This demo was inspired by Golly, a cross-platform simulator for the Game of Life and other cellular automata. Select one of the preset patterns and try tapping on the world. Simulation parameters and thousands of patterns are in the "Settings" section on this page. The original Game of Life was not interactive, but this version allows live editing of the world. It uses a ping-pong technique with two render targets - one contains the current simulation step, and the other receives the results of applying the rules, producing the next simulation step. This implementation uses WebGL shaders to run the Game of Life simulation on the graphics card.
This formulation provides endless possibilities - the Game of Life is as powerful as a universal Turing machine, so even self-replicating patterns can be created. Conway designed the rules of the game to avoid explosive growth and produce interesting patterns. Dead cells with three living neighbors come to life, as if via reproduction.ĭespite the simple rules, Life patterns exhibit chaotic changes. Living cells with two or three live neighbors continue to survive. Living cells with four or more neighbors die through overpopulation. Any living cell with fewer than two live neighbors dies due to underpopulation.
When the simulation updates, living cells interact with their neighbors according to four rules. It is not a game in the conventional sense, but rather a simulation that runs on a grid of square cells, each of which can either be considered dead or alive. More information on the 17c/45 Caterpillar is available here and here.Conway's Game of Life is a a cellular automaton invented by John Horton Conway in 1970. Just as spectacular as the concept of a Turing Machine being built in the Game of Life is the " 17c/45Ĭaterpillar spaceship"-a gigantic pattern involving over 10 million cells that travels across the universe. The details of this construction are available at Paul Rendell's site here. It is possible to build a pattern that acts like a finite state machine connected to two counters."Īlthough it may seem a bit convoluted, this idea became the basis for the construction of a Turing Machine within the Game of Life. It is possible to construct logic gates such as AND, OR and NOT using gliders. This "sliding block memory" can be used to simulate a counter. If three gliders are shot in just the right way, the block will move farther away. For example, if two gliders are shot at a block in just the right way, the block will move closer to the source of the gliders.
"It is possible for gliders to interact with other objects in interesting ways. The Wikipedia article on the Game of Life notes: Wikipedia article on Conway's Game of Life
Dennett has used the analog of Conway's Life "universe" extensively to illustrate the possible evolution of complex philosophical constructs, such as consciousness and free will, from the relatively simple set of deterministic physical laws governing our own universe." For example, philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel C. The game can also serve as a didactic analogy, used to convey the somewhat counterintuitive notion that "design" and "organization" can spontaneously emerge in the absence of a designer. It is interesting for physicists, biologists, economists, mathematicians, philosophers, generative scientists and others to observe the way that complex patterns can emerge from the implementation of very simple rules. Life is an example of emergence and self-organization. "Ever since its publication, Conway's Game of Life has attracted much interest because of the surprising ways in which the patterns can evolve. The emergence of complex behavior-sometimes chaotic and other times seemingly orderly-from the simple rules set out by the Game of Life has notable implications in many fields: