epic conway's game of life
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN commenters use it as an illustration of how simple rules can produce surprisingly complex behavior.
What it is
An animated, musical visualization of Conway's Game of Life showing patterns made in the Golly program.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2016 to 2024.
What Hacker News said
Cites trevyn · 2016-07 · on “Wireworld”
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.
Cites wintorez · 2020-10 · on “Metal Spheres Swarm Together to Create Freeform Modular Robots”
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]
Cites wintorez · 2020-10 · on “Metal Spheres Swarm Together to Create Freeform Modular Robots”
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]
Cites Kim_Bruning · 2024-01 · on “"Are We Automata?" by William James (1879)”
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] )