Conway’s Game of Life
- Alien Invasion!
- Last Minute Edits
- Mythology
- Performance Art
- Basement Remodeling
- Man on a White Horse
- Not Exactly a Pyramid Scheme
- Tontine
- International Limits
- To be Fruitful and Multiply
- To Live Long and Prosper
Here’s the thing about this graphic: some viewers will recognize the above as an example of cellular automata, specifically Conway’s Game of Life. We can see that the pattern successfully shoots ‘gliders’ across and beyond the field of vision. How does the simple pattern know how to do this? Well, it doesn’t really ‘know’ anything. It’s just a pattern of information in an environment of rules and procedures.
Ah! But there’s the rub. We can ask if the parent ‘knew’ how to make a baby, and chances are they would say that they had a pretty good idea, or at least knew enough to set the process in motion. But down to the cellular level? Not hardly a clue. As far as the sub-atomic workings of intelligent procreation, we can say that the parents are just a pattern of information in an environment of rules and procedures. They ‘know’ a lot about the how, but not nearly everything. And they know very little about the why, but they don’t need to in order to make it happen.
thermodynamics of ideas 