This is an exposition of something invented by a fellow called John Conway. I am going to use it to try to dispel a rather disturbing argument put forward by ''creation scientists''.
One way of playing the Conway game works like this:
Take a large amount of wide-ruled grid paper and a large quantity of markers (coins, pills, large pieces of pocket lint, etc.). Now decide on an initial configuration of markers, and place them (start with fewer than 10, placed close together however you like). This is the ''first generation''.
To create another generation, look at each square and consider the following rules. Then change the configuration according to the rules to make a second generation. Continue to do this as long as you like. The rules are:
1. If a square with a marker has 2 or 3 markers in the eight squares immediately around it, leave it alone.
2. If a square with a marker has 0 or 1 or 4 or more markers around it, then remove it.
3. If an empty square has exactly 3 markers around it, place a marker on it.
4. If an empty square has more or fewer than 3 markers on it, leave it alone.
Just do it very carefully the first few times, to get the hang of the rules. Then watch what happens. Depending on the initial configuration you choose, different things happen. The pattern could become static from generation to generation. It could gradually spread out and break apart. It could constantly change. Or, in many beautiful cases (which I leave to you to find), it will reproduce. By this I mean that certain configurations will, under iteration of the rules, produce an exact copy of themselves (some with different orientations, some not), which will then do the same, etc.
Now gradually increase the complexity of your initial configuration. You will see that other patterns that are normally static or degenerative become affected by other clusters which expand and throw off their balance, causing changes. Reproducing patterns will sometimes grow more comple, requiring multiple configurations to come together. However, there is more.
Thus far, the original configurations have been selected by you; there is a god, albeit a 'set-it-in-motion-and-let-it-run' sort of god. Now create your initial configuration purely by chance, that is, randomly select the number and placement of your markers. If your space is sufficiently large, then your distribution probably will be quite sparse and each generation will result in fewer and fewer markers. Universes that never got going.
However, the preconditions for a initial configuration that does not lead to total disappearance are not that stringent. Depending on the size of the locale in which the initial configuration is placed, and on the density, the probability of forming clusters that will grow or remain static is nontrivial. In particular, the probability of creating a reproducing configuration is in many cases comparatively large.
This is ideally where the drivel about 'chance can't do that' is exposed as drivel.
Suppose you play Conway's game a lot, with many variations, on a very big piece of paper. Suppose you try lots of configurations, big and small, and keep careful track of the frequency with which reproducing clusters arise and how they react with others. Then consider the universe.
Conway's game is a pretty good analogy, except the relevant probabilities are greater because of the multitude of types of marker available. Now if the universe at bottom consists of a few simple iterative processes like the Conway game for each type of 'marker'. If this is the case, then it seems quite likely that in the vastness of the universe, processes iterating for billions of years, aided by frequent (or occasional) random events, enormously complex structures are statistically likely to develop, just as they tend to do in Conway's game. In particular, configurations of matter which are capable of producing copies of themselves--life--are quite probable. And no Creator is needed.
Big and barely coherent, I hope this post nonetheless starts some kind of thinking, and if I get a minute I'll try to write a program to play a complication of Conway's game that I thought of...
Originally posted by royalchickenhey RC!
I hope this post nonetheless starts some kind of thinking, and if I get a minute I'll try to write a program to play a complication of Conway's game that I thought of...
i didn't realize you were going to do the conway thing (though it was at the back of my mind)!
a couple of my students explored this idea nearly 20 years ago on an old Apple IIe in BASIC.
they had great fun trying to program in characteristics of 'success' that would make one 'species' triumph over another - unfortunately, i can't recall details.
what are you programming this in? how will you present the results?
i am curious to see the complication.
interesting stuff for sure!
in friendship,
prad
Well, the Conway one is the best-researched that I know of and is easy to explain. The 'complication' is a set of rules I wrote to take into account several different types of markers (I think I'll use 16 in the program, which will be written in QB7.1 and complied to run in DOS or any Windows). This could be a while though as I'm a bit busy 🙁.
Originally posted by qwiksylverHere is a link to the chaos game:
While I do believe in God (had to say that), I find this post rather interesting. Being on the path to becoming a physicist, it reminds me of 'the chaos game'. Anybody else know what the chaos game is? I would explain it right now, but I don't have time.
http://www.shodor.org/MASTER/fractal/software/Sierpinski.html
Fjord