Assess long-term dynamics with simplified life-like rules under ageing and inner evolution

Determine whether heterogeneous life-like cellular automata that incorporate cell ageing to govern the alive–decay–quiescent cycle and employ an inner evolutionary loop for local inheritance with mutation of life-like transition rules can sustain long-term phenotypic dynamics and genotypic innovation comparable to those observed in heterogeneous cellular automata using evolved genetic programming rules.

Background

Conway’s Game of Life, while Turing-complete, typically lacks open-ended behavior when started from random initial conditions, tending toward stagnation with limited persistent or oscillatory structures. Prior work (HetCA) introduced cell ageing alongside heterogeneous, locally evolved genetic programming rules, yielding sustained long-term phenotypic dynamics without stagnation.

This paper proposes replacing complex genetic programming rules with simplified, life-like transition rules while maintaining two key mechanisms: a conceptual separation of aliveness via a cell ageing life cycle (alive → decay → quiescent) and an inner evolutionary loop that allows local inheritance with mutation of rules into neighboring quiescent cells. The explicitly stated open question asks whether such simplified rules can nonetheless support similar long-term phenotypic and genotypic dynamics.