Terence P Kee | Searcharxiv

arXiv2026

Temporal Retention of Information as a Biosignature

Previous publications by the authors put forward the argument that Lifelike Cellular Automata can be treated as a bona fide example of livingness in and of themselves, not simply a toy analogue to biological life. Traits known to be indicative of biological life, biosignatures, were identified in informational form as particular outlier traits of the ruleset for the lifelike cellular automata known as Conways Game of Life. This publication reverses that logic, looking at a known outlier trait of Conways Game of Life, its very long-lasting evolutions, and using this to point towards temporal retention as an informational biosignature concept.

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arXiv2024

Conways game of life as an analogue to a habitable world Livingness beyond the biological

Conways Game of Life is a cellular automaton noted for its rich, complex, and emergent behavior, which seems qualitatively lifelike it exists within a wider space of different rule-sets of cellular automata none of which have been found to display behaviors that seem as rich as Conways selected example We present here a set of three quantitative tests for lifelike behavior based on the critical brain theory Shannons theory of information entropy and integrated information theory all of which are successfully able to select Conways Game of Life as an outlier within this set which is a nonbiological analogue to the selection of a habitable planet or universe among a wider space of similar settings that cannot support the same kinds of living systems

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