2 ms·

How much of advanced GoL is intuition and genius you were born with and how much is math/logic anyone can learn with enough time?

biggiemac42 4y ago
Definitely worth trying to learn! As with most topics, it starts out seeming hard to grasp, and then you start naming things and recognizing them. What looks like jargon to an outsider is just a compressed way of communicating. The people in the community are smart and tend to compress their ideas really far which makes the jargon even more extreme. Advanced gol is just getting past that first hurdle of understanding the densely compressed info behind the jargon. And it doesn't ever need to be done for all of the concepts. You can be versed in just one. I started out in a super specialized corner in self constructing spaceships. That said I'm a bit of a whiz in other areas so I can't be used as evidence that it works for everyone..
- dvgrn 4y ago
  I think the biggest prerequisite for getting good at "advanced GoL" is just an unreasonable amount of patience. Probably I'm a good case in point. I'm definitely not a particularly clever mathematician, but it seems like it's possible to understand any new Life technology just by tinkering with the pieces for long enough. If anyone wants to follow along with that kind of learning process, just start working through the Life textbook that kryptiskt mentioned. (Full disclosure, I'm one of the authors.)
- isoprophlex 4y ago
  I just want to say that I love everything the GoL community has built and discovered over the years. Big crazy things like this always fill my heart with awe and wonder. Even though in my life, I can't make the time for doing something on the grandiose scale required, I can live vicariously through reading about your sheer dedication and intellectual effort expended.
- kimburgess 4y ago
  To be fair, that's the definition of jargon. Using domain specific language is something that's universal - it's a compression technique you see any domain where there's a need to communicate dense information. Abstraction affords precision, not ambiguity.
kryptiskt 4y ago
I can recommend the recent book "Conway's Game of Life: Mathematics and Construction" (downloadable free at https://conwaylife.com/book/ https://conwaylife.com/book/), it starts gently and builds up to these kind of constructions (minus what has been discovered in the last year or so).

biggiemac42 4y ago

Definitely worth trying to learn! As with most topics, it starts out seeming hard to grasp, and then you start naming things and recognizing them. What looks like jargon to an outsider is just a compressed way of communicating. The people in the community are smart and tend to compress their ideas really far which makes the jargon even more extreme. Advanced gol is just getting past that first hurdle of understanding the densely compressed info behind the jargon. And it doesn't ever need to be done for all of the concepts. You can be versed in just one. I started out in a super specialized corner in self constructing spaceships. That said I'm a bit of a whiz in other areas so I can't be used as evidence that it works for everyone..

dvgrn 4y ago
I think the biggest prerequisite for getting good at "advanced GoL" is just an unreasonable amount of patience. Probably I'm a good case in point. I'm definitely not a particularly clever mathematician, but it seems like it's possible to understand any new Life technology just by tinkering with the pieces for long enough. If anyone wants to follow along with that kind of learning process, just start working through the Life textbook that kryptiskt mentioned. (Full disclosure, I'm one of the authors.)
isoprophlex 4y ago
I just want to say that I love everything the GoL community has built and discovered over the years. Big crazy things like this always fill my heart with awe and wonder. Even though in my life, I can't make the time for doing something on the grandiose scale required, I can live vicariously through reading about your sheer dedication and intellectual effort expended.
kimburgess 4y ago
To be fair, that's the definition of jargon. Using domain specific language is something that's universal - it's a compression technique you see any domain where there's a need to communicate dense information. Abstraction affords precision, not ambiguity.

kryptiskt 4y ago

I can recommend the recent book "Conway's Game of Life: Mathematics and Construction" (downloadable free at https://conwaylife.com/book/ https://conwaylife.com/book/), it starts gently and builds up to these kind of constructions (minus what has been discovered in the last year or so).