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Old 12-11-2008, 08:09 PM
seebs seebs is offline
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Join Date: Jul 2004
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Default Re: Conway's Life, seebs

Quote:
Originally Posted by Raven_poe View Post
But that is not at all what you are suggesting. You are suggesting that for any given FUNCTION, that the input is equal to the output. It's already been pointed out several times that this is only true for one specific function, and that is f(x)=x. For any other function, you cannot say that the input will always be equal to the output.
Lemme step in for a moment to defend him.

I don't think that's what he's saying. I think he's saying that there is a kind of higher-level equivalence; that since the input always leads to the output, if you have the input and you know the function, you sort-of-in-a-way have the output already.

Okay, lemme jump fields. Slapstick humor.

You see a workman with a big long ladder. You know people are going to get hit by that ladder. You see guy-with-ladder, guy behind him, and pretty girl; you know that this inevitably leads to guy-with-ladder-looking-at-pretty-girl, and that the guy behind him gets hit by the ladder.

I think Michali is arguing that if you know what the output is, that in a sense you already have that output.

And there is a sense in which that's true.

What's not true is that this means that the input state never really existed. Of course it existed; the states all exist, at different times.
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Thanks, from:
Farren (12-11-2008)
 
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