Hong Kong Liberal Religious Forum

In last evening's SafeHouse gathering, the speaker presented this inspiring game:

John Conway's Game of Life
www.bitstorm.org/gameoflife/

Described in Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conway's_Game_of_Life



My reflection: Is order of the universe, and life, an illusion?

I can feel the order, delicate complex structure, beauty, life, miracle and "design" of the patterns generated by this celluar automaton game.
The illusion of order, delicate complex structure, beauty, life, miracle and "design" can be elicited by a cellular automaton's simple rules.
Is the sense of order, delicate complex structure, beauty, life, miracle and "design" of this universe an illusion that is elicited by the universe's simple rules?

Some living things use naturally occurring cellular automata (CA) in their functioning.

Patterns of some seashells, like the ones in Conus and Cymbiola genus, are generated by natural CA. The pigment cells reside in a narrow band along the shell's lip. Each cell secretes pigments according to the activating and inhibiting activity of its neighbour pigment cells, obeying a natural version of a mathematical rule. The cell band leaves the colored pattern on the shell as it grows slowly. For example, the widespread species Conus textile bears a pattern resembling the Rule 30 CA described above.

Plants regulate their intake and loss of gases via a CA mechanism. Each stoma on the leaf acts as a cell.

Neural networks can be used as cellular automata, too. The complex moving wave patterns on the skin of cephalopods are a good display of corresponding activation patterns in the animals' brain.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cellular_automata