It is interesting, but, pardon my ignorance, is it appropriate to call this "a behaviour" (in the traditional meaning of this word)? It looks to me like "just" playing with numbers, i.e. normal phenomenon ultimately describable with some math theory. It looks far-fetched to me to describe it with the terms like "simple rules can result to complex emergent behaviour," etc...
I remember there are some number sequences generated by some rules, which seems random at first and then some sub-sequence repeates. Now this looks similar to me, except it seems to more mysterious because someone described it as "ant doing something". ;-)
If you want to remove some of your self-described "ignorance" I highly recommend "Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge of Order and Chaos". It's a great primer on the origins of study of emergent behavior in chaotic systems, particularly highlighting the work of Chris Langton, Stuart Kaufman, the Santa Fe Institute and several others. GREAT read.
The interesting bit is that the best "math theory" we have for describing the behavior of this system is not much better than just running the simulation. In theory, the system should be "simple" in the sense that it has a low information entropy, as evidenced by its simple rules. And yet, we can't yet derive high-order epiphenomena from the low-order description without the rather brutish, informal, and inexact tactic of cranking through the rules and watching what happens. In short, it's interesting because it does look like it could "describable with some math theory" but so far said math theory has not been found.
>It looks to me like "just" playing with numbers, i.e. normal phenomenon ultimately describable with some math theory.
group theory is dealing with even simpler rules and it was able to reach the state of "math theory", though far from completed. Anything more complicated than that - tiny islands of understanded surronded by narrow seas of "playing with numbers" in the vast oceans of unknown.
>It looks far-fetched to me to describe it with the terms like "simple rules can result to complex emergent
behaviour," etc...
>Now this looks similar to me
any proof of "far-fetchedness" or similarity would put you right into the head of the line for the Fields :)
I remember there are some number sequences generated by some rules, which seems random at first and then some sub-sequence repeates. Now this looks similar to me, except it seems to more mysterious because someone described it as "ant doing something". ;-)