Cell state

A cell state or cellstate is one of several states that a cell can be in. Life, outer-totalistic rules, isotropic non-totalistic rules, MAP rules, and Larger than Life rules have two cell states: "on" and "off" (or "alive" and "dead"). Others, such as Generations and deficient rules, as well as LifeHistory, variants of Life such as Immigration and Symbiosis, and circuitry rules such as WireWorld, are multistate rules.

It is common to require that there be at least one quiescent state (i.e., a cell state such that if the whole universe is in that state at generation 0 then it will remain so in generation 1). In Conway's Game of Life, the "off" state is quiescent, but the "on" state is not. In Day & Night, both states have this property; the same is true for other self-complementary non-strobing rules. In a strobing rule, neither the "off" state nor the "on" state is quiescent.

Multistate rules have each cell state defined by an integer from 0 to the number of states minus one, where 0 is the background state. Some multistate rules clearly have some "on" states and "off" states. For example, Generations rules have state 1 as the only "on" state, in Immigration and QuadLife, every state except the background is "on", and in LifeHistory and LifeSuper, odd-numbered states are "on". Other rules have no clear distinction between on states and off states.