title: Ramifying feedback networks, cross-scale interactions, and emergent quasi individuals in Conway's game of Life.
abstract: Small patterns of state 1 cells on an infinite, otherwise empty array of Conway's game of Life can produce sets of growing structures resembling in significant ways a population of spatially situated individuals in a nonuniform, highly structured environment. Ramifying feedback networks and cross-scale interactions play a central role in the emergence and subsequent dynamics of the quasi population. The implications are discussed: It is proposed that analogous networks and interactions may have been precursors to natural selection in the real world.
authors.affiliation: Macaulay Land Use Research Institute, Aberdeen AB15 8QH, Scotland, United Kingdom. n.gotts@macaulay.ac.uk
authors.forename: Nicholas M
authors.initials: NM
authors.lastname: Gotts
mesh_terms: D000465:Algorithms; D001185:Artificial Intelligence; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003071:Cognition / Q000502:physiology*; D003198:Computer Simulation; D005246:Feedback; D005716:Game Theory; D006801:Humans; D019369:Life; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D009991:Oscillometry; D011157:Population Dynamics; D012641:Selection, Genetic