SmoothLifeL

[@tim_hutton]

There are a lot of wacky and psychedelic CA rules out there but SmoothLife by Stephan Rafler is different. Designed as a continuous version of Conway's Game of Life (using floating point numbers instead of integers), it supports a glider that can travel in any direction, as well as rotating pairs and strange elastic rope things. Don't miss the nice glider collision at around 3:12. Technical details can be found on the youtube page: SmoothLifeL

[@djspyhunter]

Coolest computer generated thing I've seen in a while! I should upload some CA vids I've done - you may enjoy

[@kw1ksh0t]

We need Boards of Canada in the background!

[@tim_hutton]

Discussions happening: On Reddit: www.reddit.com/r/compsci/comments/118svz/smoothlife_a_continuous_version_of_conways_game/ On Metafilter: www.metafilter.com/120749/Smoothlife On Hacker News: news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4642133 On BoingBoing: boingboing.net/2012/10/11/game-of-life-with-floating-poi.html On Reddit math: www.reddit.com/r/math/comments/11btrd/conways_game_of_life_using_floating_point_values/

[@tim_hutton]

***** : "Slow Electronica" by DaPhinoXX on MusicShake

[@eterevsky]

Tim Hutton, it's really fascinating. I read the paper and watched the slides, but didn't quite understand if this is generated with continuous time or discrete. Is it possible to convert the kernel (a s(m, n) function) from discrete to continuous, so that you would end up with the same or almost the same automaton? At the first glance, the continuous and discrete rules (at least as they are formulated in the paper) should lead to automatons with very different properties. For example, discreet automatons have fixed "speed of light": no signal can travel faster than outer radius per time step, while in continuous automaton the signal travels instantly. Also, what really interests me is if it is possible to modify the rules so that they were invariant under Lorentz transformation. Because if it is possible, then you get rid of the one fixed reference system and make everything much more world-like. (By the way, it might happen that already the rule that you are using is invariant...)

[@geekkid34]

It is interesting too see that the blobs of "life" look similar to cells

[@zanovatlatoh9671]

This one is very compelling! Even with this entirely different set of rules, you get gliders. I also like how they resemble single-celled organisms.

[@tim_hutton]

The rule is a differential equation, which just means that the instantaneous rate of change can be calculated at any location. We use the Euler method to step forward in time. So our simulation is discrete in space and time but the divisions can be made artificially small, so we can simulate a fully continuous system.

[@MADMACHlNE]

Seeing this and its resemblance to what one might see under a microscope makes me wonder if our universe does have a set of GOL-style rules, and we are merely simulated beings created by some really, really nerdy god. If anything is worth worshiping, a god that is willing to, just for the hack value, come up with a simple algorithm from which a universe emerges certainly is.

[@trashandchaos]

There's actually an entire theory behind this sort of thing, Stephen Wolfram wrote a giant book on the theoretical applications of Cellular Automation in a variety of fields. It's called A New Kind of Science.

[@gabemerritt3139]

MM!! Simulation theory for the win!

[@waddarf4628]

But I have one small fact. Cells are not the simplest things in our universe.

[@Fireball248]

@@waddarf4628 in which case the 'cells' here would merely be replaced by atoms, then by quarks and other elementary particles. The same thing applies.

[@maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaan]

69th like, nice

[@HisHaloness]

Now we need this in 3d...

[@MaxwellTaylor0]

That's precisely what I'm currently working on! :)

[@HisHaloness]

Maxwell Taylor Let me know when you're done. I think such a program would have massive implications.

[@ZenithKnight]

@@MaxwellTaylor0 hey, have you made this yet?

[@mrwess1927]

Maxwell R Taylor did you finish it yet? How is the progress?

[@chrischiesa3253]

@@MaxwellTaylor0 Count another one (a newcomer, even) interested in the outcome of your 3D endeavor.

[@squishmellow3]

Nobody: My eyes whenever im staring off into the distance:

[@tim_hutton]

"Slow Electronica" by DaPhinoXX on MusicShake

[@lismaryhenriquez2414]

It's cool how these shapes move. They connect and disconnect. Though this is very cool, I believe in my opinion it would look better or cooler if it were in color. Instead of black and white I would like to see this with a variety of other colors too.

[@RAMB0X35]

Am I the only one who finds it satisfying to watch them split in two

[@EatmySmellyFeet]

No.

[@DarkAnfi123]

Qué 2, es incluso más satisfactorio cuando se dividen en 3 xdd

[@treycoachman520]

I like this interesting approach to the Game of Life, I've learned what the Game of Life is and the free direction all the objects can go into

[@Lamoni]

This is amazing. Coolest version of Conway's Game of Life that I've ever seen.

[@moxiefoxie3753]

This is the coolest video I've seen all week!

[@tim_hutton]

Just to clarify - the 74 minutes was running in Ready. Stephan has his own software, at the sourceforge link, that uses FFT and runs much faster.

[@tim_hutton]

If the space and time divisions are too large then the simulation goes wrong. Below a certain point the simulation is stable and reasonably accurate. We try to stay below that point. See Wikipedia on numerical stability. One informal test is that the same behavior is seen - compare the gliders with the ones in my "glider closeup" video.

[@MiguelCVieira]

The music is actually based on Bach's Prelude 1 in C major from the Well-Tempered Clavier.

[@irvalfirestar6265]

For some reason this reminds me of algae life under a microscope. In another note though, that spinning glider.

[@justy256]

Anyone who cannot conceive how we evolved from inanimate objects has suffered an epic failure of imagination.

[@gabemerritt3139]

Just the Just game of life and how perfectly complex it can become makes life seem plausible

[@2lazyt378]

Technicly we did, and i mean we did evolve from random formations of carbon and other proteins that managed to began self replicating itself.

[@vitulus_]

@Jakob Jones No one knows who or why the fundamental rules exist. Only idiots assume that a being created these rules without any evidence for such being. Mainly due to that there is no conceivable way to prove something outside this universe. _"Whatever you want to call inanimate means nothing"_ no, it means the object is inanimate as the definition of inanimate is not nothing. _"Life is life and it has a consciousness"_ How do you know all life has consciousness. How do you know a single celled organism like bacteria has consciousness. _"even if it's just "rules""_ wtf is this meant to mean? _" If we are all just emergent properties from simple rules, that really doesn't change anything. "_ It changes a lot, it shows that a universe doesn't need a complex creator but just a simple set of rules which does not require a designer. _"You need to get your head out your ass and stop trying to prove that santa doesn't exist."_ I think you need to get your head out of your ass and realize that he wasn't trying to disprove anything.

[@johnsherfey3675]

Coded by a person yep. Totally not just a bunch of rules and code some guy made nope...

[@Crispy656forever]

you are made from your dads food he ate before your birthing and then after the reproduction a lot of you is made of mom and her food

[@tomaszwalczak2809]

Flow video game + smooth life = success 

[@ghostbusterz]

Pretty awesome. What's the music?

[@tim_hutton]

Runge-Kutta might give us faster results - slightly more expensive per iteration but much larger timesteps. If you know how to do it, please consider joining our Ready project, so everyone can benefit.

[@Q_20]

What is the music? I like it

[@paulorr4126]

The music is an electronica version of the Canon in D, by Pachabel.

[@Q_20]

Paul Orr Thank you

[@myrjavi]

@@paulorr4126 uh no

[@dillonwells3220]

this is so cool! The way all the shapes just become each other in a way. The way they all become one. How do they move in that way? I really like this because its a facinating way to see shapes combine with each other.

[@bobby07816]

My favourite bit was at 0:00. Do most starting conditions produce interesting results, or they generally collapse into nothing?

[@rworldzcorpRworldzenterprize]

ravedaman

[@develrandomdankmemes7586]

hm@@rworldzcorpRworldzenterprize

[@viwas002]

This is kinda beautiful, man!

[@Oli1974]

It would be really interesting if with this approach also could be made turing-complete crazy huge things like recently discovered with the original Conway GOL.

[@loganrichter9384]

this looks like its alive

[@DasAntiNaziBroetchen]

Brother!

[@iyxan23]

This 7 years old video got onto my recommendations.

[@1d10tcannotmakeusername]

I found it by searching for "conway's game of life floating point"

[@Gwern0]

Wow, it's so weirdly organic looking.

[@ryuusaki2211]

i feel like I am watching self-assembling wires and Conway's Game of Life at the same time

[@hanspeter5795]

Very nice, you have become a part of my "skilled work" for school^^

[@tim_hutton]

Might be cause of the oscillation you can see in the glider closeup.

[@tim_hutton]

Are you asking about Ready, Stephan's sourceforge programs, or building Mark VandeWettering's version?

[@jermanicawilson4542]

The music goes well with all the movement....

[@AutodidacticPhd]

So, is there a tipping point where the arbitrary choice of resolution causes the system to become chaotic or static? Or do such choices just change the relative scale of the simulation area/duration? ...I have about a million more questions, but I'll try to save the rest until I've had a chance to read the paper.

[@visualbasicimp]

euler's method? Couldn't you use a better numerical integration method like Runge-Kutta, one whose errors don't grow as large as quickly? Or is that not an issue?

[@AutodidacticPhd]

Took me a minute to realize the surface was a toroid. Just out of curiosity, do you know if there are any 3d rule sets that include a stable 2d rule as a subset? I ask because there is such a situation (paper in the journal Complex Systems) in 3d grid cellular automata, where stable plains of death can be created allowing you to seal off a plainer section with a depth of one, the behaviors within it are identical to a particular 2d CA, not sure if Conway's rule can be built this way.

[@TimJSwan]

Why doesn't everyone know about this already??

[@tim_hutton]

Yeah. :( I should have thought about the soundtrack before uploading. Think of the last bit of video as a bonus.

[@nealmcb]

Beautiful - thanks! Is it Turing-complete, like the original? I.e. is there a pattern for it that functions as a universal Turing machine?

[@1d10tcannotmakeusername]

I'm sure you could make a turing-complete structure in a SmoothlifeL-like program, it would just take a lot more effort and would probably resemble a live brain.

[@kyyay-yt]

They look like water molecules at some points

[@syaoranoni54326]

we've created life

[@johnsherfey3675]

Cellular auto Marion with floats are something I wish was more popular.

[@AutodidacticPhd]

It isn't actually, though I can understand the confusion. There are several harmonic themes that pop up over and over again in Euro/US music, I'd suggest looking up Rob Paravonian's Pachelbel Rant.

[@tim_hutton]

Download Ready and try it yourself (instructions in the video description) - it lets you paint on the image. Or you can edit the file to change the initial_pattern_generator section.

[@AdeonWriter]

This is my favorite CA of all time, just saying.

[@Ilija_Ilievski]

Very nice. The only thing is missing to be super awesome is background music.

[@st1nger13]

WOW! It's looks amazing! Is the System stationary?

[@irvalfirestar6265]

For some reason this reminds me of algae life under a microscope. In another note, that spinning glider.

[@arc8dia]

I like the song! It's a smoooooooth life

[@rworldzcorpRworldzenterprize]

I need to know who did this song

[@nadie7480]

"Slow Electronica" by DaPhinoXX on MusicShake

[@benjaminwang8182]

That's truly awesome!! Thank you very much for sharing it!

[@jastice]

Simply beautiful.

[@Xcel271]

a message about the bonds you create in your short little life

[@AnonEMoose-mr8jm]

muh edges

[@GregoryPSmith]

You should be able to audio-swap after upload via youtube (assuming you find something worthy of swapping with)

[@samuelvidal3437]

The music : kzbin.info/www/bejne/rYSup5x_l8lnadk Musicshake - Slow electronica

[@berlinbrown03]

Cool, you are the artificial chemistry guy. Keep up the good work.

[@dnimeerf9532]

This is utterly fascinating, how did you get this organized emergent appearing group activity?

[@rhysman0001]

are logic gates ect possible to design in this?

[@DanielLCarrier]

Can you implement it on a sphere?

[@HowardCShawIII]

Daniel Carrier Yes, Mikola Lysenko has a demonstration on KZbin of this adapted for curved surfaces (he uses the Stanford Bunny, but a sphere would work with his version.)

[@daggawagga]

In case anyone is wondering today, there's an executable sample using a sphere surface called SmoothLifeSphere in sourceforge.net/projects/smoothlife/

[@nameguy101]

What song is this?

[@nadie7480]

"Slow Electronica" by DaPhinoXX on MusicShake

[@Rossilaz58]

All behaviour is emergent and we are just a consequence of the initial setup of the universe

[@oni2ink]

It's incredible. Looks like real cells :o

[@royalninja2823]

What's the music playing here?

[@griffybear69]

What made you try to figure this out? Have you tried to use a different area?

[@NemoThorx]

This is glorious! How long till it's an xscreensaver hack? ...or an animated background for android?

[@1d10tcannotmakeusername]

2020 and it still isn't an xscreensaver hack

[@NemoThorx]

@@1d10tcannotmakeusername I know right! The original comments were in an era where yt didn't thread replies, and modern out-of-order replies mean the original responses to this query are jumbled, but were basically "it's too computationally hard for this", to which I commented about waiting half a decade for Moore's law to catch up, and then someone said they'd worked out an efficiency so maybe possible after all! I lack the coding skills however...

[@harbingerdawn]

2:13 They're dancing ♥

[@eaglgenes101]

I'm having trouble running this thing on my computer... I tried the smoothlife thing, and it complained about some OpenGL error 1282, the BASIC version was so shitty I abandoned it, and the ready way couldn't function because of a lack of openCL. My admin will probably be pissed if I make any significant changes to the computer (such as downloading a driver). Help?

[@Tiniuc]

This should be a screensaver. Just sayin'.

[@greggg5555]

I think that screensaver would use more of the computer than if not used

[@theairaccumulator7144]

@@greggg5555 it could be prerecorded

[@vonboomslang6060]

God this is mesmerizing

[@driftliketokyo34ftw35]

Must be really hard to create gliders now.

[@Nugcon]

Is this based on Conway's game of life?

[@skyr8449]

Interesting how this simulation prefers structures such as strings and orbs, are those pre-programmed?

[@skyr8449]

also, is this turing complete?

[@drdca8263]

Lord Lima Bean I don't think the strings or orbs are built in. I don't think this is known to be turning complete, but it seems fairly likely

[@tim_hutton]

Ready needs OpenCL, so that won't work if you can't install it. You'll have to ask Stephan about his smoothlife implementation but I'm guessing that if your graphics card doesn't support what he needs then it won't work. Mark VandeWettering (at Pixar) made a CPU implementation, here: brainwagon . org 2012/10/18/simple-code-implementing-the-smoothlifel-cellular-automata/ which you might be able to compile if you're on Linux.

[@eaglgenes101]

Running windows XP. Anything special I should do?

[@berlinbrown03]

I don't understand, the game of life is a cellular game. How do you build it without cells?

[@MrCubFan415]

Standalone strand at 2:24

[@JPSugarbroad]

What's the music?

[@RealMaxwell]

Amazing - enjoyed it very much!

[@sergeboisse]

This is a definitive proof that Lady Ada Lovelace was wrong when she wrote that the [computer] could only do what it has been instructed to do. Unexpected incredibly complex behaviour can arise even from simple rules. By the way, those who say evolution is wrong because "complexity cannot stem out from simplicity" are making the same mistake.

[@markjens9046]

Well, this simulation was programmed by a set of instructions, computer can only do what it has been instructed to, which is to run the set of rules

[@avananana]

Well, technically the computer isn't doing anything EXCEPT doing what it's been instructed to do. Your claim is false because computers can't do anything except follow instructions. Want a proof? Heard about those cool Neural Network designs? Those cool AI networks that are there to teach a computer how to do stuff? Well, guess what, you give the computer some numbers, it calculates an output by following instructions given by us. Bam, proof. But seriously, can people stop saying that computers will one day become "real life" and do whatever the fuck they want? Sure, the part where they do whatever the fuck they want might be true, but again, computers can only follow instructions. That's kind of what a computer is, a technical thingy-wingy that's there to follow instructions, also known as code.

[@davejacob5208]

@Pouty MacPotatohead false dichotomy. what you WANT is SET and not part of what you choose. so you follow this set system - given that you are at least so "free" as to follow your own will.

[@davejacob5208]

@Pouty MacPotatohead 1. in the moment i choose according to my will, this will (what i want) has to be set, otherwise the phrase "doing what you want" does not mean anything. 2. what you choose is in that case just as determined as your will. - i never pretended like what you choose is NOT set. that is why i put the word "free" into these two " " .

[@davejacob5208]

@Pouty MacPotatohead learn. to. read. i am NOT CLAIMING that we are NOT programmed. i wrote my bachelor thesis (!) about how the common definition of free will describes a logical IMPOSSIBLE thing. i am a strong determinist! are you unable to understand that you and i have the SAME POSITION !? !? !? it is evident by EVERY SENTENCE i wrote so far. nothing i wrote is invalid...

[@miguelbaltazar7606]

im the only one who thinks that the music is absolutely wow, right?

[@SincerelyScribe]

SUCH EYE CANDY. I CAN'T BELIEVE THIS IS MADE THROUGH CODING.

[@gabemerritt3139]

All CGI is made through coding so...

[@thefederalist1713]

At some points it looks like plant cells, but with nothing inside

[@synthetic_paul]

very beautiful.

[@vNCAwizard]

Smooth Life is interesting.

[@tunapig]

good music too

[@danielhoo8053]

Thank you.

[@Spherey]

this looks like an mri scan

[@over_complicated542]

Amazing!

[@maxfmfdm]

I need closure

[@arado240dd]

great screen saver

[@FKeel1]

wow. this is really cool :-)

[@eaglgenes101]

Lo, anyone going to help?

[@darwinc9294]

Anyone else getting recommended this video?

[@konstantingeist3587]

So that is how strings form in string theory :)

[@kostiklife904]

Looks cyriak's animation

[@lynxf]

if they'll evolve for billion of years, they'll become intelligent

[@arthurkarmanilov2998]

wanna same screensaver )))

[@wolfpitvids6336]

simply awesome! You should use your skill to do something brilliant

[@Robinso516]

hey! this is brilliant! xD

[@subzeroelectronics3022]

The music sounds like Canon in D