Thread for your miscellaneous posts and discussions

[confocaloid]

[...] Please tell me how this is problematic. [...]

When ppl are talking about "antagonist" and/or "banning each other" and/or "corruption" and so on, that's already problematic in a clear way. They aren't talking about CGoL/CA. The forums are intended for talking about CGoL/CA.

When ppl are getting emotionally attached to all that offtopic talk, and begin to feel offended / begin trying to exclude each other / interfere with each other, that's very clearly problematic ("making fun of others", "having fun at the expense of others").

Regardless, it is high-volume, zero-long-term-contribution, and usually low-effort, noise. These "games" fail to contribute anything to the existing knowledge about Conway's Life or other cellular automata. These "games" fail to lead to better understanding of Conway's Life or other cellular automata.

[Aleph]

[...] Please tell me how this is problematic. [...]

When ppl are talking about "antagonist" and/or "banning each other" and/or "corruption" and so on, that's already problematic in a clear way. They aren't talking about CGoL/CA. The forums are intended for talking about CGoL/CA.

I agree that "banning each other" is problematic, but "corruption" here is quite literally just random soups. Seems CA-related to me.

When ppl are getting emotionally attached to all that offtopic talk, and begin to feel offended / begin trying to exclude each other / interfere with each other, that's very clearly problematic ("making fun of others", "having fun at the expense of others").

I wasn't doing any of that??? "corruption" isn't a person, and I spent the vast majority of my time just creating Mysterious Fragments from "corruption" in a process detailed about two pages ago, and which is insanely high effort. It's closer to Solitaire of Life than anything else.

Regardless, it is high-volume, zero-long-term-contribution, and usually low-effort, noise. These "games" fail to contribute anything to the existing knowledge about Conway's Life or other cellular automata. These "games" fail to lead to better understanding of Conway's Life or other cellular automata.

The amount of effort required for me to make a single post there makes this clearly not low-effort, and the amount of time required for me to make a single post there makes this clearly not high-volume. Again, this is Solitaire of Life cranked up to an extremely high degree, so it is clearly extremely CA-related.

[confocaloid]

[...] I agree that "banning each other" is problematic, but "corruption" here is quite literally just random soups. Seems CA-related to me. [...]

Reading things quite literally, "corruption" sounds like corruption. Which very emphatically fails to sound like something reasonable and/or CA-related.

(Similar issues are often visible with various pieces of local jargon. It appears to "make sense" to frequent users of the jargon, but it can come across as some sort of gibberish (or worse) to other ppl. In other words, it doesn't really make sense.)

Further, I fail to see how posting lots of "arbitrary pictures" (high-volume multistate patterns which aren't really any kind of interesting CA patterns, and instead are merely used as images/pictures) could possibly be helpful.
Such "arbitrary pictures" fail to contribute anything to the knowledge or understanding of CGoL/CA

By default, "random-looking patterns" don't contribute anything to the knowledge or understanding, and should be avoided, at least until and unless there is a clear explanation of why/how a given pattern is noteworthy. (For example, it might be a small soup producing some rare reaction/object. But in most cases, it's just yet another unremarkable arbitrary configuration, and it shouldn't be posted at all.)

[...] I spent the vast majority of my time just creating Mysterious Fragments from "corruption" in a process detailed about two pages ago, and which is insanely high effort. It's closer to Solitaire of Life than anything else. [...]
[...] Again, this is Solitaire of Life cranked up to an extremely high degree, so it is clearly extremely CA-related.

From what was written on this so far, it doesn't sound very CA-related. Instead, it sounds like an irrelevant distraction from the interesting CA-related topics (distraction from other topics which deserve more attention).

There are ppl who spent an absolutely insane amount of their time and efforts trying to find a way to trisect an arbitrary angle using an unmarked straightedge and a compass. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angle_trisection
There are ppl who spent an absolutely insane amount of their time and efforts trying to square the circle. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squaring_the_circle
So what?

[Aleph]

[...] I spent the vast majority of my time just creating Mysterious Fragments from "corruption" in a process detailed about two pages ago, and which is insanely high effort. It's closer to Solitaire of Life than anything else. [...]
[...] Again, this is Solitaire of Life cranked up to an extremely high degree, so it is clearly extremely CA-related.

From what was written on this so far, it doesn't sound very CA-related. Instead, it sounds like an irrelevant distraction from the interesting CA-related topics (distraction from other topics which deserve more attention).

Out of curiosity, what do you think of Solitaire of Life itself? I can't tell whether this response is about Solitaire of Life or the Mysterious Fragment thing.
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3231&p=55280&hilit ... ife#p55280

[confocaloid]

My response is about lots of relatively-recent attempts at "roleplaying". Those often involve posting lots of large multistate arbitrary patterns that are minor modifications of patterns posted earlier; mentions of "corruption" or "dimensions" or "portals" and so on; nonproductive bickering between participants; and those don't appear to lead to a long-term positive contribution to the local community around these forums.


The old thread you linked to was active years ago.
The old thread you linked to wasn't an attempt at "roleplay", as far as I can tell. Instead, it was just CA-related puzzles, described/understood as such.
It looks like there were no very large patterns either.
No obvious signs of any nonproductive bickering between involved people at the time, either.

[...] I spent the vast majority of my time just creating Mysterious Fragments from "corruption" in a process detailed about two pages ago, and which is insanely high effort. It's closer to Solitaire of Life than anything else. [...]
[...] Again, this is Solitaire of Life cranked up to an extremely high degree, so it is clearly extremely CA-related.

From what was written on this so far, it doesn't sound very CA-related. Instead, it sounds like an irrelevant distraction from the interesting CA-related topics (distraction from other topics which deserve more attention).

Out of curiosity, what do you think of Solitaire of Life itself? I can't tell whether this response is about Solitaire of Life or the Mysterious Fragment thing.
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3231&p=55280&hilit ... ife#p55280

---
edit (unrelated):

Why two copies of a post in a row?

[Aleph]

This thread intends to replace other roleplay threads. You are allowed to make roleplay and storytelling branches and dimensions.

My personal opinion: This one isn't really good. With the old stories thread, there were very few rules, and the rules that did exist allowed for open-ended development. Additionally, the old stories thread was something that I often turned into CA-related puzzles kind of like Solitaire of life, but with slightly different rules. On the other hand, this roleplay attaches an energy cost to each cell placement, which gets in the way of open-ended development, and leaving little room for the kinds of CA-related puzzles I had pulled from the old stories thread.

I had typed this a few days ago, but this response felt incomplete until now.

My response is about lots of relatively-recent attempts at "roleplaying". Those often involve posting lots of large multistate arbitrary patterns that are minor modifications of patterns posted earlier; mentions of "corruption" or "dimensions" or "portals" and so on; nonproductive bickering between participants; and those don't appear to lead to a long-term positive contribution to the local community around these forums.

Hm...I can only speak for my own participation in roleplay. I personally like participating in roleplay, and yet I find most of the roleplay threads in the sandbox to be uninteresting. I am not sure why, but I suspect that it's because in most of these roleplay threads, all the various rules mean that there isn't much room for open-ended actions. I *especially* hated all the bickering between participants in the few roleplay threads I was interested in, because I just wanted to actually do things. So what exactly did I do? For that, I look at the second part of your response.

The old thread you linked to was active years ago.
The old thread you linked to wasn't an attempt at "roleplay", as far as I can tell. Instead, it was just CA-related puzzles, described/understood as such.
It looks like there were no very large patterns either.
No obvious signs of any nonproductive bickering between involved people at the time, either.

In the old stories thread, I just "sat in the corner" and *created CA-related puzzles for myself*. That's pretty much it. The roleplay was simply a context from which I could find these puzzles, and a context in which I could post solutions to these puzzles. With this, I can go back to the first part of your response.

Those often involve posting lots of large multistate arbitrary patterns that are minor modifications of patterns posted earlier

This one is definitely fair, and not something I am sure on how to solve myself. I suspect that this problem would mostly be solved if there was a good way to describe each pattern in terms of what modifications were made to the previous pattern, though I still haven't worked out things like "applying a hundred sets of modifications might take time" and "someone could edit an early post and break the entire timeline".

mentions of "corruption" or "dimensions" or "portals" and so on

I can't say much about dimensions or portals, since I barely interacted with any of them. However, corruption is simply random soups and their descendants. While still of dubious notability on its own, corruption was where I got all my CA-related puzzles from in the old stories thread. And just in case, here's precedent of random soups being used as puzzles in Solitaire of Life, which you appear to be fine with. viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3231&p=55591&hilit=fill#p55591

and those don't appear to lead to a long-term positive contribution to the local community around these forums.

You appear to be fine with Solitaire of Life. Why would the CA-related puzzles I was doing in the old stories thread somehow be less okay?

[unname4798]

conways game of life roleplay had cells for energy from May of 2024. It is the oldest roleplay to introduce energy cells.

[confocaloid]

[...]

and those don't appear to lead to a long-term positive contribution to the local community around these forums.

You appear to be fine with Solitaire of Life. Why would the CA-related puzzles I was doing in the old stories thread somehow be less okay?

The problematic thing is mostly in the apparent desire to somehow "advertise" or "present" discussion of CA-related puzzles as if it were some kind of "roleplay" or "storytelling".

Recreational mathematics is interesting by itself. No need to add silly irrelevancies, people here like to think about hard problems.

CA-related puzzles are interesting by themselves, the way they are. You don't need to be cutesy or dramatic, just state the puzzle, define what would count as a solution. All the talk of "corruption" and "dimensions" and "energies" and "banning each other" and so forth, does nothing constructive, and simply spoils most of CA-related fun.

[...] random soups being used as puzzles in Solitaire of Life [...] viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3231&p=55591&hilit=fill#p55591 [...]

The post you linked to doesn't contain any soups.
Instead, it shows still-life pattern with alive cells in two different cellstates.

A random fill of right around 14% generates some nice puzzles.
Examples:

Code: Select all

x = 39, y = 15, rule = LifeHistory
.C2.A.CA$.2A2C.A$7.A9.C$.C4A.A8.A.C11.AC2.2A$A4.C.CA8.A.A10.C2.A.C$.C
.A15.C2.A8.C.C$AC.AC13.2C.C.C6.AC.C$2.A16.C.A.C6.A2.2A$2.C.A2C11.C2.
2C8.CA$.AC.A2.A11.2A11.C4.C$6.A.A7.3A2.C.A6.A5.A.C$C.AC3.C8.C2.C2.2A
6.AC5.A$AC2.A12.2A$3.A.C$4.A!

[PiSpaceships]

When I tried to participate in the roleplay, I tried to make a serious story, not "this appears, that disappears, and then I ban you". But my character was destroyed and nobody cares about it.

No more roleplays.
Or I can try to make my own.
But my version of roleplay is very specific, so nobody will play it.
I will play with myself, sad and lonely.
Can I just make it in my sandbox thread?
I am the loser.
*kills himself*

[unname4798]

1. In which roleplay it happened?
2. You didn't have your version of the roleplay, create it and allow (almost) everyone to participate!

[hotdogPi]

I feel like there are too many roleplay threads already. (I'm speaking as a normal user, not as a moderator.)

[unname4798]

I feel like there are too many roleplay threads already.

Maybe create a new site for the CA Roleplays and Storytelling and host new roleplays there?

[Aleph]

I feel like there are too many roleplay threads already.

Maybe create a new site for the CA Roleplays and Storytelling and host new roleplays there?

I like this idea. The question is if we can get LifeViewer working there too.

[unname4798]

Maybe create a new site for the CA Roleplays and Storytelling and host new roleplays there?

The question is if we can get LifeViewer working there too.

Let's just use a forum version of LifeViewer working in there.

[dvgrn]

Last time I did any experimenting with this kind of thing, I was able to get LifeViewer working on a Blogger.com weblog -- without too much trouble at all. LifeViewer is fairly forgiving that way.

[b-engine]

Good to know. I'm new to CGOL stuff, and I just assumed they were different as it takes different times for the block to form. I've mainly just tinkered with different results from sidewinders colliding with something else.

I'm surprised you even replied to my post on an obscure forum thread that hasn't had activity in three years.

Well, read the forum rules.
One way to contribute is to find a glider synthesis, usually involving only finding a natural reaction that forms it and use synthesis components - yet no one had automated this process.
Another is to find a cellular automaton: you could define one (specifically 2-state range-1 isotropic rule on Moore neighborhood in square grid) using Hensel notation.

Code: Select all

#C List of all conditions in Hensel notation
x = 0, y = 0, rule = B01ce2aceikn3aecijknrqy4aecijknrqtwyz5aecijknrqy6aceikn7ce8/S01ce2aceikn3aecijknrqy4aecijknrqtwyz5aecijknrqy6aceikn7ce8
o!

[TheWayOfTheCon]

Good to know. I'm new to CGOL stuff, and I just assumed they were different as it takes different times for the block to form. I've mainly just tinkered with different results from sidewinders colliding with something else.

I'm surprised you even replied to my post on an obscure forum thread that hasn't had activity in three years.

Well, read the forum rules.
One way to contribute is to find a glider synthesis, usually involving only finding a natural reaction that forms it and use synthesis components - yet no one had automated this process.
Another is to find a cellular automaton: you could define one (specifically 2-state range-1 isotropic rule on Moore neighborhood in square grid) using Hensel notation.

Code: Select all

#C List of all conditions in Hensel notation
x = 0, y = 0, rule = B01ce2aceikn3aecijknrqy4aecijknrqtwyz5aecijknrqy6aceikn7ce8/S01ce2aceikn3aecijknrqy4aecijknrqtwyz5aecijknrqy6aceikn7ce8
o!

I have been experimenting with certain sidewinder/creeper collisions, but nothing substantial has come out of it. IMO, the most intriguing collision I've found is probably this sidewinder/block collision that creates a block above. It could be used in engineered spaceships, but I ain't making something like that.

Code: Select all

x = 7, y = 3, rule = B3/13
3b2o2$3o$bo4$3b2o$3b2o!

[b-engine]

I have been experimenting with certain sidewinder/creeper collisions, but nothing substantial has come out of it. IMO, the most intriguing collision I've found is probably this sidewinder/block collision that creates a block above. It could be used in engineered spaceships, but I ain't making something like that.

Code: Select all

x = 7, y = 3, rule = B3/13
3b2o2$3o$bo4$3b2o$3b2o!

I enumerated all 8 sidewinder-block collisions:

Code: Select all

x = 93, y = 18, rule = B3/S13
3b2o$15b2o$3o23b2o$bo10b3o23b2o$13bo9b3o24b2o$24bo10b3o24b2o$36bo10b3o
23b2o$48bo10b3o23b2o$60bo9b3o$71bo10b3o$83bo6$9b2o10b2o9b2o10b2o10b2o
10b2o9b2o10b2o$9b2o10b2o9b2o10b2o10b2o10b2o9b2o10b2o!

To make an engineered spaceship, a specific collision must produce the exact collision reaction displaced, as well as another spaceship. See self-supporting.

[PiSpaceships]

Should I create new thread for writing stories?

If not, where should people write stories?

If I wrote stories about ConwayLife Skyscraper, would I get tempbanned by dvgrn for ever?

[confocaloid]

[...] If not, where should people write stories? [...]

The forum rules say "This is an academic forum, not a chat or microblogging platform." viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2092

"Stories" sound more like a "microblogging thing", rather than discussion of LIfe/CA.

Does it tell something new about Life/CA (i.e. does it add new knowledge)?
Does it explain something that was previously unexplained?
Does it explain something previously known better than was explained before (i.e. does it improve understanding of Life/CA)?

[unname4798]

But most of the rules don't apply in the Sandbox.

[confocaloid]

But most of the rules don't apply in the Sandbox.

That would not suit my needs.

Code: Select all

x = 16, y = 23, rule = R3,C0,S12-146,236,262-372,598-721,B19,28,129,356,397,482,599,615,839,NW09007509750009007575097575007575010101757509090100010909757501010175750075750975750009007509750009
14bo$15bo$13b3o12$b4o$bo$bo$b3o$bo$bo$bo2$6o!
#C [[ GRID THEME MCell ZOOM 8 ]]

[CARuler]

Should I create new thread for writing stories?

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[confocaloid]

To clarify my earlier post: almost certainly "no". It would devolve into noise, in the same way how earlier attempts to do some kind of "storytelling" devolved into noise.

Should I create new thread for writing stories? [...]

[...] If not, where should people write stories? [...]

The forum rules say "This is an academic forum, not a chat or microblogging platform." viewtopic.php?f=3&t=2092

"Stories" sound more like a "microblogging thing", rather than discussion of LIfe/CA.

Does it tell something new about Life/CA (i.e. does it add new knowledge)?
Does it explain something that was previously unexplained?
Does it explain something previously known better than was explained before (i.e. does it improve understanding of Life/CA)?

[PiSpaceships]

[...] If not, where should people write stories? [...]

"Stories" sound more like a "microblogging thing", rather than discussion of LIfe/CA.

But what if they are CA-related stories?
And,for clarification, I'm not talking about storytelling, but about actual stories, which are not related to roleplaying at all.