5.6M views · Oct 4, 2011 · 6:33 · 0 HN recommenders · 4 mentions · discussed 2016–2024
An animated, musical visualization of Conway's Game of Life showing patterns made in the Golly program.
Why Hacker News points people here: HN commenters use it as an illustration of how simple rules can produce surprisingly complex behavior.
“The rules are simple, and on the face value, doesn't create anything exciting, but then we have this”HN comment, 2020
“we, and life, are just massively complex self-replicating patterns.”
Complex patterns as analogy for life
I cannot view things like this and link and this video without coming to the conclusion that we, and life, are just massively complex self-replicating patterns. May you find peace in the oscillations.
“The initial rules are simple, and to the untrained person, it just creates random blobs”
Simple rules producing complex structures
I was on the same opinion as well. But I would like to borrow form Conway's Game of Life. The initial rules are simple, and to the untrained person, it just creates random blobs that disappear after a while. But then we have things like this: this video
“The rules are simple, and on the face value, doesn't create anything exciting, but then we have this”
Simple rules producing surprising complexity
One thing that makes me think that is possible is Conway's Game of Life. The rules are simple, and on the face value, doesn't create anything exciting, but then we have this: this video
“finite state deterministic automata can actually be less predictable than the non-deterministic kind.”
Example of wild behavior from simple deterministic automata
There's an entire field of deterministic mathematics called Chaos Theory, that pretty much encompasses what it says on the tin. It turns out that -innocent, simple looking- finite state deterministic automata can actually be less predictable than the non-deterministic kind. (and it can get pretty wild! this video )
