̶C̶o̶l̶o̶u̶r̶ Greyscale Me Impressed
Conway’s Turing machine … ¹
That’s some smart sh*t — polymathematical lateral thinking at its finest.
[TANGENTIAL]
—
¹ See A.K. Dewdney’s collected articles in The Armchair Universe for more on Life (the 3D versions are particularly thought-provoking) ².
² And if that tickles your fancy, you might also appreciate The Shamen’s track S2 Translation:
“The track ‘S2 Translation’ was generated from the DNA sequence and the amino acid characteristics of the S2 protein. The time signature of the piece is given by the codon: 3 base pairs per codon gives one codon per bar, hence the time signature is 3/4 or waltz time.The ‘top line melody’ comes directly from the base pair sequence itself (the bases cystosine, adenine, guanine and thymidine being mapped to the notes C, A G and E respectively) while progressions in the bass are reflective of the characteristics of the amino acids which are the result of translation. The number and nature of bass notes per codon/bar were determined by the hydrophobicity/hydrophilicity, ionic charge (positive or negative) and size of each amino acid residue (Proline, for example,which has no characteristics other than its small size, can be identified easily as the bars where the bass line ‘drops out’). The musical output resulting from these rules was further processed by mapping the notes onto different tonalities, both to make the piece more interesting, and to suggest the organisation of the protein molecule into regions of different secondary structure (although since S2 is a membrane protein and thus impossible to crystallise outside the lipid bilayer, this was definitely creative licence).
S2 is the receptor protein for 5-hydroxy tryptamine (Serotonin) and presumably for other tryptamines as well. It is thus one of the most important molecules in the mediation of both ordinary and non-ordinary (or “Shamanic”) states of consciousness, which is why the molecule was chosen for this piece.” — Colin Angus
³ Even more tangentially, see also:
- M.A.R. Barker’s Tékumel for stories based upon the study of (socio)linguistics that (thankfully) aren’t Lord of the Rings.
- Clive Barker’s Imajica for Pie’oh’pah (a character not entirely dissimilar in concept to the character Rael in Foster’s Morphodite trilogy).
… and idly ponder the (likely lack of) significance in the progression from M.A. to M.A.R. to Barker ⁴, before getting on Twitter and sending the latter a message: “Oi! Barker! I’m not getting any younger. And neither are you. Abarat! FINISH it!”
⁴ Anyone ⁵ mentioning the word Synchronicity will be mercilessly ridiculed.
⁵ Mentioning no names, SouthpawPoet.
