Lore:Unveiling

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Rule Three. A living flower with more than three living neighbors is starved and overcrowded. It dies.

Rule Four. A dead flower with exactly three living neighbors is reborn. It springs back to life.

Rule Four. A dead flower with exactly three living neighbors is reborn. It springs back to life. <ref>These are the rules of English mathematician [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Horton_Conway John Conway's] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life Game of Life], a game in which points on a grid interact with each other to die out, continue in stasis, or survive to reproduce "offspring.

</ref>

The only play permitted in the game is the arrangement of the initial flowers.

This game fascinates kings. This game occupies the very emperors of thought. Though it has only four rules, and the board is a flat featureless grid, in it you will find changeless blocks, stoic as iron, and beacons and whirling pulsars, as well as gliders that soar out to infinity, and patterns that lay eggs and spawn other patterns, and living cells that replicate themselves wholly. In it, you may construct a universal computer with the power to simulate, very slowly, any other computer imaginable and thus simulate whole realities, including nested copies of the flower game itself. And the game is undecidable. No one can predict exactly how the game will play out except by playing it.

This game fascinates kings. This game occupies the very emperors of thought. Though it has only four rules, and the board is a flat featureless grid, in it you will find changeless blocks, stoic as iron, and beacons and whirling pulsars, as well as gliders<ref>Pulsars and gliders are well known basic patterns in the Game of Life, on which other configurations can be designed.</ref> that soar out to infinity, and patterns that lay eggs and spawn other patterns, and living cells that replicate themselves wholly. In it, you may construct a universal computer with the power to simulate, very slowly, any other computer imaginable and thus simulate whole realities, including nested copies of the flower game itself. And the game is undecidable. No one can predict exactly how the game will play out except by playing it.

And yet this game is nothing compared to the game played by the gardener and the winnower. It resembles that game as a seed does a flower—no, as a seed resembles the star that fed the flower and all the life that made it.

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"No," the gardener said, "I am the growth and preservation of complexity. I will make myself into a law in the game."

And thus we two became parts of the game, and the laws of the game became nomic and open to change by our influence. And I had only one purpose and one principle in the game. And I could do nothing but continue to enact that purpose, because it was all that I was and ever would be.

And thus we two became parts of the game, and the laws of the game became nomic <ref>Nomic in this case refers to American Philosopher [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Suber Peter Suber's] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic Nomic], a game in which the rules may be changed mid-stream. The game serves to illustrate that in any system where rules can change, contradictory laws may arise that make resolving the existing rules impossible.</ref> and open to change by our influence. And I had only one purpose and one principle in the game. And I could do nothing but continue to enact that purpose, because it was all that I was and ever would be.

I looked at the gardener.

Lore:Unveiling: Difference between revisions

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@@ Line 38: / Line 38: @@
 Rule Three. A living flower with more than three living neighbors is starved and overcrowded. It dies.
-Rule Four. A dead flower with exactly three living neighbors is reborn. It springs back to life.
+Rule Four. A dead flower with exactly three living neighbors is reborn. It springs back to life. <ref>These are the rules of English mathematician [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Horton_Conway John Conway's] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway%27s_Game_of_Life Game of Life], a game in which points on a grid interact with each other to die out, continue in stasis, or survive to reproduce "offspring.
+</ref>
 The only play permitted in the game is the arrangement of the initial flowers.
-This game fascinates kings. This game occupies the very emperors of thought. Though it has only four rules, and the board is a flat featureless grid, in it you will find changeless blocks, stoic as iron, and beacons and whirling pulsars, as well as gliders that soar out to infinity, and patterns that lay eggs and spawn other patterns, and living cells that replicate themselves wholly. In it, you may construct a universal computer with the power to simulate, very slowly, any other computer imaginable and thus simulate whole realities, including nested copies of the flower game itself. And the game is undecidable. No one can predict exactly how the game will play out except by playing it.
+This game fascinates kings. This game occupies the very emperors of thought. Though it has only four rules, and the board is a flat featureless grid, in it you will find changeless blocks, stoic as iron, and beacons and whirling pulsars, as well as gliders<ref>Pulsars and gliders are well known basic patterns in the Game of Life, on which other configurations can be designed.</ref> that soar out to infinity, and patterns that lay eggs and spawn other patterns, and living cells that replicate themselves wholly. In it, you may construct a universal computer with the power to simulate, very slowly, any other computer imaginable and thus simulate whole realities, including nested copies of the flower game itself. And the game is undecidable. No one can predict exactly how the game will play out except by playing it.
 And yet this game is nothing compared to the game played by the gardener and the winnower. It resembles that game as a seed does a flower—no, as a seed resembles the star that fed the flower and all the life that made it.
@@ Line 80: / Line 81: @@
 "No," the gardener said, "I am the growth and preservation of complexity. I will make myself into a law in the game."
-And thus we two became parts of the game, and the laws of the game became nomic and open to change by our influence. And I had only one purpose and one principle in the game. And I could do nothing but continue to enact that purpose, because it was all that I was and ever would be.
+And thus we two became parts of the game, and the laws of the game became nomic <ref>Nomic in this case refers to American Philosopher [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Suber Peter Suber's] [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomic Nomic], a game in which the rules may be changed mid-stream. The game serves to illustrate that in any system where rules can change, contradictory laws may arise that make resolving the existing rules impossible.</ref> and open to change by our influence. And I had only one purpose and one principle in the game. And I could do nothing but continue to enact that purpose, because it was all that I was and ever would be.
 I looked at the gardener.