ConwayLife.com

Some context or explanation would be greatly appreciated.

Uhuh. Um huh?

It would be an oscillator if you could construct a rule it works in. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be possible, even with extended neighborhoods. See, when the dot hits one of the circles, it gets eaten. This means that the circle goes back into a steady state and has no reason to emit a dot again. The only way this would work is if there's some hidden structure not seen in the image.

A pattern from Shouldsee's rule:

Caenbe wrote:It would be an oscillator if you could construct a rule it works in. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be possible, even with extended neighborhoods. See, when the dot hits one of the circles, it gets eaten. This means that the circle goes back into a steady state and has no reason to emit a dot again. The only way this would work is if there's some hidden structure not seen in the image.

Unless, of course, it's a zoomed-out image.

Gamedziner wrote:

Caenbe wrote:It would be an oscillator if you could construct a rule it works in. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be possible, even with extended neighborhoods. See, when the dot hits one of the circles, it gets eaten. This means that the circle goes back into a steady state and has no reason to emit a dot again. The only way this would work is if there's some hidden structure not seen in the image.

Unless, of course, it's a zoomed-out image.

Yes. That is one way the structure could be hidden. I was a bit unclear about that.

Bullet51 wrote:A pattern from Shouldsee's rule:

Code: Select all

x = 29, y = 29, rule = B2ei3eikqry4ceijkr5aciknq6aein7c8_S1c2cen3-iqr4aqwz5-inr6cikn78
24bo2$23b3o$22b2ob2o$20bobobobobo$22b2ob2o$23b3o2$24bo8$17b2o$17bobo3$
4bo2$3b3o$2b2ob2o$obobobobo$2b2ob2o$3b3o2$4bo!

It seems to me that the gif was supposed to represent a shuttle-type oscillator. Though this oscillator, while resembling the gif, isn't really a shuttle. It's two oscillators repeatedly bouncing a glider-oid.

Guess what THIS is!

Caenbe wrote:It would be an oscillator if you could construct a rule it works in. Unfortunately, that doesn't appear to be possible, even with extended neighborhoods. See, when the dot hits one of the circles, it gets eaten. This means that the circle goes back into a steady state and has no reason to emit a dot again. The only way this would work is if there's some hidden structure not seen in the image.

I would also like to add that the thing bouncing between has fourfold symmetry, so even that doesn't make sense (unlessit'sazoomedoutimage)

I think it's an abstract representation of a concept, not a zoomed out image. In the first image, using the title, "still life.png", we establish a circle as a symbol for a still life (or possibly a constellation thereof), and in the second image this glyph is shown reflecting a spaceship. I do not believe that symmetry is being implied here, as the larger structure is that of a spaceship being reflected. Maybe they want a demonstration of omniperiodicity with still lifes, like snark loops.

This is like interpreting Egyptian hieroglyphs.