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Put plainly by Wikipedia[1]: Life provides an example of emergence and self-organization. It is interesting for computer scientists, physicists, biologists, bi
by prawks 14y ago
Put plainly by Wikipedia[1]:
Life provides an example of emergence and self-organization. It is interesting for computer scientists, physicists, biologists, biochemists, economists, mathematicians, philosophers, generative scientists and others to observe the way that complex patterns can emerge from the implementation of very simple rules. The game can also serve as a didactic analogy, used to convey the somewhat counter-intuitive notion that "design" and "organization" can spontaneously emerge in the absence of a designer. For example, philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel Dennett has used the analogue of Conway's Life "universe" extensively to illustrate the possible evolution of complex philosophical constructs, such as consciousness and free will, from the relatively simple set of deterministic physical laws governing our own universe.
If you go deep enough, it really is a fascinating thing. Even more-so given the extreme simplicity of its rules.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conways_Game_of_Life#Origins http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conways_Game_of_Life#Origins
- azmenthe 14y agoI have always been fascinated with cellular automata. I think they serve a really good purpose in being a "fun" way to approach complexity and it's consequences and I spent more than a few hours playing with game of life programs especially when I was younger. But I am still curious as to who has the time to engineer with them? Is it just "hobbyists" or do some academics derive useful work out from pursuing them?
- ThomPete 14y agoWolfram thinks he do.
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- TeMPOraL 14y ago> Is it just "hobbyists" or do some academics derive useful work out from pursuing them? The excessive search for "useful work" is one of the bigger problem of academia today. Even the most practical research usually doesn't look useful at the beginning, and pursuing things that seem immediately applicable to real-world problems can be a form of premature optimization. Not to say we shouldn't pursue the "practicality" route at all, but today most research seems to be optimized for short-term money generation and/or fame. Anyway, cellular automata are a separate research field, and I'm pretty sure that some of those game-of-life engineers are academics who are doing this as research because it's fun/interesting. And hail to them, because those hobbyst-scientists create tools that enterpreneurs can forge progress with.
- Someone 14y agoIt's not Conways life, but biologists use cellular automata as models to show that simple rules can create such things as a zebra's stripes, a leopard's spots, the competition between bacterial colonies, development of the human brain, etc. Google "cellular automata in biology" for examples (the first hit I got is http://www.math.pitt.edu/~bard/pubs/jtb_ca.pdf http://www.math.pitt.edu/~bard/pubs/jtb_ca.pdf. Twenty years old, but to my outsider's eye, it appears to be a decent overview)
- TeMPOraL 14y agoI did simulations of spread of fire and smoke inside buildings with cellular automata for my BSc. CA's have lots of interesting applications in many different domains, even not related to science itself.
- jerf 14y agoOne thing that may be worth pointing out is that the hobbyists do not engineer their Life systems by sitting in front of a grid and clicking one square at a time. A large bank of off-the-shelf technologies has been built. Building something large like this life simulator is not trivial, but it's not as hard as it looks, either. You're sort of seeing the machine language view of a program built with a lot of advanced C++. The effort to build is a lot less than a casual perusal of the machine language may indicate. (Though I still respect them for it.)
- badlogin443 14y agoI play with them often. It serves a purpose, and in that sense, it helps you define some part of your reality. Anti-gliders are the fun :D
- joshuahedlund 14y ago> complex patterns can emerge from the implementation of very simple rules... "design" and "organization" can spontaneously emerge in the absence of a designer Self-organization is fascinating stuff; I suppose the economic corollary would be the "invisible hand." But in this example, is there not a "designer" setting the "simple rules" that make the self-organization possible?
- guard-of-terra 14y agoEven from a random starting pattern you will get some complex patterns emerging. And no, those aren't encoded in Life's rules. They are merely allowed by those.