mmiller5_Looking Outwards-2

Conway’s Game of Life, created by John Conway in 1970, is a generative “game” where cells live, die, or are created depending on the number of living cells around them.  Conway didn’t want the algorithm to lead to exponential amounts of growth but he also wanted the ruleset to be simple, so he based the rules around cell adjacency.  “Players” choose the starting conditions– which cells are alive– and from there the algorithm autonomously steps through generations leading to a wide degree of possible patterns including all cells dying, static lifeforms, self-replicators, and more.  What inspires me the most about this project is that from a simple ruleset, there is a great amount of complexity that can be created; that 4 basic rules leads to a system that creates wonderful patterns.  Communities have formed around discovering new properties in The Game of Life, and other versions of it have been created with different rulesets and cell types.