I haven't taken proper notes for the most part, but some offhand examples of what I've been seening: development of many "self replicators" all starting from the basic loop some one kindly gave me. I've seen things develop and stabilize like varieties of "weapons", beams of different types and directions. I'm seen myriad stable body forms. For instance, indifference to chirality, quickly evolved after breeding in an environment where the grid was often subject to mirror transforms. Adaptations to environmental obstacles such as artificial walls or deactivated loops happen quickly though they are not always immediately recognizable as I'll explain later. (Though notably, I have not seen on many adaptations to life in proximity of other loops--easily observable level at least, analysis of the "genetics" before and after may tell a different story.) Colony formation has evolved. On the individual level lots of inhibitors and other interfacing mechanisms or seeming behaviors have arisen and become locked in. There are some emergences--some of the self destructing interfaces--that don't seem to make sense on the surface. At first I was quick to chalk it up to limitations of the patterns or the rules at simulating something like life. But multiple times now I've noticed when I'm watching carefully step by step on an individual level, that the trait provides on a very rare occasion an advantage or provide an advantage by "close kin" who share most of their genes. That's just one example of what has become a frequent experience over the last week--I have long studied biology, evolution and genetics. Never have I been so in touch (and humbled by) the principles at play in evolution as watching this simulation. (willing to share some of my specific insights connected, but for brevity's sake, only if there's interest)
Also, I've seen radial symmetry. And tantalizing hints at segmentation or modularization; "incorporation" events where some of the genetic material or the loop itself is incorporated into the body of another. As of yet this has failed to provide a significant advantage overall. However, this is only when I'm looking on the individual scale in real time that I even catch these events. I'm certain it happens more often and perhaps even those providing a localized advantage that is choked out by the sheer number of surrounding simpler organisms. At first I thought I thought I was close only two or three days in to development of such remarkable complexity, but instead I have been reminded of the scale of the history of life.
Life went on for something like 1.5 billion years before one of those events took place (providing significant advantage to proliferate and get "locked in") to give rise to the Eukaryotes. That means I should get comfortable I guess! As much as I've managed in a week just sinking time into it, It makes me wonder if I shouldn't put feelers out for somebody with access to substantial computing resources (do contact me if you are reading and have become curious). Now, at this point you might reasonably ask me, "aren't you freaking out a little bit and super-imposing some very abstract real world things on a looping pattern." Well, I don't know. If any one cares to discuss, I'll share the data; maybe you can tell me what you think. It should all be exactly repeatable, which is nice. I guess all I know is that so far there is a large and quickly growing amount of evidence convincing me that shapeloop or something like it is capable of simulating a complex system such as life, in important ways. It's still litter better than a hunch, and I judge by some topics of conversation here, much of the mathematics of CA do and will elude me for the most part. So if your knowledge of systems of mathematics suggests that complexity of a certain level should be unobtainable, please do chime in and let me know. Right now I'm led to think there are lots of places this line of experimentation could go. Exciting ones are things like actually seeing this trend continue to very obviously "life-analogous" complexity. If that were the case, one might be able to harness such research to predict important things in Systems or Biology or some other field.
One specific experiment I want to run is how long it takes this complex system to arise from noise and compare that to known data of how long life proper and other systems took to arise. Not a random fill exactly but we'd assume an environment filled with the precursors of life in the system (shapeloop folks, think random sequences of red, greens, yellow, blues adhered to a gray back) these would take the place that "oceans full of amino acids" took in our own.
Beyond simple observation of traits, I have started watching the their genetic code evolve. I'm just getting my feet wet, but I recently begun doing some deconstruction and analysis of the code, throughout it's evolution. It's very interesting and already is leading me to a stronger understanding of this little world, the structures, the code and such. It may even allow me to leap frog to some of the more interesting complexity. I've begun to create some simple machines (like a "gear" that takes a central signal and alters the space between repeats; just about to start a another discussion on that).
Well, that's all for now. I hope if anyone's interested they'll contact me or chime in here. Thanks! I'll leave you with this little guy. Pay special attention to how not only the genetic code itself but also the way it's folded around the backbone. The nature of the backbone does store and convey meaningful information related to its structure (the start of a Shapeloop epigenonme?!). Observe it in it's starting position on the left. Now observe the same code on the right without the meaningful sequence it stores as metadata.
Code: Select all
x = 25, y = 24, rule = shapeloop
7$7.3AC$7.A2HA$7.AHJ4A$5.BFDHJ3HA$5.D2H2.2JHA$5.AJ2HJHBDA$5.3ACJHF$5.
G2.A2HD$8.4A!