News for hackers. Stuff that matters.

A comment on A Lizard with Scales That Behave Like a Cellular Automaton. Parent comment

Re:A Lizard with Scales That Behave Like a Cellular Automaton by david-given on Thursday April 13, 2017 @08:35AM (#14106242)
If you're interested in cellular automata, a must read is Greg Egan's short story _Wang's Carpets_, which later became a chapter in his novel _Diaspora_ (which is superb). It's not formally published on the interwebs but there are copies floating around everywhere.

Cellular automatons occur everywhere in nature. We don't really have the technology to explore them; I do find myself wondering if there are automata sophisticated enough to support complex structures, hiding in the higher-order interactions, which are completely invisible to us...

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A Lizard with Scales That Behave Like a Cellular Automaton by db48x on Thursday April 13, 2017 @01:15PM (#14108940)
Yea, Diaspora was an excellent book.

Biology tends not to be much like the mathematical cellular automata; it's generally much messier. On the other hand, we're made up of lots of cells and all of those cells are just tiny machines following programs, so I guess it's true by definition. Still, it's nothing like the minimal automata everyone likes to play with.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A Lizard with Scales That Behave Like a Cellular Automaton by dmd on Thursday April 13, 2017 @12:33PM (#14108505)
His "permutation city" is directly about cellular automata.
[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:A Lizard with Scales That Behave Like a Cellular Automaton by dudeonthenet on Thursday April 13, 2017 @01:39PM (#14109161)
Hah.. beat me to it :) I was about to recommend Permutation City while seeing your comment. That was an intense book, to say the least.
[ Parent | on HN ]