The study of Elementary Cellular Automaton (eca) began in the early 1950s when John von Neuman experimented with creating a fully self-replicating mechanism, one where the host created a replicate of itself and passed on the "intelligence" to create other replicates. John Conway took up the study in the 1970s with the creation of The Game of Life, a computer widget which played with ideas of organic growth and death. Stephen Wolfram pushed further with research in the 1980s and 90s which culminated in his book A New Kind of Science.
The basic eca is a simple binary system with a limited set of eight rules out of which can emerge truly complex patterns and, Wolfram claims, models of universes. The philosophical implications can be profound, particularly issues of free will and determination. The challenge of eca is that while the patterns are pre-determined, they can’t be predicted from first instances – from any point in the process of pattern generation the next step can only be determined by running the process.
I approached my study of eca as a natural scientist (rather than maths or statistics), fascinated by the patterns, collecting specimens and teasing out similarities and distinctions. I also became entranced with the possibility of prediction and through that peering behind the curtain to the working of the wizards and the mirrors of reality. I feel I made some interesting discoveries, particularly the with adjaceny and identifying the set of unique patterns. In the end, I ran out of steam, in part because I probably needed maths and statistics to untangle the threads.
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1. eca mechanics 2. eca structures |
3. rule groups & uniques |