Digital Life 04: When Does a Pattern Become a Thing?

Tue, 11 Aug 2026 01:26:00 +0100

Rule 30 gave us structure.

But it did not obviously give us a thing.

The pattern expanded.

It changed.

Differences propagated.

Interesting global behavior appeared.

But if I pointed at one region and asked:

Is that the same object ten generations later?

the answer was not obvious.

So let’s change systems.

Not because Conway’s Game of Life is more sophisticated.

Glider on Programmer.ie: Modern AI programming