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I have always wondered if intelligence could emerge from a game of life, given a massive board and sufficient random seeds.
by abraae 6y ago
I have always wondered if intelligence could emerge from a game of life, given a massive board and sufficient random seeds.
- thotsBgone 6y agoGiven the fact that we can build a computer in the game of life, this breaks down to a simpler question: can we have intelligence in a computer? If so, it can also occur in the game of life.
- rantwasp 6y agoyes. without any spoilers there are literally tens of books out there that explore this very same idea. (some of them hard scifi)
- fblifeadvice645 6y agoyou could at least give some names :)
- Strilanc 6y agoIt would be difficult. In particular, unlike in our world, it's very difficult to create anything like a stable membrane or barrier in the game of life. And patterns are extremely susceptible to falling apart if perturbed. So you would generally expect a game-of-life-based entity touching anything to die as a result.
- FartyMcFarter 6y agoSince the game of life is Turing complete, it can simulate any computer. If a computer can eventually simulate the world (including humans), so can the game of life. This doesn't mean the patterns would visually look like cells and membranes though...
- hansbo 6y agoIt's hard to imagine an emulated version of a human having a consciousness, however. What is it that separates transistors firing randomy from a CPU executing specific consciousness-generating instructions? I find these things thought-provoking.
- Strilanc 6y agoTuring machines in the game of life have the same problem of being unprotected and extremely sensitive to perturbations. It drastically lowers the chance of generating a working one (even when running for extremely long times on extremely large boards). Contrast with our world, where it seems like just starting with a whole lot of randomly distributed hydrogen could be enough.