6 ms·
You can’t build a computer with pebbles though? OP is using basic Conway laws to build on logic gates.
by soared 6y ago
You can’t build a computer with pebbles though? OP is using basic Conway laws to build on logic gates.
- zamadatix 6y agoWhat's to stop you from making logic gates out of patterns of pebbles on a beach exactly?
- testermelon 6y agoBecause the pebbles stay there when nothing knock it off. And when something knock it off we can't reliably know where it will go?
- zamadatix 6y agoThere is nothing to knock of a starting condition for the GOL until you put energy into it. There is no reason, for instance, you couldn't have a little robot moving the pebbles according to GOL rules. If you say the robot is the thing doing the computation the such is the case of the computer running this GOL simulation. If you say it's not pebbles then imagine a mechanical computer built out of them. Provide some kinetic energy and rocks begin to compute just as the silicon in your computer begins to compute when you put electrical energy into it.
- scollet 6y agohttps://xkcd.com/505/ https://xkcd.com/505/ For any passerbys
- xaedes 6y agoWithout anyone performing the necessary pattern transformations to make it "work" this will be very static and boring... With computer in GOL you have GOL which will do the pattern transformations.
- zamadatix 6y agoNothing about the rules of GOL performs the necessary pattern transformations. You could say the pebbles follow the rules of GOL and put some energy into performing those transformations. This is what a computer does with GOL.
- usefulcat 6y agoGiven enough pebbles and a large enough beach, you could make a drawing--and so a design--of just about anything. But this is arguably both a design and a concrete implementation of a kind of machine.
- zamadatix 6y agoYour phone is just a drawing/design until you put energy into it as well. Then things start to "compute" due to the pattern of interactions that energy creates. There is no law of the universe that says this energy must be electrical.