Algorithmic Specified Complexity Part II: Application to Conway’s Game of Life

Episode 904 February 08, 2016 00:13:15
Algorithmic Specified Complexity Part II: Application to Conway’s Game of Life
Intelligent Design the Future
Algorithmic Specified Complexity Part II: Application to Conway’s Game of Life

Feb 08 2016 | 00:13:15

/

Show Notes

On this episode of ID The Future, Robert Marks and Winston Ewert, both of the Evolutionary Informatics Lab, discuss three of their recently published papers dealing with evolutionary informatics, algorithmic specified complexity and how information makes evolution work. This is the second of three segments.

Conway’s Game of Life is played on a rectangular grid. Cells live or die depending on the cells that surround them. Hobbyists have designed highly complex and interesting patterns using Conway’s four simple rules of birth, death and survival. Patterns include oscillators, spaceships and glider guns. Dr. Winston Ewert explains how the theory of algorithmic specified complexity can be applied to measure, in bits, the degree to which these cellular automata life forms are designed. The discussion centers around the peer-reviewed journal article:

Winston Ewert, William A. Dembski and Robert J. Marks II, "Algorithmic Specified Complexity in the Game of Life," IEEE Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics: Systems, Volume 45, Issue 4, April 2015, pp. 584-594 DOI: 10.1109/TSMC.2014.2331917

The paper is available online here: https://robertmarks.org/REPRINTS/2015_AlgorithmicSpecifiedComplexityInTheGameOfLife.pdf

Other Episodes

Episode 751

May 19, 2014 00:10:56
Episode Cover

Dr. Rob Sheldon: What the BICEP2 Consortium's Discovery Means

On this episode of ID the Future, Casey Luskin talks with physicist Rob Sheldon about the BICEP2 Consortium's discovery, which is said to be...

Listen

Episode 1246

August 21, 2019 00:17:27
Episode Cover

Dr. Brian Miller On Complex Systems and ‘Intellectual Captivity’

On this episode of ID the Future, physicist Dr. Brian Miller explains several challenges to the origin of life, from thermodynamic challenges to the...

Listen

Episode 1993

December 13, 2024 00:11:36
Episode Cover

Physicist Eric Hedin Talks Entropy and the Origin of Life

On today’s ID the Future from the archive, host Eric Anderson sits down with Canceled Science author and physicist Eric Hedin to discuss Hedin’s...

Listen