose mind is not blown by this game does not realize the philosophical extent of what this game implies. With just 4 simple rules that govern the game, any number of super complex structures can be created. This game is meant to be sort of an analogy of our universe. With just a few basic rules of physics, our universe can create vast and complex objects.
Also the philosophical thought of free will vs determinism. This computer program could suggest that everything is determined. In the video the stephen hawking says that the program can determine what will happen in the future, thus suggesting determinism. In reality terms, you don't have free will, you are merely controlled by a set of rules, that you obi by, but you will never really be able to chose yourself.
The problem is that most of the 'complex' things shown in these videos are actually human designs. GoL can do amazing things, but these ultra complicated structures are often the result of people taking those 3 rules into account, and designing their own initial configuration to achieve what they want.
@Ted Love
another interesting thing to note is, while you might be able to determine the future here, it's impossible to deconstruct it to determine the past, as any instant could've been the initial configuration
I forgot what the thought experiment's called, but the premise is basically that the universe may as well have started 3-5 weeks ago, exactly as it is now, and there'd be absolutely no difference
@Cronos
there's a lot of information in the universe, you can't really bring probability into this, because there's a nigh-infinite number of ways the big bang could've banged
lots of people say that we're "lucky" that the Earth is habitable, but that's just bias- it's not like we've ever not lived
this is mind boggling.
I am truly speechless.
Just found out about this game
Although there is no such thing as free will, quantum randomness means that not everything is predetermined either.
What is even more remarkable about the Game of Life is that it is Turing complete. It is able to make any arbitrarily complex computation. That means that a computer can be built in the Game of Life that runs a simulation of the Game of Life. In fact, it has already been done. The computer is called the OTCA metapixel. It is several thousand blocks wide.
That's actually not surprising. Most sufficiently complex machines are TC. Turing machines, cellular automata, register machines, and all manner of devices which are not commonly referred to by any name, are all turing equivalent.
@@ciarantaaffe5259 This comment was made at a time when I was bedazzled by benign mathematical phenomena. In some sense, I'm still in awe of "obvious" results in mathematics even after studying the subject for the past few years. I guess I can't help but appreciate the little things
@@probability_density damn on UA-cam for 4 years Lmaoo
@@probability_density also what does your channel description mean
@@mountaindrew2241
(1 + 1/n)^n
for increasing values of 'n' (starting from 0 ig, though you'd see it mostly start with 1)
as n approaches infinity the value of
(1 + 1/n)^n
approaches Euler's constant i.e.
e = 2.71828...
put limit and you get 'e'
As another gentlemen pointed out, I think many people are either afraid to entertain the point being made here, or they simply haven't grasped it yet. For the sake of argument, someone mentioned that "computers just do what they are programmed to do." Okay, so there are rules programmed in the computer. Are there not constants in the Universe? What defines those constants? You could in theory view the laws of physics as the rules programmed in this game. Essentially a channel that allows entropy to flow in a certain complex and defined direction. At least temporarily, shifting chaos to complexity. It's amazing to see basic rules develop complexity. Complexity only seems like it is something grand because we have evolved to see it that way when in reality, it might be a very normal product of a defined universe.
not just in theory. this is an exact model of the universe, just with fewer parameters. people are afraid to accept the simple fact that the world we live in is no different from a computer simulation. they are afraid to entertain the idea that our lives do not have some higher purpose, some soul in another dimension, tethered to our bodies in this universe. but while the reality is stark, it is also beautiful. if we accept that we are living in a computer simulation, we still don't have any idea *why* this computer simulation exists. we still don't have any clue whether there's a "grand designer" sitting behind the keyboard. this should calm down all the religious folks. i prefer to simply accept that i don't know... but people can write their own spirituality however they want. all one needs to do is look at the world around him, with an open mind, and he will see that everything works the same way as in Conway's life. it helps to start with simple things, like the shape of mountains vs. the shape of dirt and rocks. the branching patterns of rivers, vs. the branching patterns of trees, lungs, blood vessels, crystals, etc. everything around us is reflecting the same patterns because they are also obeying the same laws. in a three-dimensional shape, these patterns will come about because everything in the world is simply a physical representation of mathematical variables. the parameters of our universe are complex, but they are tangible. i encourage everybody to recognize that you can easily model cellular automata which have the *EXACT* same patterns as things observed in the real world. cowrie shells have a repetitive triangular fractal-type pattern which can be modeled with hundreds or thousands of different equations in a simple cellular automata, 2 dimensions of course. same goes for tiger stripes, giraffe spots, etc. all fractals can be modeled in cellular automata. and of course this includes branching patterns, the most commonly observed fractal in nature. the world abounds with simple patterns, generated by simple rules.
Very cool points.
Toxically Masculine Maybe we are going soon to create the beginning of something similar to our ideals of gods in the future with self evolved increasingly complex powers and eternal life: inorganic, self improving and replicating intelligent robots! After all we were always fragile finite imperfect self replicating flesh robots ourselves!
Rest In Peace John Conway , thank you for your contributions
It’s easy to interpret the philosophy behind the “Game of Life” as creationistic, but what it really implies is how given a basic set of laws that govern its universe, complex systems can be formed, in the same way that solar systems and ecosystems have evolved, and were not created.
Wouldn't it still be creationistic with Conway playing God?
Ah yes. I remember writing Game of Life for my Tandy Color Computer 2 in the mid 1980s. I found it in a computer magazine. [they used to have those things, that had programs you could type in].
It's a simple program. Pretty neat stuff. It is also an oversimplification of life but fascinating nonetheless.
I got to play around with a more complicated version of it in 1990 on the VAX/VMS DEC minicomputers in 1990/91 at college, which was intertwined with some basic neural networking weightings to mimic basic neural decision-making.
When I saw Wolfram's 1200 page, a new kind of Science, which was marvelous btw, I loved seeing the knitting patterns he had laid out there. I was also surprised because, by 2002/2003 whenever his book showed up at my library, I REALLY THOUGHT, Artificial Intelligence work was dead and gone. Nice to see it come back.
While I think that's "not quite it", it's neat stuff and good food for imagination and will help us develop further tools to help humans out with.
Is this what life is? Spontaneously emergent properties based upon simple rules? Might be. Might not be. I honestly don't know.
But it's a lot of fun to play with.
So the game wrote itself of you wrote it? Who set the rules?
let the squares
be
LIT
FAAAM
great to see this getting the attention it deserves. well done r/futurology
You know why I'm here just because this Game of life gave me the weirdest existential crisis ever. And now I'm fascinated to know more about it
The only thing we know is that we don't.
how do you know that?
@@raindancetekk We don't
@@raindancetekk and now it's a paradox
That is a paradox, i.e. it cannot be true.
How Socratic of you!
Conways game of life now has an algebraic equation, thus we now have a turing complete 1st order recurrence relation.
This gives me chills! So incredibly fascinating on so many levels! I love computer science!!!
My Teacher never explained this the way you did. It makes me appreciate the game a lot more. Imagine creating artificial intelligence and then creating such rules for them to coexist or destroy themselves. And generate energy from their computing power or something ...
The take home message from this, that many of you seem to have missed, is that two extremely simple rules can give rise to incredible complexity.
The game of life has been shown to be Turing Complete, therefore it is certainly possible to build a CPU that runs programs inside a GoL simulation. Do a Google search and you will find message boards of GoL enthusiasts who write complicated algorithms like prime factorisation, Fourier transforms, etc., inside GoL simulations.
A lot of people like to assert that biology is far too complex to have started or evolved on its own, however if something as sophisticated as a CPU can be produced in GoL, which has just 2 simple rules, then there's no reason to believe equally or more complicated things can't form spontaneously in our own universe which has far richer interactions.
+Ozzah
In fact, biological cells are like turing machines, a cell tissues are cellular automata, so cells are computing you!!
my own interpretation is that eukaryotes are turing complet, thus they produced more complex tissues, while prekarytotes arn't, then the next step was the brain, what i mean, is the change of scale from individuals to an entity that is above the invidual (system), the next step what the mind from brain, this is my own idea and i have not thought it through, that the human brain's rules are turing complet, and thus produced the mind, (like the difference between simple calculators and computers that have a software)
+zazugee No.
this is so deep adele could roll in it! xD
Yes it proves that soemthing created us thorugh creating oue simulation and aet the rules
I loved to play around with this with the Apple Macintosh as a kid.
Great idea. Mr. Conway would verify that the merely simple system is able to create the completely complex system. This verification gives us the way to know the beginning of the Universe in the easier theory than we had before. Thanks,
WOW, nothing but WOW!
There are several free versions of the program you can download for free online.
000-first note
001-second note
010-third note
011-fourth note
100-fifth note
101-sixth note
110-seventh note
111-eighth note.
a full octave in total binary.
do with same with a shit ton more bits and you can put all the senses in binary as well.
perfect example as to the possibilities of life on other parts of the galaxy/universe...you don't need H2O as a mandatory element, not even silica...life finds a way everywhere
Now, that is just too cool!
There is a connection between the wave length and the colour. Light of that wave length does exist, but colour might as well be the way we perceive light in that spectrum. The colours observed are a function of the visual equipment used because different equipment interprets that wave length in different ways. That's the gist of my argument.
My hypothesis is that space might be like this too. F.e. cells in space could be connected like in hcp (hexagonal close packing) crystal structure. Then every cell in space would be directly connected to 12 others. Smallest unit of distance would be two cells connected (Planck length?). Matter and energy would be but property/state of space. And the space with it's rules would emerge from limitations dictated by some set of "logical absolutes". Computation without computer. Universe which exists just because it makes sense mathematically, deriving from some very basic axioms.
Or it could be messier where the space itself could be subject to coming active or inactive, and amount of connections from one cell to others change because of this.
Still brewing...
another factor that is worth pointing is the dramatic effect that 1 more square can produce.
simply amazing
It said that if four or more cells (if you look up the program the living squares are called cells) are around each other they die, but if you put them in a square form they just, stop.
intelligence has already partially been created in Conway's Game of Life; a pattern that infinitely creates cells and counts them has been made, as well as a pattern that can detect when a cell collides with it. Someone even managed to build the game of life INSIDE the game of life.
Who created the simulation? Did it create itself?
How cells move depends on algorithm implementation i.e. if check for cells turning dead / live always start from the same side / end then the progress in which cells travel is deterministic.
I miss Conway.
"Our universe is defined by information. For example, a particle is defined by its speed, or its wavelength, or its mass, ect."
You mean that we define our universe by information?
The thing exists without us or anyone else noticing or measuring it.
I don't know about that, though I have also heard criticism of Wolfram, both sharp & veiled.
While I can't attest to the provenance of the ideas presented, I did find the book very exciting & stimulating.
this is art
me: ugh I have 5 more exams left and I don't feel like studying rn...
UA-cam recommendations: Hey wanna watch this video you watched 4 yeas ago and got amazed by?
me: absolutely
I found a shape that just stays still
It is worth of trying to program this. I will try!
I assume each step is made simultaneously, with each square changing state at the same time.
What happens if each square is changed sequentially, one after another. It would require another rule to deal with which square is "processed" next.
It might turn out to be a system that doesnt work, but if anyone has a any links I would be very grateful, thanks....
Annnd in my second semester of my CS major; I gotta work on this in C#
look at that clean code documentation, at that decade
I was about to say that we don't know that our perceptions of colors means that the colors actually exist. It can easily be the way our eyes perceive light in different conditions. If we would have evolved differently, we might have seen colors differently too.
spending an evening with Stephen Hawking's on the Grand Design - The Meaning of Life - "is there an independent reality or not?" ... the origin of consciousness? ... So many entertaining questions! Stimulating stuffs for nerd as I. as I'm creating my own model of reality, As the Universe is contemplating itself. :)
1:52 Conway’s Game of Life is LIF AF 👌💯🅱️🗿😩
Many are saying because of this, God is Disregarded for being the creator of the universe. Yet fail to realize, who or what made the rules, the space, the matter, the positions, "alive, "death", the rate, etc. Just like the one who made the game of life, God can also make the rules and let his creation run wild, only, he knows exactly the outcome of the first position.
Well yeah you say that but how do you know it for sure
Those interested in cellular automata, & the broader philosophy of complexity & of the mind surrounding it, might well enjoy "A New Kind of Science" by Stephen Wolfram, chief designer of the Mathematica software suite.
2:25 contains an error on the left half of the screen
Probably because they got the rules wrong. They implied that a cell with one neighbor will live, which is false.
Someone should remake this but have it be about our universe :P
1. A result is avoidable if and only if one of its causes is absent.
2. Therefore a result is unavoidable if and only if all of its causes are present.
3. Therefore all the causes require design at least as much as the result, since they make their result unavoidable.
People usually cite _Conway's Game of Life_ as a counter-example to (3). But think about it: If I showed you a complex result (eg. an evolved creature) in Conway's GoL, wouldn't you assume I had "worked it out" or instructed a computer to do so? Would you think the 4 rules had applied themselves by accident?
This is problematic because we have an infinite regress of causes, each requiring design at least as much as its result. This means there must be a designer. A *_contingent_* designer requires design too, so that doesn't solve the problem. A *_necessary_* designer doesn't require design. So we must assume there is a necessary designer.
Tim Crinion This last part proposition you apply to correct the "infinite regress" is just based on rhetorical wishful thinking: a "necessary" designer cannot be accepted out of convenience only for complying with your rationale. In the real world this fallacy has being long corrected with many different solutions, the one I can remember for instance is the Alex Friedman's theories of self-contained, non-boundary possible Universes...
I'm not saying an infinite regress is impossible. I'm saying that, even if we have infinite regress, then the infinite regress _itself_ requires design. In fact, the whole of existence (by 1, 2 and 3) requires design.
Did I misunderstand you? I'm not sure.
It´s simplicity that works best.
...Simplicity, girls!
You don't need a different epistemological standard than mainstream science uses. The way we see colors is a function of how our light receptors are. If they'd be different, we'd see colors differently because colors is nothing but light being reflected by an object(different objects bounce light differently and we perceive that as light). The way light bounces off objects IS real, but you can't say that what we see as blue actually is blue.
It is proven to be turning complete, so it can so
simulate every molecule in the brain, which translates to intelligence as we know it.
Turing*
It would be done just like it is with real computers that use only 1's and 0's; you use more than 1 binary digit to represent some data. If you use 2 bits, you can encode for numbers from 0 to 3. Now you can have red, green, blue, and black, for example.
I have created many, many, initial conditions, aka rules, I can configure them symmetrical, non symmetrical, horizontal, and diagonal. I also have rules that are infinite. They never shrink, and they never die, they only evolve. Conway’s rule is too destructive, on average, it dies off faster than I can toast some bread in a toaster. There’s probably 50 different rules, I created.
People in these comments _really_ need to learn the difference between intelligence and sentience. That GoL can produce intelligence is indisputable.
Define sentience
Actually, the basic rules of life do contain the ideas or "concepts" of movement and reproduction. When a square is dead and comes to life, that is "movement" from state 0 to state 1. It takes with the the power of the live cells around it to influence the life of the cells around it. This is transference of power specifically called for in the basic rules, a transference of identity called "life" as "coming alive". Movement is clearly contained in that event, as well as reproduction. The same with the movement from life to death. But each cell truly lives out its life only in these alterations of 0 and 1. Sometimes a cell dies, and a NEW cell is born in its place, perhaps from the same dynamic, but from different cells now enacting it. Sometimes this does not happen , as in the simple four cell square, which is immortal if undisturbed. The ideas of motion and reproduction which take hold of our perceptions and thinking when we look at larger scale, more complex or perhaps intricate forms, is a projection of those ideas. The substrates themselves do not "move" or "reproduce" in those ways. The formal structure is all that "moves" and "reproduces". The "content of life" is not present in that alone.
The same goes for games of life called "material bodies".
I think he was referring to the reproduction and nature of the species, not the cells.
Wow so this game like our Universe could never exist without a creator who set the rules and created the simulation
everyone that plays this game is a god
I want to see the longest running game.
I think visually and this is very close to how I explained the emergent phenomena of our consciousness as pertaining to structural geometry of the particles of matter in our universe.
I'm super stoked to see this model running.
I was sad when the video ended because I wanted to continue to see how much organization was going to continue to emerge?
total mental masturbation.
this is brain what I call brain porn.
it's probably just above your head a little bit. This program represents more than you apparently understand.
it's called Fred, and long running games are called methuselahs. I can't find it online but it might be on wikipedia.
I think I have a direct D.N.A. Link towards the ingenious necessary to continue proclaiming the genius respecting this subject; why are we life on Earth?
Why was the initial conditions for a square to flip defined at 3? Was there a particular reason for choosing that number, or could you run the simulation with any other number and achieve a similar result?
wouldn't 5, 6, or 7 achieve similar results?
What if they made this into a modern video game... Like they grid the whole earth and you can put 100 by 100 input a day. And you do this 100 conway grid drop on your part of the map. And this game/simulation calculates these drops forever and see what comlex patterns emerge using humans as a video game test to drive the original inputs for random "waves" Or maybe let each user drop a 10 by 10 of "on and off" into the world map each day and watch what the ripples turn into
If you literally gps grid the map of the world and allow users to drop into a conway map that represents the globe you could see what unique patterns come out of each country
Would be very cool if each ripple went on forever potentially and you get to add your daily ripple drop to the forever ripple
I saw a cat in Conway's Game of life
So you can kinda make animals and organism ranging greatly in simplicity. I wanna see the most advanced things people have made in this thing.
How simple is the mind who sets the rules how simple was the mind to create the simulation? Did the simulation create itself?
WOW!-- I wonder if the algo is similar to the one they used to be the Grandmaster of GO?? Just replace dead or alive with black and white pieces
Our universe is defined by information. For example, a particle is defined by its speed, or its wavelength, or its mass, ect. We often code information with a binary system, which is composed of two numbers : 1 and 0. Replace 1 by a living square and 0 by a dead square, and you could encode a very complicated universe like ours just with such a simple game. It's not a trick : the cells in your brain work just this way, exchanging information. Life is changing, reproduction, death : as this game.
"You have to assume wavelength and colour are already entangled"
That's what physics says about colour. Of course, you can reject the epistemology on which physics is based if you want to argue differently.
At most basic level colors are the way we perceive different frequencies of light. However, the actual perception of colors is a bit more complex than that.
@xxxDave24xxx I know that. I mean I would like to see one that has been running for months or years.
So hypothetically, if we were to isolate the pattern that made us possible, we could figure out how we happened and how to replicate it?
infinite.
watch at 2x
1:50 it becomes L I T
I think the real deal is that these things move unpredictably and that's what reflects life.
If you want to continue this, write me a PM. It's easier to reply there due to character limits.
Where is the full documentary? i saw it once when i was a kid, but when i found the actual game it went to, i wanted to watch it again.
The documentary got me into video games.
someone please link me to the full documentary?
(not necessarily this one but this one is preferred)
Then you need to add other properties; like a red dot that appears when there are more than 5 green dots and that red dot is a disease and kills one random green dot next to it.
The real game doesn't use colors, but people have made their own iterations for sure. A notable example is a 3D version of the game with a different yet similar set of rules.
of course, that should be a given.
Organized self evolved complexity is an attribute that apparently goes by itself alone in our finite, no-boundaries, self-contained accelerated-expanding Universe. In this simple computer program simulation an initial simple set of rules and numerous iterations suffice to produce a similar effect to Evolution Theory, but even without any extrinsic challenge coming out of the system. The system is totally self contained. Must be a common trend in all the matter-energy transactions. There is a recent hypothesis that says Entropy gradient between the Energy from the initial Big Bang (proportional to the Einstein Gravitational Constant) times the inverse of the Gravitational attraction force is what causes the actual gradual unidirectional gradient of time elapsing and concomitantly decreasing gradual changes in the general global Entropy level of the Universe. The resulting spontaneous trend to organized self evolved complexity dissipates more efficiently the energy thus reflecting this proposed global change in Entropy... Quite elegant and parsimonious proposition...
Wilhelm Guggisberg Cont... and concomitantly decreasing gradual changes in the general global Entropy level of the Universe. The resulting spontaneous trend to organized self evolved complexity dissipates more efficiently the energy thus reflecting this proposed global change in Entropy... Quite an elegant and parsimonious Hypothesis to consider!
Anybody smart or educated enough to understand what you are talking about is not on youtube. You could have spoken complete garbage and i wouldn't know, anyway. Nice idea though
Thank you, I know what you mean, it sounds like taken from Deepak Chopra stuff :D , but in this case it is from a legitimate source: www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-new-physics-theory-of-life/
Even the simulation that some feel disproves the concept of a God has an intelligent designer.
trump and religion - the great intellectual disqualifiers of the 21st century
well, I'm sure I wouldn't in a situation like that :>, but that machine would still not conceive or perceive, given that it just does what it's programmed to do by someone else.. unless it made itself. Then that would mean that it has a mind, embodied in that machine. Maybe that's what we all are: a machine (our body) controlled by someone else (our brain), haha.
This "game" isn't supposed to explain the origin of life, though it certainly does show how order, or appearance of it, can can come from simple laws and disorder. Note that these laws could be how molecules react with each other, create new molecules, last or not. DNA could have been created this way, certainly with more complex rules, and in a much longer time frame. This game also explains how/why certain patterns are prevalent in biology (e.g., skin patterns that appear to be striped in fish, zebra, tiger, and insects alike.)
*****
No it doesn't. It just leaves behind a bunch of random squares and things.
*****
What are these "cubes" made of? How can you account for the fact that the mass of my body hasn't devolved into a repeating pattern of permanently spawning and dying cells? I don't know if you've played a lot with Conway's, but structures tend to be large and sedentary with few moving parts. That's how things tend to end up.
I'll grant you, Conway's Game of Life is Turing complete, so you could SIMULATE a universe like ours in a computer built in Conway's Game of Life. But the idea that our universe is the actual game itself? Go back to whatever drugs made you come up with this drivel.
*****
No, what I'm telling you is that it's NOT. It CANNOT be an instance of the Game of Life. There are no physics in the game of life. There is no light in the game of life. There is nothing remotely resembling how our universe works in the game of life. It's completely separate as a concept.
*****
This makes no sense. You realize that a planck length isn't like the resolution of our universe, right? It's just the minimum length it's possible for a particle/wavelength to be. It's not like a grid of plancks and you can be in one or the other. Our universe doesn't have quantized dimensions like that. It's a continuum.
*****
says who?
But someone must start the game by switching on the first square. The game and all of us have so conveniently ignored that "SOMEONE"...
@gigahertzish Thank you. I can't seem to find much information on it. The most I can find is the back story and rules. I would like to find out the names of the different 'organisms' that can happen. If you could even call them organisms.
www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Main_Page
This is a theory, not fact. Until it is fact it should be passed along as exactly what it is, a theory. All of those "is" words in your paragraph is implying that it is fact, which it is not as far as science knows.
Where can I find the sounds effect used in this video?
Anyone knows where i can see the full episode of this?
You can verify that dogs can't see the colour red by throwing a red toy in a field of grass. They can't see it easily because they can't differentiate between red and green. Just like cats can't feel the taste sweet.
so....how did computers know what color the top left pixel should be lit up as during 1:00?
The fact that patterns emerge is not surprising. You had a set of rules to start with. And the real question is, how does this explain what other forms of life may be like?
Alex Li As does our universe. The Game of Life is a simple simulation of the interactions of a simplified set of laws. The complexity of our universe has emerged from the interaction of its fundamental physical laws. How does it explain what other forms of life may be like? It isn't supposed to. It is supposed to simulate how complexity can result from first principles.
Except for the profound philosophical meaning of the game, it has no real value in itself in my opinion
Anybody got a joint? Maybe this will make sense then.
Not exactly. While there are deterministic rules that govern out universe, there are also bizarre non-deterministic rules that govern it. The right combination of these different kinds of rules lead to unimaginable complexity.
note this man had to create and design these rules in order for them to create these images... that is intelligent design.
because we are creators. We are infinite intelligence, a part of god. Divine intelligence is in our nature.
dfsku g sadfsadf Are you high?
Who's to say the rules have't always been, just like any asserted designer? Cut out the middle man.
Shrek Ogreton its possible, very unlikely.
dfsku g sadfsadf youre right... we already know everything there is to know... we just have to find it in our minds and that is how we learn.
what is the soundtrack
And there we are, the interesting thing is not about the descriptively of world its more about the fiction of something which´s manifastation we are.
I'm playing the game of life in another browser, it's stopped living and dying. What does that mean in the bigger picture?
That you ran it to completion. That is what happens in any actual life universe, on my channel I posted a video about that.
Oh Allah the all mighty, you created everything.
Im sorry but when you tell a computer to do something, all it will do is exactly what you tell it. So, if you tell a computer to simulate life using squares that respond to 3 squares around it or no squares around it, I cant see how that is a simulation of real life. Computers are not an answer as to how or why we are here. They are only a reflection of the programmers thoughts and wants to gain from the program. Nice light show thought!
The game of life shows that by using very simple rules, you can create incredibly complex objects. This is meant to be an analogy of our own universe, with just a few simple rules(physics) our universe can create incredibly complex objects, like a living cell. In turn, these cells follow some basic rules and can combine to form huge, complex life forms.
Because when the laws of the universe were initially set they were simple and now we have morons like you commenting on videos that are way over their heads. That's the simulation.
james cooper You really don't understand the significance of this, do you?
The point is, it's a simulation that shows how complexity can be achieved using simple mathematical laws.
My favorite example of the same in nature, are ants. They operate on a very simular logic as this game does. Pheromones used as a signaling compound in on it self makes ants make complex structures and systems even we humans are not capable of reproducing without using simulation software ourself. Ants make creations much more complex than anything we have ever made, only using instincts to do it. It's pretty awesome.
two words. Emergent behaviour.
The universe also follows static rules. It also does exactly what it's told. And we still get emergent properties like intelligence/conciousness. That's what complexity does. It makes it seem like you're not following rules anymore.
Occam's Razor.
I would to see what would happen when you add a red light to the equation.