Does this have some type of analogous equivalence to a novel Maxwell's equations solution for a photon-like electromagnetic boson? In this instance, there is a certain set of initial conditions that yield a propagation speed of c/10, or something, given the game's parameters? My sincere thanks for introducing me to this. I glanced at the wikipedia article for Conway's Game of Life, and intend to revisit the idea several times over the next few years.
Conway's Life is storied as fuck. It's one of the easiest, earliest and gnarliest screensavers, for starters. If I recall correctly the parameters aren't messed with much but initial conditions matter a lot. I used to have a screen saver (talkin' Win95 era) that was loosely based on Conway's life, but allowed for bilateral and radial symmetry as well as four different block designs - offensive, defensive, locomotive and photosynthetic. It was super-cool to let run for a day or two because you got rudimentary predator-prey relationships in not too many thousands of evolutionary cycles.
I don't know anything regarding the extent to which the parameters have been extended into generalized rules. I am sure plenty of work has been done, however. It is a rabbit-hole to be sure. This is worth checking out: EDIT: This related blog post was posted in a comment on HN: https://niginsblog.wordpress.com/2016/03/07/new-spaceship-speed-in-conways-game-of-life/In this instance, there is a certain set of initial conditions that yield a propagation speed of c/10, or something, given the game's parameters?
It's a very cool toy, but also the thing that made Stephen Wolfram go full crank so, you know, keep an eye out for nuttery if you go exploring in that direction.