[life] Multi-species Life: Deterministic vs. Infectious

[kwzh-home@gnu.org (Karl Heuer)]

Earlier, I mentioned two possible models for the multi-species rule:
"Deterministic", in which new cells are associated with the species
that holds a majority among the non-neutral parents, or neutral if
there is no such majority; and "Infectious", in which new cells are
associated with a random parent, *and* even stable cells are assigned
a species from a random selection of those neighbors that are keeping
it alive (including itself, with half a vote).  There is no neutral
species in the infectious model.

>Hm, maybe I'll run an experiment with two species each owning a
>reflector and a third species owning a glider that bounces between
>them, and see how it looks in both deterministic and random mode.
>I think they're both potentially interesting games.

Here are the results.  The reflector (a pentadecathlon) always retains
its identity, even if it's neutral and is hit by a non-neutral
glider.  (It seems that the only cells that get converted are sparks
that will die off without making any further contributions.)  In the
deterministic model, a non-neutral glider maintains its identity but a
neutral glider gets converted on reflection; in the infectious model,
a glider usually maintains its identity but has a small probability of
being converted.

                           B    B  
                CC       BB BBBB BB
                 CC        B    B  
                C                  
  A    A                           
AA AAAA AA                         
  A    A