I Made a 19-bit Marble Computer (Pt 1)

[@legendaryspud3462]

That intervention reminds me of an idea I had last night. What if God wrote the universe so well that it can almost make sense that he never existed?

[@MaskedMarble]

I like the quote, "God has given us too much to deny, but not enough to be sure." I think that is the only place where human free will can truly exist...in the place of balance where we are neither overwhelmed by God's presence, nor free of that nagging comprehension that God is the only explanation for what exists. It seems he hides himself just enough to test what is in our hearts.

[@TheEmeraldMenOfficial]

⁠@@MaskedMarble Now, I’m agnostic: I don’t worship any god or follow any religion, but I don’t doubt the existence of a higher power. If I’m gonna follow a religion, I want scientific proof it’s the right one, and their sacred text isn’t exactly credible in the eyes of science… proving themselves to me personally is good enough though. Personal beliefs aside, I agree with that statement, if that even makes sense…

[@MaskedMarble]

I understand the desire to have scientific proof, but in a sense it's a non sequitur. God being the one who created the cosmos means that his substance is not contained within the cosmos. And scientific proofs can only deal with observations made of the cosmos' workings itself. It would be kinda like a sentient video game character demanding that any proof of its human creator must exist within the video game itself. That being said, I think that what the Apostle Paul wrote to the Christian church in Rome is very insightful. He said that God's invisible nature and qualities are clearly seen from the things God has made (including the one staring at us in the mirror), so that people are without excuse. We all know that we are not self-existent, so when we each reach the time where we must give account to our maker of our stewardship over our God-given lives, none of us will be able to claim that we couldn't figure out that God existed. I think God's existence is not what we actually stuggle with, though. For me, and I think it's the same for us all, what we struggle with the most is the difference of opinion that exists between ourselves and God. We want life ordered according to our own understanding of things, and chafe against trusting God and his wisdom and understanding. Basically we all want our own way, and so we unwittingly rationalize ways to discount what God has revealed through his prophets and his son Jesus. If I'm honest, I don't follow God because I like him, but because I know he is the truth, and I need to get over myself enough to yield my desires to become subservient to what he wants. That's life's geatest struggle.

[@NSCuberOfficial]

I just want to say thank you so much for your channel. My 11 year old son, who loves Gravitrax, found you last week and I’m so glad he did! We are a homeschooling Christian family and your channel is exactly what my son needs! And the fact that you made a homeschool marble playlist?! Amazing! Have you ever considered having some kind of class on zoom? We would sign up in a heartbeat! Thanks again and God bless you!

[@MaskedMarble]

Thanks! 🤠👍 I am not really a fan of Zoom classes, but I do have a Google-Slides-based “GraviTrax Kids Club” series of classes that homeschool parents can facilitate on their own using the speaker notes. I may make these into a series of videos in the future, but it’s hard because we have a small house, and have no dedicated studio area. Here’s the GraviTrax Kids Club curriculum: drive.google.com/drive/folders/1tpxEhEZmhYEVYsDTl5gdhsldZ8v20PAx

[@lonelylad9818]

I mean the theory of evolution definitely can explain how humans came to be. It's not just that proteins randomly change but that over millions of years mutations can occur and accumulate into major changes, with natural selection acting as a filter for beneficial mutations. You're clearly a bright fellow but I'd suggest you consider reading up more on evolutionary biology. And there's nothing wrong with accepting spirit-guided evolution, which several denominations and sects of Christianity officially accept. *Edit:* I responded to your reply yesterday and noticed today that it's not longer there. Not a good look.

[@MaskedMarble]

First we need to take a step back and define evolution, because it has no precise scientific or mathematical definition like gravity or Maxwell's laws of electromagnetism. Evolution commonly conflates 2 myths with 1 empirical fact. The 2 myths are Darwin's 2 tenets: 1. That all life on earth is ancestrally related. 2. That the mechanism behind the biological design changes that produced all variation among living organisms is natural selection, not God. The one empirical fact of evolution that we can all actually observe and agree on is that species change over time, as when we breed dogs and pigeons into different varieties. The myth of evolution takes this empirical fact and then makes a leap of faith to conclude that these kinds of changes can turn a dog or dragon into a bird given enough time. But our observations have only ever shown us that dogs change into dogs, and pigeons change into pigeons, and a single-celled organism like E.coli doesn't develop a new capability of digesting citrate, because the genes for citrate-based metabolism were already there in the organism, and the evolution experiment of 30 years simply saw the genes finally expressed, either by de-volution (damage to the regulatory pathways that normally inhibit that gene's expression), or by somehow triggering and activating that pre-existing citrate-gene regulatory pathway. The mythical part of evolution overlooks the mechanisms of genetic variety, which are most often not random mutations or the unbridled changes of homologs (paralogs, orthologs). The mechanism of observed variations within an animal kind (genus and species) are usually s*xual recombination of genes, and genetic regulatory mechanisms, both of which are highly specified and therefore must be considered part of the programmed genetic code. In other words, the designer of the genetic code evidently purposely coded the biological equivalent of a random number generator into living things. If you've ever created a computer code routine to generate random numbers, you know this is no trivial feat. But since the micro-machines that carry out genetic mixing between egg and sperm are highly specific in terms of the splicing sites chosen on the DNA to be swapped, we can conclude this is not truly a random choice as it would be if the splicing sites on the DNA were chosen willy-nilly. Instead, it is a purposeful and highly controlled selection and swapping of sections of DNA. People will say that similarities between organisms prove ancestral relatedness. But if that were true, then a 2010 Ford F150 would be ancestrally related to a 2020 Ford F150, because the two trucks are very similar. But the similarities and the differences in these trucks were all carefully and intelligently designed, proving that similarities alone are not sufficient evidence to conclude that similar things are ancestrally related, including reproducing organisms. We can only conclude that things are ancestrally related if independent additional evidence is available that rules out the possibility that the designer of life didn't create these differences in the same way that Ford's engineers created the differences between F150 models. I was a systems engineer for over 2 decades. In my uniform experience, I observed that every single complex designed system I have ever seen in my life required parallel design decisions to be made to create the system. These decisions had to be made simultaneously... that is, before the system goes live. All the critical parts must be conceived, produced, coordinated, and assembled first, before they can become functional systems or subsystems. These critical parts do not themselves contribute a function to the system on their own, and this fact alone is a death knell to the evolutionary myths. The multiple critical components only contribute to a discernable system function when they exist in the context of other critical parts, and only in conjunction with them will that subsystem work and become functional. Until the newly created subsystem is functional, natural selection cannot weigh it as an alternative. An example might be how a piston is useless in contributing to an engine unless accompanied by a crankshaft, crankshaft bearings, carefully toleranced cylinder bore, cylinder block with enough mass and strength to withstand the explosions, valves, valve springs, the right timing and gearing between the valves and the piston, a source of ignition, a supply of carefully designed and distilled fuel with the right combustion properties to propel the piston without harming the engine, oil distribution so the engine can run longer than 1 minute without seizing, a cooling system so the engine can reject heat, a means to connect the engine's power to the wheels, and many more parallel design decisions that must be made and produced before the system can go live. Even though there are an infinite number of engine designs that could be made functional, each individual engine design must have its own set of properly toleranced critical parts in place in order to achieve function. For a car engine, that function is only achieved when the engine's output shaft turns something else that coveys a new functional utility upon the overall system. But Darwin did not describe a parallel design process. He described a serial design process, where every single change happens in a series of slight, successive steps. Then natural selection must choose at every single step whether the system is now more survivable. Natural selection has no foresight. It can only choose from existing options that it can evaluate in the present. It cannot coordinate parts together towards a future function, using foresight to intelligently pre-position a hormone-receiving cell so that when the hormone-producing cell happens to invent that exact hormone in another few million years, the receptor cell is already in place and knows what to do with the newly-produced signal. Natural selection cannot ensure that the interface specs match so the hormone sent by one cell is speaking the same language as the receptor cell, so that it is interpreted by the adjacent cell as "ok, that signal means I need to form a boundary layer of cells here to create the retina of an eye or the lining of a digestive tract." A serial design process cannot coordinate changes among multiple critical parts. It cannot look with foresight at the nonfunctional engine that miraculously has 100 parts in the right place, and is just missing a dozen or so changes to the piston that will cause it to finally slide in the cylinder bore without binding, and think, "ah, yes, if I make 14 more little changes to the piston's contours, I'll get an operational engine, which will then create a new function that I can then evaluate as to whether it provides a functional advantage to the overall system." You see, natural selection cannot make this selection until the partially-built non-functional engine is already built and functional. And this is why evolution cannot explain the ORIGIN of any species, or of the supposed upward progression in the creation of sophisticated complex biological systems and subsystems. Darwin thought the cell was a simple glob of goop. We now know that the simplest cell is as complex as a large city. There is no such thing as a simple cell. It doesn't exist. The simplest cell is so complex that no team of engineering biologists has to date been able to design a self-replicating machine that can do what the "simplest" cell can do. Only an intelligence could create the sophisticated complex systems within a hypothetical first "simple" cell. But then, if we concede that, then how can we categorically deny the possibility that this intelligence might also have created the different kinds of animals, with their body plans and subsystems? Much like Ford engineers didn't design a little red wagon that evolved on its own into the F150, God did not design a single celled organism that morphed over millions of years into you and I. Rather, Ford engineers designed many different truck designs, just as God created many different kinds of living things. Which brings us to theistic evolution. The problem with theistic evolution is that it is a contradiction in terms. Evolution is by definition an undirected natural process. The moment God starts directing it, it becomes intelligent design, not evolution. It is no longer undirected once an intelligent agent starts directing it, whether that agent be a scientist in a lab, or our creator God. And this is the problem with most evolutionary computer simulations: They start with pre-programmed goals in mind. Natural selection has no such goals. Even survival itself is not a goal that natural selection has in mind. It could care less even if every biological organism in history was nonsurvivable, with the result that life had never existed. These are simply a few of the problems with the evolutionary myth. But they alone are sufficient to philosphically exclude evolutionary theory as a contender for an explanation of the origin of living things. Evolution cannot create new designs. It can only choose from among options which are produced by other means. Evolution and natural selection make an excellent quality control mechanism, killing nonviable mutations. But evolution has no hope of creatively adding new features, because those features require parallel design decisions. The serial design decisions of the evolutionary process that Darwin described cannot produce multi-component designs, because all designs produced by the slight successive changes of evolution will remain nonfunctional until ALL of the mission-critical components for that subsystem are in place.

[@lonelylad9818]

​@@MaskedMarble Well firstly, while evolution isn't defined as precisely as, say, the laws of electromagnetism or the theory of relativity, this applies to many fields, such as psychology and economics. It could perhaps be classified as a "soft science," then. Soft sciences can be thought of as studies that try to understand very chaotic and complex systems that aren't predictable through precise mathematics like how hard sciences are (like physics and chemistry). It may not have any equations and whatnot, but that doesn't automatically make it invalid. More importantly, evolution does provide sensible explanations for many quirks in nature that creationism cannot. For instance, why didn't Dodo birds have any fear instinct? Why do apes seem to have so much in common with us physically and mentally and why do they live in the same parts of the world that human ancestry can be traced to? Why do humans think and behave the way they do? Now onto your next point. You write that, while a single species may undergo minor changes or develop new variations over time, we've never observed a species undergo major changes. But that's to be expected. Larger changes take longer periods of time. Micro evolution is macro evolution on a very small scale. You mention that even small bacteria haven't been observed evolving into a whole new species. But again, there are also explanations as to why the changes observed in these bacteria were not that significant genetically. We know that major changes in things like chromosomes and the amount of DNA strands can happen and very rarely are they beneficial (in other words, they're high risk) so of course it's more "economical" for a bacterium to just undergo a relatively small genetic changes to give itself an edge. Even then, since we're on the topic of the Lenski experiment, I should mention that there were in fact significant changes in the genome of the bacteria. For instance, the citT gene in the e coli was duplicated, meaning it did gain a gene, not just change its gene expression. Repeat this process for a much longer time and this can add entirely new parts of dna that can perform new functions. And there were other parts of the species' dna that changed fundamentally rather than just in expression. Now for the analogy with trucks. It doesn't quite work for a few reasons, those being that a truck's changes are planned, and trucks do not make new trucks on their own. They don't have any stored genome they transfer to a descendant. Evolution or no evolution, we know organisms make new organisms, and random changes in the blueprint of these new organisms can occur that give them different properties. Even unplanned ones, like when DNA is hit by ionizing radiation or changed by a virus. A large portion of your argument hinges on how we haven't observed evolution in nature and biological systems are very complex. But this isn't proof for God. Neither is it proof for evolution. Evolution is indeed a theory, and that means that it's a model that provides the best possible explanation of something we don't understand. But using our lack of knowledge and observation as proof that it was created by God in 7 days isn't really proof either. There's even a tongue-in-cheek term for this called the God-of-the-gaps fallacy. That's all I really have to say for the moment. I might add onto this later if anything else pops into my mind.

[@juliestocker1549]

This so amazing. I can’t believe you spent 2 months figuring all this out. It’s so impressive!!!

[@MaskedMarble]

Thanks! It took about 3 weeks to build, but I had worked out many ideas ahead of time over the past year. I figured I should get these GraviWall ideas into a track before someone else does. 😄

[@BlueBlizzard]

You deserve that record :) we were on a Gravitrax Builder Event and tried our own record but it is very different to yours. I wish you good luck :)

[@MaskedMarble]

I saw coogelbahn’s videos from the builder event - looked like that was a lot of fun. Is Ravensburger going to release video of the track? 🤠

[@GravitraxMania]

Really mindblowing build😮🤯🤯

[@Lotschi]

Wow, so much dedication!

[@tarvankrieken]

Cool adder! I would also love to see a programmable computer using marbles in the future! The one downside of marble computations I always see, is the thing you also mentioned: you have to reset the entire machine by hand to for every computation. On the other hand, the computations are very satisfying to look at.

[@MaskedMarble]

Even with the marble-based Turing Tumble, programming comes in the form of how you lay out the "track" for the marbles to follow. But if I can make this KZbin thing work monetarily, I think I could at least build an ALU out of GraviTrax.

[@gravitraxcreator3281]

Best íve seen in a long time. Thanks for the shov 🙏🙏

[@MaskedMarble]

You're welcome! 🙂

[@tinuk411]

Yyyyyhaaaaa🤩 Great Job👍 Really amazing 🤩👍 Congrats 🎈🎉

[@MaskedMarble]

Thanks! Glad you enjoyed it. 🤠

[@Yorg]

Your POINDEXTER is an awesome and amazing build... very well done..!

[@MaskedMarble]

Thanks Yorg!

[@EricMGravitrax]

wow this is amazing :-) Very nice track/ computer 😀

[@MaskedMarble]

Thank you sir. I look forward to your next creation as well.

[@dajokaiser6349]

Das ist so Phantastisch, eine wahnsinns arbeit.

[@MaskedMarble]

Thank you!

[@Lotschi]

This is one of the most special video I have ever seen!

[@MaskedMarble]

Thanks! I hope to have part 2 completed this month! 🤠🎄

[@Lotschi]

@@MaskedMarble 👍

[@puzzLEGO]

this is the perfect system to build a computer with

[@MaskedMarble]

Yes, if you have the room! 🤠 💻 thanks

[@willmorrisey]

This is AMAZING!!! 🥳🥳🥳 You deserve 1,000,000 subscribers, I used to be obsessed with knex. Were you funded the money to buy all these sets?

[@MaskedMarble]

Thanks for your comments. I bought all my sets myself, but most at a steep discount!

[@RandomProductionsThingy-l8i]

Insane build

[@HyCat]

I'd really like to see one work with base 10 input/output so it's easier to use.

[@MaskedMarble]

I might look into that in the future, but the circuits are not trivial to convert the inputs from base 10 to binary, or the outputs from binary back to base 10. It would definitely be an interesting thing to try, however.

[@foxychinstrappenguin8778]

This guy makes better videos than people with tens of millions of subs 🔥

[@MaskedMarble]

Thanks so much for the kind words! I am in the process of filming part 2 this week, so your comment was especially timely and inspiring! 👍🤠

[@HoffmanTactical]

Love it.

[@erikpavlusik6214]

I was waiting ages for this

[@MaskedMarble]

👍😎 Unfortunately this is just the first video of 2. The video would be an hour long if I did not split it into 2 parts. 😳 I will show your numbers being added in the second video. But I did answer your Q&A in this video! 🤠

[@erikpavlusik6214]

@@MaskedMarble thank you, I really like the video and we (with my wife) are looking forward the second part :)

[@MaskedMarble]

@@erikpavlusik6214 Yes, and congratulations you two! 💒

[@MagicMarble]

Its very Nice🤩🤩Great Work👌👌👌👌

[@MaskedMarble]

Thank you. Glad you enjoyed it! 🤠

[@MagicMarble]

@@MaskedMarble 👌🤩👍

[@LotzofClients]

Super impressed with this build-out. Curious how you found out about Gravitrax? This is great. Came over from VRA FB group

[@MaskedMarble]

I found out about GraviTrax when Target clearanced the $130 GraviTrax Obstacle Starter Sets for under $40 in January after Christmas season. TIP: They are now selling the Speed Starter Set for $130 for the 2021 Christmas season, so I hope the same thing happens this coming January.

[@Lotschi]

HUGE like!

[@jayakumarrp2719]

How long does it take?

[@unclemarble659]

Very impressive, awesome job!

[@MaskedMarble]

Thank you very much!

[@Theleprechaun317]

Incredibly impressive! Always love how you can tie god into your videos!

[@Bobbel888]

Wonder if there is a concept of mass storage with data bus and address bus based on marbles.

[@MaskedMarble]

The Turing Tumble toy is worth checking out. Subsequent to this video I picked up one at a garage sale and worked through most of its exercises. It can store values in the positions of its geared switches, and a marble can trigger the next marble to run through the circuit for the next iteration of the calculation. Using GraviTrax, I think an address bus of more than a couple bits would require a ridiculously large layout. But memory values can theoretically be stored in the GraviTrax Dipper's switch position, which can be "read" based on the exit the marble takes, and set by sending a marble up the opposite path just fast enough to reverse the switch.

[@-gravitraxgod-5521]

u deserve amillion views im (langstonreese) on a different account.

[@MaskedMarble]

Thanks Langston!

[@BlueBlizzard]

Holy :D What a Video :D I am impressed :D

[@MaskedMarble]

Thank you! I’m glad you liked it.

[@lucashh3-11]

It is truly remarkable what he has done. I would like to propose the world to build a real marble computer with screen that displays image. I asked chat GPT and it said that in theory its possible to do it!

[@MaskedMarble]

You may be interested in my upcoming video, which is a step in that direction.

[@NeogreenPeaches]

Chaining more full adders together doesn't suddenly make the whole system more impressive. I could copy and paste this thing a thousand times over and turn it into a 1900 bit adder and it wouldn't be any more of a feat; in fact it would just make me look like I'm trying too hard to look smart. Add some simple functionality to the system by allowing for inverted input lines and outputs then some control logic to make it into an ALU. But even at that point it isn't a computer. Using the historical definition of computer is just a deceptive ploy to get more views and you know it.

[@MaskedMarble]

Thanks for watching and thanks for your opinion. Perhaps you missed that these mechanical marble-based circuits are not 100% reliable, and therefore the more bits that are added, the less of a chance the full calculation would run to completion? I discussed the computer's reliability in the video...it was rare that a full calculation would complete. Therefore, 19 bits tied together in series is a much greater feat than a single full adder. (Take a non-100% reliability to the 19th power...) I am using a more historical definition of the word "computer", which has nothing to do with integrated circuits, and instead focuses on the machine's ability to perform an algorithmic calculation on a variety of input values. We could go down the rabbit hole of semantics, but instead I will refer you to the Wikipedia article on "mechanical computer" which states, "A mechanical computer is a COMPUTER built from mechanical components such as levers and gears rather than electronic components. The most common examples are ADDING MACHINES and mechanical counters..." (emphasis added). So I assure you...no, this is not a ploy to get more views. But that's an interesting strawman. This actually is a mechanical computer that took a lot of time and effort to develop. But you're right, we can't run the KZbin app on it. Maybe someday... Thanks again for watching. 🤠

[@NeogreenPeaches]

@MaskedMarble it would still be interesting if you added the other functionality necessary to turn this into an ALU. A 4-bit ALU would be more than enough due to the space it takes up. Add in some shift registers and additional control logic and you can do mult/div. Anything beyond that would probably be unreasonable given the reliability issues you mentioned. However, seeing add/sub/mult/div implimented in marbles would be pretty cool.

[@MaskedMarble]

@NeogreenPeaches I may try that. It would be necessary to develop some sort of shortcut like I used for the full adder, rather than building the ALU's logic unit and decoder by combining logic gates. Perhaps using GraviTrax POWER components to propagate the input signals. Will have to think about it...

[@coogelbahn]

Very cool thing and good job! Even if I have to translate the video on a long, cold winter evening ;-)

[@MaskedMarble]

Thank you! I type in the captions for almost all of my videos, so try using KZbin’s capability to auto-translate captions into German. It won’t be a 100% accurate translation, but hopefully it will be close. 🤠 I can also send you a copy of the English script if that would be helpful for translating the document using a translator program.

[@coogelbahn]

@@MaskedMarble Ok, of course I haven't tried autmoatic translation.... thanks

[@VolcanoGamingVR]

I would have used magnets to hold it, to make sure it can’t go out as easy

[@MelanieCALU]

I also want so much gravi trax😮😮😮😮

[@AS-xd6co]

What a great work Chris! Very satisfying to watch ;) Hey, you want to have a competition? I can offer a 3 bit Gravicalc :) … can be extended, but is fairly unreliable (at least on lopsided old wooden floors) … now take the competition (eat THAT Guiness people :D)

[@MaskedMarble]

Thanks Andreas! Hey, I added a link to your video in the description! Between us we have 22 bits and can add up to over 8 million!

[@Billol-gravifun]

Since you have buylt tje biggest computer i challenge you to buyld the smallest one

[@ShawaynaCarroll]

No Alu? ro cpu?

[@MaskedMarble]

If I can get some grant funding to fully flesh out a digital logic course using GraviTrax, a simple ALU with 2 to 3 mathematical operations is definitely in the plans!

[@Gravibahn]

mega cool. but can you count on it? As I understand it no. So it's not a computer after all

[@MaskedMarble]

I hope you enjoyed it! This is not a counter, but a dedicated addition computer. A marble run that is merely a counter, which simply tabulates a marble count, would not technically be a computer because it would not be performing any algorithm on the input data. This marble computer performs a binary addition algorithm on the input data. The next video will show whether this algorithm works on any combination of input numbers.

[@Gravibahn]

@@MaskedMarble ok nice

[@hifive789]

That'll definetly in this month's my fav clip on the official german gravitrax youtube channel!

[@MaskedMarble]

That would be fun! 🕺While taking breaks from video editing last week, I finished another track that I think will definitely catch Ravensburger’s attention. It fits right in with the German values of punctuality and order.

[@unclemarble659]

Weird question... Couldn't you use the magnetic cannon to store information? It would obviously have its limits. Instead of just 2 marbles on the one side, you could use 3 which would allow you to use mag cannon twice, then have an obscenely long series of switches and more cannons... It's painful to think about...

[@MaskedMarble]

That's actually a very interesting idea. The gears are turning in the mad scientist's head! 💡💡

[@unclemarble659]

@@MaskedMarble Or use the tiptube.

[@MaskedMarble]

@@unclemarble659 That could work for a temporary register or buffer. It would require sending 2 marbles to read it, and the process of reading it would erase the memory. But still a possibility to use as a digital logic element. 🤔

[@mirkohahn]

I fought you CAN'T use canons twice, only with magnetic marbels?

[@MaskedMarble]

@@mirkohahn I think you are correct; there is a video somewhere where I saw it done…will see if I can find it.

[@gotsm9959]

Sir I think you can get more clock speed if your marbles fell at 45 degrees.

[@MaskedMarble]

Probably so. I was trying to limit the downward travel because it would have taken more action tiles to lift the marbles back up

[@gotsm9959]

@@MaskedMarble Well Gravitrax should make marble computer as a kit and perfect the speed and minimize size.

[@MaskedMarble]

@@gotsm9959 Interesting idea! I found that adding additional action tiles decreased the reliability of the computer. So increasing the speed might be fine for a two bit computer “kit”. But daisy-chaining kits together would be fairly frustrating, as the calculation repeatedly fails. If you check out my automatic 2-bit adder video, that timer circuit runs much faster.

[@gotsm9959]

@@MaskedMarble Well I seen a marble computer on a peg board that can count to 32. Clocks are are also a type of marble computer. If someone was shipwrecked on a island they can't charge a smartphone or buy batteries.

[@MaskedMarble]

@@gotsm9959 Yes, I saw that marble counter that could count to 32. You are right, without our smartphones we'd be scratching our heads for sure. Merry Christmas to you! 😃

[@jclark2752]

As for your comment on evolution: Your model is not a proper analog because you are attempting to Leap Directly from initiation to a Fully Realized and multilayered result. You are pointing out the necessity for reliability on a grand scale without acknowledging that such reliability would Have To be Established LONG Before such a multifaceted version of the machine Could ever exist. Each component would have to Independently develop FIRST the Most BASIC and Simple Mechanics - Effectively, Predictably, and Reliably - Before ANY System involving More than One, Basic, Simple process could exist. Then a Two step process could develop… The sorts of Time and Endless Failures Required to reach the level of complexity you are actually Making are Not easily derived. You are trying to SKIP MILLIONS of steps. It is undeniable Proof of the Miracle of the Reality of the universe that we are capable of doing so. Bravo!

[@MaskedMarble]

You are actually making my point for me. The function of almost everything in biology requires the simultaneous existence and coordination of many mature and reliable parts before the subsystem becomes operational. And until it is operational, natural selection cannot select that subsystem. Add to that knowledge that multi-part systems are only as reliable as the product of the reliability of each of their mission-critical components, and you have a stong barrier against the formation of the myriad multi-part subsystems seen in biology. In my experience as a systems engineer for several decades, such systems can only result from parallel decision-making pathways where all the pieces are simultaneously designed and emplacement before the system or subsystem goes live. For example, you can't release an iPhone without a screen even if all the other parts are fully formed. And those other parts won't sit around for millions of years with foreknowledge, anticipating an iphone screen. Darwin described not a parallel decision-making pathway, but a sequential process; a sequence of slight, successive steps strung together. No such sequential process can coordinate, for example, the creation and emplacement of the 10 enzymes of glycolysis. All 10 must be present before enough ATP is generated to give the cycle any survival advantage. If the first few steps are in place but not the last step, the subsystem of enzymes actually consumes the cell's energy currency of ATP, so that is a barrier to all of the supposed intermediate changes to get from a theoretical simpler system to the final glycolysis enzyme pathway. No stepwise process can produce these things, nor can it improve their reliability. Reliability is not additive, but multiplicative, demanding that each enzyme work reliably from day one, in order to have any hope of contributing itself as a cog in the multi-component machine known as glycolysis. All steps have to be present AND reliable from the get-go, or the subsystem is completely nonfunctional from a survivability perspective.

[@jclark2752]

@@MaskedMarble again, you appear to be referencing a complex system, an iPhone, for example, stating how the complex form could Never exist without a plan from day one, yet the iPhone WAS created by the slow collection of smaller component systems being developed Without 'the iPhone’ in mind. A microprocessor WAS created as the result of a multitude of tiny, seemingly disconnected breakthroughs, each Vital to the functioning of the end result - each made at different points through time as a result of trial and error. You might just as well point to a touchscreen and describe how it simply MUST have been the Ultimate Goal from the very Beginning, because the circuits would not function without a crucial component - then argue that there is No Way those components could have happened before they were used in the touchscreen. If anything, I think your prior experience in systems engineering is a hindrance in this situation because you are failing to recognize the imposition and creation of the unified system's Language, Framework, and established Methodology as an external construct. Which is to say, you can only conceptualize system creation from an external organizing structure - because all of your system conceptions and manipulations are Described and Defined using An External Organizing Paradigm. (PS, notice my use of Paragraphs… it really helps to organize things I hope! 😁🤓)

[@MaskedMarble]

@jclark2752 Thanks for the paragraphs. I feel that you are intentionally missing the point. Living systems must be functional from the get-go. We cannot have a discussion in an imaginary land where incompletely formed organisms exist despite missing any piece of the full hardware required for them to survive. It is the same with iphones. No end consumer buys an iphone screen by itself to make a phone call or to watch a KZbin video, because the screen alone is not a fully functional system that can perform those functions. It is only a subsystem. That's the analogy. You realize that every analogy breaks down at some point, correct? But this analogy is valid when you consider the functions of a living system which must be present to survive, such as producing ATP, copying its DNA, interpreting its DNA into working machines, and a host of other minimally required functions that every living thing must perform in order to be a living thing: a survivable, self-replicating system. The analogy is valid because iphones are not fully completed products, just as a single ATP synthase machine floating in space is not a fully living organism. Yet you are essentially claiming the analogy is invalid because iphone subcomponents are independently produced....yes, but not as a fully complete independent functional product. Can a microchip function without a battery or other power source? Can you watch KZbin on an iPhone screen whose ribbon cable is not connected to a driver chip? We humans are essentially making a host of parallel design decisions with intentional purpose in mind to form these subcomponents so that they will work together when assembled into an iphone to provide a function that they do not have on their own. That's intentional design with foresight towards a future unrealized goal. Natural selection has no foresight or planning capabilities. If we consider evolution to be a process with some foresight directed by the mind of God, then it is no longer Darwin's concept of evolution, which is by definition an undetected process. The analogy is clear: You can't produce a living system that survives with any of its critical subcomponents missing. Even though there are an unlimited number of potential designs of living organisms, each one must possess components that work in concert with one another to form a functionally operable system, with interface specifications between components to ensure they work together to produce a discernable function when assembled. You can't just pretend that you can take a pre-designed microchip and throw it into an iphone design without considering the interface...it's pinouts, where power is supplied and what the tolerance limits are for that power so the chip doesn't get fried, or conversely have too little current for the chip to operate. What we are evaluating here is one of Darwin's two theoretical tenets, that small changes to the organism can create the organism itself (his tenet of natural selection). I am claiming from the empirical evidence that we observe, that reliability of multi-part systems poses an insurmountable barrier to that, because an organism can't survive without even a single one of its multiple critical components. It can't wait another 5 million years for a few random base changes in DNA to search the space of possible combinations to hit upon one that works, and then spend another 15 million years optimizing that barely working assembly into a fully reliable assembly that can reliably support life in every subsequent generation. Because the organism must be survivable for every second of those 25 million years, the entire time that it is developing those mission-critical subcomponents and subassemblies. Central to this understanding is the realization that there is no such thing as a simple lifeform that one can start from. Pick what you consider to be the most primitive living thing that can independently exist and self-replicate without dependence on another living thing. Then perform a functional analysis of that living thing, reducing it to its critical components. All of those components are required for the living organism to function. Remove or slightly change one to where it no longer fits or cooperates with the other parts, and the entire system is dead. Tell me how does that organism get formed in the first place (the very thing Darwin claimed to explain...the ORIGIN of the living organism)? How does any organism, as Darwin claimed, self-originate via a chain of slight successive steps, when a host of simultaneously appearing design decisions are required to be present in EVERY living organism in order to be living, and not dead? Or if you wish, go back to the vastly simpler example I already posed: the 10-enzyme glycolysis cycle. Explain how a sequential decision-making process can build this multi-part subsystem (which has no living function on its own) one step at a time,, even within the context of an already living system? How will 9 of the 10 steps know to wait around for the last 3 million years for the 10th step to be stumbled upon, all the while the 9 steps providing no beneficisl functional purpose to the organism and therefore no survival advantage? The curious thing about glycolysis, too, is that it cannot be reduced to fewer steps, because each enzyme takes the output of the previous step and modifies it into a new form to be further modified by the subsequent step. If the function of any one step is not performed on the target molecules, the molecules will not be in a conformation that can be acted upon by the subsequent enzyme.

[@MaskedMarble]

@jclark2752 One more note regarding my "externally organizing paradigm": Manipulation of matter or conceptual design by an external agent is the only cause that has ever been empirically observed to produce organized multi-part systems of like complexity. That includes programmed systems which may create and manipulate multi-component designs, yet themselves originate from the mind of a programmer. So in my paradigm I'm sticking to empirical science. It's not an invalid paradigm that you can successfully object to, unless we can empirically observe (in the present) that there is another cause capable of demonstrating the production of systems of like sophistication.

[@samuelwaller4924]

Man, I sure was enjoying this until the unprompted creationism proselytizing segment. It's fine if you failed biology in middle school, I just don't want to hear about it. This computer and your dedication in building it is very impressive and inspiring, but you didn't need to bring religion into this let alone creationism of all things. It's honestly embarrassing.

[@MaskedMarble]

I’m game for dialectic if you have an intelligent response about the subject of biology rather than resorting to ad hominem. Please present your arguments using empirical data and sound reason. What is your response to my assertion (and Darwin’s own falsification test) that complex coordinated systems could not have survived over supposed millions of years of their own development before those systems were formed.

[@iupetre]

There is 0 evidence for abiogenesis.

[@samuelwaller4924]

@@iupetre clearly you believe that

[@VictorKwong-nm6gw]

did you like it

[@GravxMovies]

Amaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaazing!!!!!!!!!!!!! 😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱😱🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯🤯

[@MaskedMarble]

Thanks! 🤠

[@okboing]

This falls under the calculator category, not a full computer.

[@MaskedMarble]

That would be correct if we use the modern cultural definition of a computer. I’m using a more historical definition, which includes any device that automatically performs an operation (which includes an arithmetic operation) on binary data. There are some other interesting marble computers on KZbin whose operation is limited to addition. Thanks for watching. Have a wonderful Christmas! 🤠🎄

[@lilleopard_ty3662]

*just gets another and connects it yours* BOOM! 38 bit

[@MaskedMarble]

That would be cool. 274 billion!

[@lilleopard_ty3662]

@@MaskedMarble make an alu pls

[@MaskedMarble]

🤯 I was just trying to figure out how I could do subtraction without resorting to the 2’s complement trick, or maybe an encoder and decoder to do addition in base 10 numbers. If I get GraviTrax power switch I can make a Turing complete computer and do multiplication and division.

[@lilleopard_ty3662]

@@MaskedMarble less go. marble CPU

[@MaskedMarble]

Apple has the M1 chip. I’ll have the ME1 (Marble Edition 1).

[@TexDawg-fq5nx]

Jesus is Lord! God made us, we are no accident! I subscribed because it is great hearing a real person talk about Christ on National Television!

[@magicsasafras3414]

So you can count to 524,287? Edit: nvm my math sux

[@mth-ds2yl]

The cells that didn't function because of errors didn't survive to make more cells. The cells that did ok made some more cells. The cells that were exceptionally fit to their environment made exceptionally more cells. This works all up and down the line, and there's no reason it couldn't work with things we might not even consider alive today, but were the precursors to life. Why can't we just watch a cool video about marbles and logic, and not get added in a religious slant? Why can't natural selection be the tool used by the hand of God?

[@MaskedMarble]

Answer to first question: Because who we are and where we come from is the context in which everything else exists, including using our minds to create marble runs. If God created our minds, then every endeavor in which we use those minds bears his mention and inclusion. The false dichotomy by which we exclude God as being something "religious", and somehow unconnected to other areas of life, is errant. What endeavor or faculty of mankind does not utilize the bodies, minds, and souls he gave us? Anyone who protests at the mention of God and his creation is revealing that they have not fully come to terms with the fundamental reality of our existence: That none of us are self-existent. We are created. Answer to the second question: Because natural selection cannot create any new designs. It can only select from pre-existing designs. Darwinian evolution is, by definition, an undirected process. If God is directing it, then it is no longer the process of evolution. Pre-life cannot replicate, and therefore the evolutionary process cannot function on nonliving matter. And the simplest known living organism is immensely complex, sophisticated, coordinated, with parts that intelligently interface to handle only portions of a process whose critical parts must ALL be in place simultaneously in order to achieve complete system function. This requires making multiple design decisions in parallel up front before the system or subsystem initially goes live. Like an iPhone that is 99% complete but does not contain the ribbon cable connecting the screen, an organism containing 99% of its critical components would not be alive and functional. This stands 180 degrees in opposition to the serial decision-making process that Darwin described, of slight successive steps that are then evaluated by natural selection's quality control mechanism of elimination. Anything that doeen't work gets eliminated. But to get anything to work in the first place, you need well over 100 specific proteins and other micromachinery all working in coordinated symphony, each carrying out their respective parts which don't result in survivability on their own, but only in aggregate. My point in the video is that you can't start with 1 part and get to the 100 parts needed for system operation, when the requirement is that the resulting system must be functionally operational at every intermediate step along the way.

[@mth-ds2yl]

@@MaskedMarble i really appreciate the well written response, and sorry if I came off as a troll. You are clearly an intelligent person, and I don't intend to belittle you, or make light of your beliefs. You did say yourself, though, it is a topic for another video. You are of course free to make whatever content you want, and I respect that. In response to your thoughts, given enough time, a chimpanzee COULD possibly bang out on a keyboard Shakespeare, though there is no guarantee (the probability is close to 1 if enough time is given, but not exactly 1). So, given the vastness of space, time, and matter (billions of stars in a galaxy, billions of galaxies in the universe, and billions of years that have passed), it is possible life randomly arose from essentially nothing. It is not guaranteed, though. It is possible the right elements combined to form something self-replicating. This could have happened countless times, and they all ceased, but there could have been one that was well suited to its environment and reproduced. Random errors in it's code could allow for different offspring that were better suited for the environment went on to reproduce even better. We know this happens, and have seen it. During the industrial revolution in England a species of moth changed from white to black, as everything became covered in soot, and it was better equipped to survive, as opposed to the white ones. Did God intend for this directly, or did it happen of itself? I know there is no way to disprove your view. None of us were there to see the beginning of life, and as yet, we have not found evidence to support life arising from randomness. I do believe God IS randomness. Maybe the universe is God's way of running an infinite-bit computer to compute life itself. Just a crazy thought. Whatever the case is, I don't think you have to throw out your beliefs to understand that evolution is how life exists and adapts to the only constant in the universe--change. Maybe God was the initial spark that got it going. Maybe it was predetermined that this universe is designed intently to support life. Maybe this universe is one of infinite iterations, and the ones that don't support life don't have anyone there to ask questions, and the ones that do have things like us. Worlds in this universe that aren't conducive to life don't form it, and ones that can, do, and here we are. Evolution could apply even at that scale/macro viewpoint. Even if that was the case, God could still exist. I like to think God is in everything, and we are a way God loses him/itself in his/its own creation, only to discover him/itself again. I don't think God created life as a craftsman, more God creates in the same way we beat our hearts and digest our food. We can describe its processes, but I really can't tell you how I myself beat my heart. It just happens. Evolution is a fact, as life is always changing its forms, and there is an abundance of evidence. Maybe God planted the evidence to challenge us? I really wouldn't appreciate that, and it flies in the face of the idea of ever being able to know the principles of how the universe works. But, whether life arose of itself is still out for debate, and here we are. One day we may finally see how it was done. If you read this, thanks for letting me ramble!

[@MaskedMarble]

@mth-ds2yl Thanks for your response. I do believe people are oversimplifying when they state that evolution is a fact, because there are 3 different ideas that are conflated together as evolution. Since there is no scientifically precise definition of the theory of evolution, we have to look at these 3 components separately: 1. The part of evolution that is an empirical fact is that living things change over time. But this was known way before Darwin, with the breeding of dogs and pigeons. But even after all the variations, pigeons were still pigeons, and dogs still dogs. Darwin didn't write a book titled "how species change", but "on the origin of the species". We also need to consider the mechanisms by which living things change. It's rarely random mutations. It is most often a combination of DNA from mother and father,, and when we examine the mechanisms by which that happens, the proteins that swap and combine DNA that is passed on to pregeny recognize specific spots on the DNA to do the splicing. So this is a specified, controled process, not a random one, even if thw ourcome is somewhat random. My point is, it is clear that most variation within a genome results from programmed procedures that select and mix DNA from parents to children. The other 2 conponents of evolution are Darwin's 2 tenets: 2. That all life on earth is ancestrally related, and the differences in every living thing arose gradually through inheritance. 3. That the mechanism by which the changes to the descendants occurred was natural selection, defined as a random, undirected process. I consider items 2 and 3 to be myth. At the very least, we need to understand thay they are not fact or science, and never can be, because even if they are true, they represent historical events. Historical events cannot be observed in the present, and are therefore outside the realm of repeatable, observable, testable science. This is where people go astray when they state that evolution is fact. They are conflating the factualness of item #1 with the mythical storytelling of items #2 and #3. The last two items never can present anything but token cherry-picked evidence. But if wvolution is truly true, then it should explain EVERYTHING in which species differ. It has to explain how complex subsystems composed of multiple critical parts could arise such as brains, eyes, hearts, proprioception, flight, digestion, and so much more. Think about even a simple hormone signal in the body. It does no good to produce a hormone if other cells don't recognize the signal, starting a signal cascade, that then mediates a helpful response. How do you get that through a chain of slight, successive deviations. The example of typewriters is a red herring, because there's only 119 possibilities to hit. But in real life, atoms are not funneled into only 119 possibilities for how they could interact. And we know this intuitively: If the astronauts who first landed on the moon had found a book of shakespeare on the lunar surface, it would not be reasonable to conclude that the book is just a random arrangement of atoms that would eventually occur if there were merely enough planets full of matter. Besides, the typewriter analogy also fails because it starts with a pre-existing pattern of information to match. Where did that information come from? A mind! Also, for the analogy to be valid, since living things must all be survivable in an unbroken chain, then there must be an unbroken chain of trial books leading up to the one that produced Shakespeare's plays. And each intermediate version in that chain must be a fully functional play with rational dialogue, wit and humor, and consistent characters all coordinated into a logically unfolding story, just as every intermediate species must have all the equipment it needs to survive as a multicullular gaggle of cells. Lastly, the moth analogy has been recently discovered to not be the example as it was once thought. This is not an example of evolution (which requires the introduction of new, novel information and mechanisms where they previously did not exist). I'll look for the link on article I read about the moth wing color.

[@MaskedMarble]

evolutionnews.org/2016/11/peppered_moth_h/

[@mth-ds2yl]

@@MaskedMarble I see where you are coming from, but a lot of science is based in empirical evidence. The evidence for evolution is manifold, not cherry-picked. I won't go into more examples, but every living thing has traces left from prior stages of its heritage life forms. What I am hearing is a lot of other peoples' arguments against evolution that I have heard before (and I am sure you can say the same of me). The results CAN be reproduced, if we somehow could recreate the conditions for the changes, but tell me how to reproduce something as simple as a three-body problem, and then reproduce the untold variables that go into evolving a life form, and I'll buy you a coke. However, I would challenge you, if you haven't already (you are clearly well-read), to do research that argues FOR it's validity. If you truly open yourself to the idea that it COULD be a fact, but still walk away believing what you do now, then I would applaud that. But, to me, fossil records, geological stratification of fossil distribution, evidence found within currently living things, genetic similarities within species that have branched from each other (i.e. humans and chimps), and again, the fossil records to support the evidence of the branches, the simplest explanation to me is that evolution really happens. Rather than trying to force reality to bend to my spiritual beliefs, I would rather step back and see how I can more fully understand reality in an effort to bolster my spiritual beliefs. Johannes Kepler believed the orbits of the planets must be perfect circles, as God is perfect, and his creation would have them be perfect. When he couldn't square the empirical evidence with this, he discovered EVERY orbit is elliptical. It was tough for him to swallow, because his initial goal was to understand the mind of God. He bravely put aside his firmly held beliefs and faced reality for what it was, and in the process attained what could be argued as a deeper understanding of the mind of God than if his presupposed beliefs had been true. This discovery went on to allow Newton to essentially discover macro-physics, and to create calculus to do so. With this we sent vehicles to the planets and into interstellar space. We are clearly at an impasse, and it is not my job to change your mind. I understand this concept can upend the bedrock of how one constructs their comprehension of reality itself. For some it is more beautiful to believe we are the center of the mind of a creator, and I respect that, but for me it is far more beautiful to see how everything on this planet is connected through an ancient web of life, and that vast amounts of time and an incredibly unlikely chain of events led up to me typing this message to you. All the best!

[@hifive789]

What's the RAM and the CPU? 😂

[@MaskedMarble]

😄👍 I think maybe I should call it an MPU …marble processing unit.

[@FyTrax]

i wanna play minecraft on it XD (no i dont think that will work)

[@MaskedMarble]

🤣 That would be the slowest game of Minecraft in the 🌎!!

[@antonf.9278]

If you really believe that about evolution, you have lost your marbles.

[@MaskedMarble]

Ah, yes, the ad hominem response. That's how we can distinguish the pseudo-science of evolutionary theory from reality. Real science would simply point out how the empirical evidence rules out intelligence as a cause of the seemingly designed biological systems in every living thing. It would also demonstrate how matter, space, and energy, which all exist within a cause-and-effect cosmos, are in actuality self-existent, requiring no prior cause, thus proving that the naturalistic/materialistic premise isn't the self-defeating argument that it appears to be (that is, the self-evident problem that cause-and-effect systems cannot ever be self-causing; they must necessarily point outside themselves to an ultimate cause/beginning in order to prevent an infinite chain of cause-and-effect which would require an infinite number of time-based occurrences prior to the current time, effectively preventing the present state of things, and even time itself, from ever occurring).

[@boscoyuen8970]

Not a computer but a calculator