This is the slowest spaceship known, right? (Which isn't a machine made out of other parts?)
It also helps that Games of Life can be saved and reloaded. If your lab bench explodes, too bad, start over from scratch (assuming you're uninjured).
(cough)
Are we sure of that yet?
> Real Life physics is a little less apt to collapse into a seething mass of undifferentiated matter of you poke it in the wrong place.
Are we sure of that yet?
Outside the universe ain't. But even though, I can confidently say that we are definitely inside.
Not a very tangible idea, but not useless of purpose of reasoning about the affairs of things.
RL follows quantum mechanics. As far as we know, its state cannot be recorded perfectly.
GoL is a Turing Machine. Its state can be recorded perfectly.
RL follows relativity. There is no equivalent in GoL.
Hashlife gives a method to compute GoL boards faster than processing each cell, and gives an exact answer. There is no equivalent for RL. At best there are probabilistic predictions. (There might be a 1E-50000 chance that the Sun won't rise tomorrow because all of the atoms in the Sun fuse at the same time and it blows up.)
Of course there is an equivalent of relativity! There's a fixed, ultimate speed-limit (i.e. c) of once-cell/time-step. It is not possible to transmit information faster than this in GoL.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Superfluid_vacuum_theory#Relat...
"Relativistic quantum field theory"
This is already experimentally observed in our own universe. Quantum noise exists in vacuums.
If you look at C in GoL as the fastest an actual black square can propagate, then of course you'll validate your naive assumptions that our universe could never be digitally replicated by GoL. But if you take the idea of implementing a primordial sea of quantum noise, and looking at the GoL board not as physical particles directly, but as a deeper construct. Then you can actually replicate relativity.
To estimate probability of an event you must have a sample were both have occurred, to provide a probability for something like the Sun not rising tomorrow is pure non-sense.
The same can't be said for the atoms in the sun.
You also have to make an arbitrary decision about when the cannonball touches the ground. How much interaction is needed between the atoms of the cannonball and ground before you say there's contact?
These issues don't exist in the GoL universe.