3 ms·
Many of these are quite beautiful. The NKS-style question to ask here is: what computations are these doing? Totally unique-unto-themselves computations? Poten
by taliesinb 13y ago
Many of these are quite beautiful.
The NKS-style question to ask here is: what computations are these doing? Totally unique-unto-themselves computations? Potentially useful computations? Computations analogous to familiar human ones? How would we know? Can we know? Do we run into the limits of undecidability?
The cyclic boundary conditions somewhat 'spoil' things, though. Maybe a particular rule was "destined to multiply input by 5" or "calculate log-2 of input" or something (given suitable encoding of input on the tape), but the computation is foiled as soon as the machine wraps around and starts interfering with itself.
Then again, the self-interference is what makes many of these patterns do the cool things they do.
- drx 13y ago> Do we run into the limits of undecidability? For this particular canvas, no, as the canvas is finite. Given enough time or space we can exhaust all states of the canvas and catch cycles. This applies to any finite canvas. I would guess these are equivalent to regular languages because of the finite state. You can treat the different canvas states as states of a finite automaton. A finite automaton is a canvas turing machine by ignoring the canvas.
- taliesinb 13y agoYes, I'm quite aware of this. Not to be rude or anything, but it is kinda obvious if you've thought at all finite computational systems.
- drx 13y agoIt is obvious, yeah. I wasn't implying you didn't know it was or anything, just explaining the first sentence to someone who might not have studied complexity theory.
- taliesinb 13y agoYou're right, that was actually a really good explanation. I'm sorry, I misinterpreted your comment! Retroactively upvoted, for what it is worth.