Comments on: Exploring Emergence

Exploring Emergence

Gyan — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:24:06 -0800

By: Gyan

Gyan — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 23:24:23 -0800

Mentioned in a thread long ago.

By: seanyboy

seanyboy — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 03:52:49 -0800

This is pretty cool, but I'm not sure it goes any way to explaining emergent behaviour. I've got a feeling that Cellular Automata, although buzzy and cutting edge at the moment is slowly going to slip out of the public conciousness. I was also looking forward to seeing examples of emergence within more complicated systems. For me, this is equivalant to pulling back from the dots on a newspaper picture and gasping. "Look. Near is dots, but far away is picture of boat. woooh"

By: PigAlien

PigAlien — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 06:43:49 -0800

Well, seanyboy, this is a demonstration of a concept. In order to demonstrate emergent systems you would need a much larger playing field and either a very fast cycle time or a very long time to sit on your hands. After all, life didn't develop on earth in a few minutes.

By: taz

taz — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 08:12:51 -0800

seanyboy, I think you are missing the point. These were fun blinky lights that moved across the screen. Really, I'm too dumb for emergence, but I enjoyed the presentation anyway, and the introduction to the phrase "life hackers".

By: Outlawyr

Outlawyr — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 08:33:24 -0800

Cool link, brought me back to my high school days mucking around with Life on an Apple ][ Those were the days, my friend . . .

By: Laugh_track

Laugh_track — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 10:13:38 -0800

Truth=beauty

By: PigAlien

PigAlien — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 11:33:15 -0800

Thanks, Laugh_track, that's great!

By: loquacious

loquacious — Tue, 31 Aug 2004 14:14:18 -0800

The first thing I noticed was that the first java applet wasn't using the original rules of Life. Ignoring the article for the moment and going "ooo, cool. a really fast Game of Life simulator!" I tried to make a glider, and it didn't work. The Brian's Brain rules are my favorite so far. Such fantastic gliders! Great squidgy things with pulsating jets of even more squidgy things with standing wavefronts that swept across the field like Mongol hordes, laying waste to all before while behind even more squidgy things shot out, reflected, and mutated with lusty gusto. God. That link is so not safe for work. I need a cold shower, you rat bastard.