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by Aerroon 2072 days ago
The first time I heard of Conway's Game of Life I was blown away. It was an example of potentially incredible complexity that can be arranged to large scale patterns emerge. It was the first time I took the idea of the universe being simulated (or created) seriously. Even more fascinating for me is the idea that we can't analytically calculate the outcome. To find out what happens we have to simulate it.

Even if the real world has a creator (or is a simulation), my money would be on it being impossible for the creator to know what is going to happen. Life would be the simulation.
2 comments
jcims 2072 days ago
If you haven't seen it before this might blow you away haha - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZKE8qK9UCrU

All of this is happening in my body right now so i can type these letters: WTF

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Aerroon 2072 days ago
I would've loved videos like this when I was studying Biology! This kind of explanation with the video is amazingly clear. It reminds me a lot of how the signal is generated in eyes through the build up of charge after light hits the retina.
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rantwasp 2072 days ago
my favorite is https://youtu.be/LQmTKxI4Wn4

once you look at microbiology you cannot unsee that it looks just like a massive, complicated stochasticaly-driven computer

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jcims 2072 days ago
Whoa, that's crazy.

Every time I go down this rabbit hole I get re-convinced of panspermia. Maybe when I retire I'll study enough statistics and molecular biology to try to get my head around it. Or by then we'll be talking to aliens and the question will be moot.

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rantwasp 2072 days ago
you can do a mooc on molecular biology pretty easily if your goal is to get a superficial understanding of it. you don’t need to wait until you retire :)
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Schiphol 2072 days ago
>we can't analytically calculate the outcome. To find out what happens we have to simulate it.

I've read Wolfram claim this, but as a conjecture, iirc. Is there a formal proof that in order to predict life patterns we essentially need to run the cellular automaton?

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shenberg 2072 days ago
Yes: the processor is turing-complete, if you could predict the patterns then you've solved the halting problem.
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dspillett 2072 days ago
It that not simply an instance of the halting problem[†] for which Turing provided a proof that no general solution is possible?

[†] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halting_problem

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