Game of life – new view on the searching of alien beings

Our civilization is recently able to study areas which are lying outside of our mother, planet Earth. During sending more and more spacecraft into space, exploring other bodies in our solar system, constructing more powerful telescopes, analyzing cosmic radiation and performing many others activities which are deliver us knowledge about the Universe, we realized, how huge area is surrounding our Earth home. Space contains countless number of galaxies, stars, planets and many other objects. In the face of such discovery, many of us truly believe, that space is full of planets where life occurs. The only one problem and barrier to discover such alien life is enormous distance from Earth to the other planets, stars and galaxies in the Universe.

Kepler Telescope raises faith in life in the Universe

Placement of the Kepler Telescope on the Earth’s orbit confirmed beliefs of many people that the Universe is swarmed of planets. Within two years from the telescope placement, there are already discovered over 1200 different planets, where 68 of them fulfills signs of planets, where alien life could occur. On that planets there are probably conditions which are favorable for occurring of life.

But actually, what is life? What causes, that we can say about given object that it is alive? What about extraterrestrial life? Is it forced to undergo the same laws as on the Earth so we can name this “life”? Until recently, living organisms was considered as such organisms, which have DNA with saved genetic code and ribosomes (structures which allow producing proteins). It was believed, that only owing to those conditions, organisms are able to replicate and to evolve. However, recent studies have shown that before Earth was dominated by organisms based on the DNA structure, there was common occurring of organisms which had RNA. RNA is acid with very complex structure, however simpler than DNA. Researchers claim, that RNA was result of evolution more primitive compounds which were information carrier.

Game of Life – new view on the old schemas

An English mathematician, John Horton Conway, with no doubt contributed to the revolutionizing of scientific view on the life in general, which is strongly connected with the efforts to discover extraterrestrial life. He started his research from moving plates on the floor divided on the squares, where every plate was the dummy of the live creature. Live creature was subordinated to the set of the simple rules defined by mathematician and Conway studied behavior of whole “population of plates”. He realized quickly, that much more effective would be hiring computer to do such simulation. In this way, the computer program called “Game of Life” was created.

“Game of Life” was created on the assumption, that every living organism exhibits one feature which makes it absolutely different that other, lifeless. This feature is ability to influent on the behavior of other individuals. From the smallest cells, to the so complex creatures like humans, everywhere in the biology we can observe this unique property, which can be classified as living creatures with no doubt.

In the “Game of Life”, on the mosaic consisting of squares, there are objects placed on those squares. Those objects undergo to the set of the clearly defined rules. Objects could be dots, pawns, monsters or any other shapes. Their behavior depends only from the fact, if there is direct neighborhood with other objects and what kind of neighborhood is it. As neighborhood we understand surrounding object around squares, which are eight of them (they stick with the observed square with their sides as well as tops):

Picture 1. Direct neighborhood in the “Game of Life”. Red squares are lying in the direct neighborhood of the blue square.

Set of rules which govern objects on the mosaic of squares is very simple and we can say, in a measure, that it is similar to the real world of humans and animals:

• If in the direct neighborhood of objects there is no any other object, on the next “day” or “round” or timestamp, they die from loneliness
• If in the direct neighborhood of objects there are four or more other objects, on the next “day” they die because of the overpopulation
• Objects survive to the next “round” only, when in their neighborhood there are two or three other objects
• When equally three objects are surrounding an empty square, reproduction takes place and in the empty cell, the new object appears on the new timestamp.

Every object „observes” in the time step („day”) its surrounding and based on the defined rules above, it determines its condition for the next time stamp. All rules, despite death from the loneliness are visible on the pictures below.

Picture 2. Configuration of cells in the “Game of Life” which allows observing three from the four rules in the “Game of Life”.

If we have a board consisting of squares and possibility to perform initial configuration of objects, we can, owing to the computer simulation, study the behavior of the objects in the context of whole population. By using computer, we can accelerate succession of next “days” in the simulation and owing to that fact, Conway discovered many interesting relations occurring in the simulator.

Development of populations depended on the initial conditions

Amount of different life processes, which can be observed in the simulation, is large. In the dependency of initial configuration of objects, we can receive objects which set up into stable patterns and stagnate into them. We can also receive populations which change their form cyclical or just populations which freely adrift on the board. There are also populations which die after initial dynamic development. There are scenarios available, where initial population grows quickly and then it divides on the many smaller groups which could stagnate, die or join again. Interested people can check behavior of different initial configurations in the available online “Game of Life” simulators, i.e.: https://playgameoflife.com/
By watching “Game of Life” simulation we can obtain interesting things about life in general, not only about extraterrestrial life. We are often not aware, that behavior of whole population is created by the simplest, original rules of behavior of the single elements. By looking wide and trying to compare “Game of Life” to the development of human species we can make a statement that the simplest, original rules which our world undergoes, are the law of physics and human species growth because there was configuration of appropriate initial conditions which gave such effect. Scientists prove that during whole existence of Earth, about 4 billion different species of life organisms appeared. Most of them are currently dead. There are also almost sure that on the Earth there are still living species undiscovered by human. It shows how special had to be configuration of “human” initial conditions, to grow among the 4 billion other species and develop such high intelligence which let us to develop civilization.
A variation of the „Game of Life” which even stronger shows some processes which are existing also among the organisms on the Earth, is Tierra. Created by the tropical forests specialist, Tom Ray, Tierra is nothing other than virtual world, where short computer programs are working. Their only task is saving their copy in the computer’s memory. Tierra is created in manner that programs undergo to the random mutations which are spotlights changes of one symbol in source code or shifting excerpt of the source code between programs (such operations, map recombination of DNA among the living organisms). In such configured environment, only those programs which have highest ability to reproduce (copy) will survive. Hence, Tierra is the world of the evolving computer programs. Their observation showed behaviors, which are known from the nature. For example, programs appeared which use other programs to its own activities and in whole population it was possible to discover short but dynamic periods of changes in the programs, divided by the long periods of stagnation.
Owing to those experiments, scientists have developed new definition of living creatures. Nowadays, most of the scientists agree that the only criterion which classifies unit as alive is its ability to replication (passing information about its structure to the next generations). According to the new definition, if anywhere in the Universe we discover objects which fulfill this criterion, we will discover extraterrestrial life. It is worth to be aware that it does not have to be moving creatures, which are similar to us. Owing to the new definition of life, even on the Earth we can tempt to call alive objects, which according to old definitions were lifeless.

New life breathed into crystals and plasma

Such examples are crystals of the glicosilicates and pyrites. Scotch chemist, Alexander Cairns-Smith claims, that they have properties which can classify them as live creatures. Crystals “compete with each other” for the best place on the bottom of the stream. They have ability to self-organization and creating its mirrored reflection. They attract carbon compounds, which adhere do the crystal’s wall and accelerate its growing. Cairns-Smith claims that it can be equivalent of metabolic processes of higher organisms. He also claims that such crystals can create extensive carbon molecules, which could further divide from the crystal-mother and starts its own existence.
If we would observe the replication of the crystal’s molecules, it would fulfill the only one mandatory condition which classifies object as alive. Unfortunately, so far there wasn’t any success in the observation of such phenomenon in the laboratory.
In the outer space we can also find examples which indicate fact that perhaps, we are searching extraterrestrial live in the limited way, because we are searching for places where there are similar physical conditions to the Earth’s condition. Scientists from the Institute of Physics of the Russian Academy of Sciences studied behavior of matter in the plasma state and proved that inside the plasma there are forming complex structures in the helix shape, very similar to the human DNA. Matter in the plasma state is not only able to organize itself in the spiral helix structure, but it is also able to replicate and join into larger clusters. That phenomenon fulfills the condition of life in its new definition.
Computer simulations and observing of crystals and plasma deliver new view on the life process. Replication can take place in the conditions quite different than conditions on the Earth. In oversimplification, existing life on the Earth is based on the three elements: carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. Existing of those elements is in some sense part of the initial configuration, known from the “Game of Life”. A lot of points indicate that in the space there exist other forms of extraterrestrial life. Hydrogen and oxygen (water) is substance in deficit in the universe. Carbon, though very popular, is not only the one element which can act as a building block for the organisms. There are some statements which indicate on the fact, that extraterrestrial life could form based on the other elements. Is it possible?

If you enjoyed this article, feel free to follow me, to do not miss my new posts. Feel free to comment, discuss and resteem this post if you found this useful and interesting. Steem on!