Cellular Automata
Contents
Cellular Automata
The purpose of this page on Cellular Automata is to introduce you to the subject if you are not already well familiar with the subject. Cellular Automata are something studied within the general classification of pure mathematics. While they were 'discovered' and did not have an initial purpose as in applied mathematics, they have had useful purposes discovered. Our present useful purpose in doing a little discovery and study on the subject is that this concept provides an excellent model of Absolute Reality in the form of Consciousness Space or CS. This material is not going to be directly included here in the My Big TOE Wiki but instead references will be made to outside sources on the Internet through links to web sites. Following this general introductory material, a short paragraph will introduce each source to which you are being directed with an explanation of what in particular to look for there.
The Game of Life
The first recommendation as a starting point to learn about Cellular Automata is to look up the reference below on the Game of Life. This is a particular set of rules for a cellular automata that has been widely publicized and is readily available. The Game of Life was invented by mathematician John H. Conway, John Von Neumann Professor in Applied and Computational Mathematics at Princeton University. There are many web sites that discuss the Game of Life but this one listed below on Math.com is particularly recommended as providing the range of information that makes a good introduction for our present purposes. Particularly look for references to “emergent complexity” or “self organizing systems”. Also look for discussions of emulation of computers within the Game of Life and so called, universal constructors.
References from My Big TOE
Tom Campbell did not refer to cellular automata as a metaphor for Consciousness Space along with all of the metaphorical descriptions already given within his trilogy My Big TOE but did include a reference to published formal papers by physicist Dr. Edward Fredkin of MIT, Boston University and Carnegie Mellon in 1992 called A New Cosmogony and Finite Nature. In these papers Dr. Fredkin described our world of our normal experience as a virtual reality generated by a vast computer as a cellular automaton. See My Big TOE pages 783, 4 and 5 of Book 3, Section 6, Chapter 91 as available on Google Books at this location:
The actual papers by Dr. Fredkin that are referenced by Tom Campbell above are still available linked from the web site of Dr. Fredkin, digitalphilosopy.org. They have been relocated to different links and the links below updated. My Big TOE Wiki will attempt to maintain links to these papers. If they becomes unavailable again, copies retained in My Big TOE Wiki archives will be made available from this Wiki for historical availability. Please advise the management on the talk page if these links immediately below fail again.
A Candidate Cellular Automaton for Modeling Consciousness Space
As a final element in this brief overview of cellular automata and related mathematical fields, we refer you to a specific paper authored by Mr. Daniel B. Miller and Dr. Edward Fredkin and titled Two-state, Reversible, Universal Cellular Automata In Three Dimensions. This paper, in pre publication form, is available on the Internet. A post publication copy, reported reliably to be modified very minimally from the prepublication version, is available from the Association for Computing Machinery if you have access to their publications. The title of the paper tells you almost all that you need to know from it, in terms of this discussion and as this will develop below. The abstract will be quoted however and the meanings of what is stated explained in more accessible terms for readers without scientific or mathematical backgrounds.
- “Abstract
- A novel two-state, Reversible Cellular Automata (RCA) is described. This three dimensional RCA is shown to be capable of universal computation. Additionally, evidence is offered that this RCA is capable of universal construction.”
Two state means that the binary logic of 0’s and 1’s being discussed here was used in this research. Reversible means that the cellular automton described has uniquely defined states into the future defined by the existing state at any given time and that, given an existing state, the precursor state that would result in that existing state is unique. The behavior of the automaton into the future and looking back into the past is therefore unique, deterministic and not ambiguous. As an interjection here into this discussion of this paper as some readers will note this unique relationship into the past and into the future from the present state as a demonstration of there being no such thing as free will in reality. This is not so as the cellular automaton possesses no consciousness and free will. However Consciousness Space by definition exhibits and hosts consciousness and free will. The lack within this cellular automaton need not concern us for reasons discussed later. That will be discussed much later in this sequence on the My Big TOE model of reality.
Further note in regards to the forward and backward determinism within this candidate model of a CA for the LCS that this is a necessity for access to the data bases known as the Akashic Records and which Tom Campbell calls the Past Actualized, the Past Unactualized and the Probable Future data bases. If that data regarding past and future is to be stored within the LCS as a CA, then this determinism must exist or this data would be unavailable and these data bases would effectively not exist as being unavailable. So understanding and making note of this aspect of a potential model for the LCS is important to understanding the functionality of this model.
The reference to universal computation means that the cellular automaton studied and described can simulate all of the functions of digital computation as is significant here in this discussion. The reference to the capability of universal construction means that the cellular automaton studied and described is believed to be capable of hosting a universal constructor as mentioned above. This capability has not been demonstrated, but is believed by the authors to be a capability of the automaton described, given sufficient computational resources to simulate the automaton in sufficient ‘size’. This seems to be an adequate demonstration for present purposes of precisely the kind of functionality that will eventually be postulated herein for the functionality required to generate the Ultimate Reality as Consciousness Space within which we exist as IUOCs; that is, you, the reader, and everyone else. Thus PMR science has already demonstrated an adequate basis for the existence of Consciousness Space as we can understand and model it here in PMR. While there are many details that could be further explored and worked out, the basic work has already been done by science and mathematics and published in the juried scientific literature. This is a significant achievement in terms of this discussion, whether it bears any actual relationship to the configuration and functioning of Absolute Reality or not.
Limitations on Cellular Automatons as Studied for Modeling Consciousness Space
There is a major limitation for Cellular Automatons as conceived in PMR mathematics for modeling the LCS. That is that CAs are advanced in time, that is their model state, from past into the future only. While we have made a requirement in this discussion that CAs as a possible model for the LCS must be deterministic both backwards and forwards in 'time' as regards their system state changes, this does not allow such backwards and forwards processing to occur in these concepts. There is nothing in these models which will allow such a model to pass information from the past into the future on request to reach the Now moment for use where the CA creates a VR. Moving data forwards is the normal mode but to send the request for data back in time is the problem. There is likewise no way that a CA can have information from its extension into the future, past the Now moment of a VR, returned back in time to the Now moment of that VR. Sending the request forwards is no problem, but returning the data backwards in time is the problem. Yet Tom Campbell's data bases and the Akashic records are widely considered historically to exist and are made use of. So the concept of a Cellular Automaton must be extended beyond what is presently studied in PMR mathematics in order to improve CAs as a model or metaphor for the LCS.
The suggested path from this point is to return to the page of Tom Campbell's My Big TOE model from which you can finish your mathematical side investigations or continue on to the next page in sequence.
