This puzzle took me three years and required thinking in 3721 dimensions

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Welcome back, and I hope you enjoy this mess of a three-year project… It turns out backing up in a cellular automaton can be an insanely difficult problem. This started as a "play button" project, but turned into an obsession. I recently came to the conclusion that there's no long-term winning this game (it has been shown to be NP hard, so I don't feel that bad) but AGH it should be easier than it is!
Join me in this video as I dive through the much fabled Game of Life, take a hike through a very strange space, and organize a dinner party. It's going to be a great time.

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big bonus points to Patreon supporter david.antos for very patiently teaching me about complexity classes!
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Media Credits:
I Dunno by grapes is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/...) http://ccmixter.org/files/grapes/16626

E's Jammy Jams - The Entertainer
YouTube Music License

Silent Partner - Pink Lemonade
YouTube Music License

Chapters:
0:00 Conway's Game of Life
3:04 Playing GoL in reverse is hard
6:56 How to think in more dimensions
15:55 Drawing maps (both real and configurational)
19:33 The failure of gradient ascent
23:16 SAT solvers (dark CS magic)
28:54 Rephrasing the question and getting results
34:22 Brilliant.org