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The Grand DesignTo get a taste for how that works, consider what happens when gliders are shot at a simple 2 ц— 2 block of live squares. If the gliders approach in just the right way, the block, which had been stationary, will move toward or away from the source of the gliders. In this way, the block can simulate a computer memory. In fact, all the basic functions of a modern computer, such as AND and OR gates, can also be created from gliders. In this manner, just as electrical signals are employed in a physical computer, streams of gliders can be employed to send and process information. In the Game of Life, as in our world, self-reproducing patterns are complex objects. One estimate, based on the earlier work of mathematician John von Neumann, places the minimum size of a self-replicating pattern in the Game of Life at ten trillion squares-roughly the number of molecules in a single human cell. One can define living beings as complex systems of limited size that are stable and that reproduce themselves. The objects described above satisfy the reproduction condition but are probably not stable: A small disturbance from outside would probably wreck the delicate mechanism ...» |
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