Particle Life • Hacker News Board

Re: Particle Life

#41

Post by Buttons840 » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:21 PM UTC

deadbabe wrote: post #40

I’m not really understanding what the “life” part of this is.

Indeed. If we described this as a "neat circular patterns simulator" would anything be lost?

Is there reproduction? Is there evolution? Is there death? It appears not. Those are essential to life.

Re: Particle Life

#42

Post by Buttons840 » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:23 PM UTC

beders wrote: post #12

It is amazing how easily self-sustaining structures emerge from such simple rules. Mesmerizing.

Is there any "sustaining" in the simulation? Is death a possibility? If not, then there is no "sustaining".

Re: Particle Life

#43

Post by superb-owl » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:33 PM UTC

I'd love to see this on a toroidal surface

Re: Particle Life

#44

Post by sockaddr » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:37 PM UTC

Fascinating. This reminds me of nanopond

Re: Particle Life

#45

Post by justinl33 » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:38 PM UTC

superb-owl wrote: post #43

I'd love to see this on a toroidal surface

a Mobius strip, even

Re: Particle Life

#46

Post by chuckadams » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:46 PM UTC

Looking at the 3d js version right now. This might be my most favorite thing since the original Conway's life or maybe the old Primordial Life screen saver from the 90's. Have you considered adding shader support? I'd love to see a slowed-down more "blobby" version running full-screen. Probably turn my mac into a space heater too, but right now that's a bonus ;)

Re: Particle Life

#47

Post by emmanueloga_ » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:51 PM UTC

What are the philosophical implications of these life models? Is it implied that life as we know it may also have a simple set of rules like this that generated it? Or is it just a game? (as in Conway's GoL).

Found some info here, seems like these are open questions [1].

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1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_life#Philosophy

Re: Particle Life

#48

Post by emmanueloga_ » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:55 PM UTC

Buttons840 wrote: post #41

deadbabe wrote: post #40

I’m not really understanding what the “life” part of this is.

Indeed. If we described this as a "neat circular patterns simulator" would anything be lost? Is there reproduction? Is there evolution? Is there death? It appears not. Those are essential to life.

I suspect it is called life because some of the observed patterns looks a lil bit like something you would see while peering at a petri dish on a microscope (if you squint? :-). Perhaps it is implied that with the right rules you would be able to generate "the real thing".

Re: Particle Life

#49

Post by michae2 » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 10:59 PM UTC

I never considered it before, but by comparison this makes me realize that Conway's Game of Life is wave-based rather than particle-based. That is, in CGoL the rules apply to locations of the grid rather than objects traveling across the grid. I wonder if this system could also be constructed in a wave-based fashion?

Also, it seems like in this system the speed of light is infinite, since every particle acts on every other particle each frame, regardless of distance. In CGoL there is a speed of light, since cells can only influence their immediate neighbors each frame.

Re: Particle Life

#50

Post by squigz » Thu, Dec 28, 2023, 11:08 PM UTC

billytetrud wrote: post #33

squigz wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you like to actually address the point I made about simple life?

If you made a point about that, it was not clear to me. Perhaps you were implying that simple life could be very common even if intelligent life isn't. While yes, that is a possibility, that says nothing of its probability. Were that the circumstance, it leaves the question open as to why simple life would be common but intelligent life not common.

I'm just a bit confused as to why the subject of intelligent life is the focus here, considering the context of this post is basic cellular life.

As to why simple life would be more common than complex life... that seems obvious to me: simple systems are easier to emerge from chaos than complex ones.