[ExI] Occam's razor

[Dave S]

On Friday, January 20th, 2023 at 9:38 PM, Dan TheBookMan via extropy-chat <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org> wrote:

> Oh? I would think there are simple algorithms which yield very complex patterns.

A great example of that is Conway's Game of Life <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life>.

An infinite 2D grid of cells that are either dead or alive. At each step, very simple rules determine which cells live, die, or are born:

- Any live cell with two or three live neighbours survives.
- Any dead cell with three live neighbours becomes a live cell.
- All other live cells die in the next generation. Similarly, all other dead cells stay dead.*

Despite the simple rules, it's possible to construct incredibly complex machines, up to and including a Turing machine, meaning that it can perform any computational task possible.

*From the Wikipedia article,

-Dave
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