title: Characterizing autopoiesis in the game of life.
abstract: Maturana and Varela's concept of autopoiesis defines the essential organization of living systems and serves as a foundation for their biology of cognition and the enactive approach to cognitive science. As an initial step toward a more formal analysis of autopoiesis, this article investigates its application to the compact, recurrent spatiotemporal patterns that arise in Conway's Game-of-Life cellular automaton. In particular, we demonstrate how such entities can be formulated as self-constructing networks of interdependent processes that maintain their own boundaries. We then characterize the specific organizations of several such entities, suggest a way to simplify the descriptions of these organizations, and briefly consider the transformation of such organizations over time.
authors.affiliation: Indiana University.
authors.forename: Randall D
authors.initials: RD
authors.lastname: Beer
keywords: Autopoiesis; artificial chemistry; cellular automata; organizational closure