John Conway Talks About the Game of Life Part 2

http://thinkorthwim.com/2007/05/27/john-conway-talks-about-the-game-of-life/
Excerpt from BBC Channel 4
What we Still Don't Know: Are We Real?
http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/W/what_we_still_dont_know/index.html
The intro is by Sir Martin Rees.


The game of life:
http://www.math.com/students/wonders/life/life.html

Category:

Entertainment

Tags:

• john
• conway
• game
• of
• life
• emergence
• complexity
• bbc
• documentary

[karlmonster]

you lost the game of life ? how did you do that ?

[MarkWillsUK]

Just amazing!! I wrote a life simulator two years on a very old (1981) vintage machine. I'm pausing the video, copying the shapes onto my program and watching them!! Lovely stuff. Thanks for sharing! Mark

[Copiophonica]

00:8 reminded me of the Matrix immediately.

[Maarttttt]

@deanmullen10 They have probably been proven wrong, since 0.99... is a irrational number, 1 is rational.

0.999... approximates 1 to an infinite degree, yet is a whole different number.

[hurpderp123]

@zholzapfel Because we're talking about an infinitesimally small difference, which is not in the set of real numbers.

[deanmullen10]

@zholzapfel Mathematicians have stated 0. 999999 on with an infinite number of 9s = 1

[zholzapfel]

@deanmullen10 I also have to disagree with your statement that .99999 equals 1. You cant have .99999 of a persimmon , even if you cut off a small slice. You then have 1 persimmon and one smaller persimmon. The molecules that make up both are the same, they just vary in quantity and shape. .9999 deals largely with lazyness and a lack of understanding of varying levels of infinity and what they mean. The real question for me is 1/3 +2/3 is 1 and .3333 x 3 is .99999. How does .999 become 1?

[zholzapfel]

@deanmullen10 But when will then be now?

[deanmullen10]

I believe nothing exists. if you take the mathematical fact that 1 is the same as 0.9999999........ exc. then that means 1-1 is also 1-0.999999...... so 1-1 = 0 yet that means 0 is the same as 0.00000000......exc...1

so 0 or nothing can still be something, although this something may be vague, even a self-reflected illusion and impossibly small. it is possible in nothing that a tiny emergence of something will come.

get deep enough into it it becomes very realistic, eventually u reach now!

[Pichounator]

Thanks for uploading this!

[conceitarturo]

@livedandletdie right, that may be in the biological field. but what about atoms? what about subatomic;quantic nature? what about macroscopic galactic scale? what about things that lie at the other side of the Black Holes?

[livedandletdie]

@conceitarturo not at all. The rules we abide to is just as simple as we are but we as a multicellular organism works with a few more simple rules than the game of lifes rules.

1. eat and divide is the first rule and it applys to our cells which in fact are bacterias with other bacterias in them.

2.die when damaged still applies to our cells.

3. divide to repair dead cells.

4. destroy foreign cells.

The list goes on to about 20 basic rules for cellular behaviour and some advanced ones.