VII. The Universe as a cellular automaton
When we want to present a model of the Universe in the form of a cellular automation, first we have to explain what it is. We will not come into details, we will only give a definition and a simple example.
A cellular automaton is an object consisting of a grid of cells which should be in a certain state from a specified set, which changes according to certain rules depending on the state of the neighbouring cells. Depending on the type of the grid, possible values of cells and selection of an algorithm there may be various cellular automata. Most well-known cellular automaton is the ‘Game of Life’. Square-shaped cells fulfil a plane and can take one of the two states: they can be live or dead. The initial state can be given or selected at random and the rules related to the changes of the state are as follows;
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a live cell dies when it has got less than two or more than three live neighbours, and when it has got two or three live neighbours it does not die,
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a dead cell becomes a live one when it has got exactly three live neighbours.
Such simple rules may allow to create very interesting structures, which for example can reproduce.
How the Universe can be modelled through a cellular automaton? For example, we can employ a three-dimension grid of cells. Then, for every cell we can determine a state corresponding to an amount of mass and values of various forces or fields. After that, we will establish the rules how the contents of every cell must change depending on the contents of the neighbouring cells, and then we will initialise the automaton process. In such model, time flows according to our perception of time, provided there is the shortest time interval (one stage in the automaton operations), and there is the shortest distance i.e. cell size. Also, the speed the changes can move in space is constant. We see that such model involves not only naturally flowing time, but also certain quantum properties. It may be one of the potential paths when modelling the Universe.