Hofstadter, Dennett - The Mind's I

Non Serviam 320ries, the larger the physical structures would have to be. And yet the locality in space ofthe laws of physics implies that large physical structures may not survive –they justdisintegrate!From early on the question of the survival and the coherence of large structureswas one of the big questions if Life, and Gosper was among the discoverers of variouskinds of fascinating structures that, because of their internal organization, do survive andexhibit interesting behaviours. Some structures (called “glider guns”) periodically emitsmaller structures (“gliders”) that slowly sail off toward infinity. When two gliderscollide, or, in general, when large blinking structures collide, sparks can fly!By watching such flashing patterns on the screens (and by being able to zoom inor out, thus to see events on various size scales), Gosper and others have developed apowerful intuitive understanding of events in the Life universe, accompanied by acolourful vocabulary. (flotillas, puffer trains, glider barrages, strafing machines, breeders,eaters, space rakes, antibodies, and so on). Patterns that to a novice have spectacularunpredictability are quite intuitive to these experts. Yet there remains many mysteries inthe Game of Life. Are there structures that grow endlessly in complexity, or do alstructures achieve a steady state at some point? Are there higher and higher levels ofstructure that have phenomenological laws of their own – analogues to our ownuniverse’s molecules, cells, organisms, and societies? Gosper speculates that on agigantic board, where perhaps several upward leaps of intuition would be needed to gaina sense for the complex modes of organization, “creatures” with consciousness and freewill could well exist, could think about their universe and its physics, could evenspeculate on whether a God exists who created it all, on how to try to communicate with“Him,” on whether such efforts make sense or are worth it, and so on.Here one runs into the eternal question as to how free will can coexist with adeterminate substrate. The answer is partly that free will is in the eye of the willer, not inthe eyes of the God above. As long as the creature feels free, he, she, or it is free. But letus defer, in our discussions of these arcane matters, to God himself, who in the nextselection graciously explains to a befuddled mortal what free will is really all about.D.C.D.D.R.H.