Detecting emergent processes in cellular automata with excess information
Information Theory
2011-09-23 v2 math.IT
Cellular Automata and Lattice Gases
Neurons and Cognition
Abstract
Many natural processes occur over characteristic spatial and temporal scales. This paper presents tools for (i) flexibly and scalably coarse-graining cellular automata and (ii) identifying which coarse-grainings express an automaton's dynamics well, and which express its dynamics badly. We apply the tools to investigate a range of examples in Conway's Game of Life and Hopfield networks and demonstrate that they capture some basic intuitions about emergent processes. Finally, we formalize the notion that a process is emergent if it is better expressed at a coarser granularity.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1105.0158,
title = {Detecting emergent processes in cellular automata with excess information},
author = {David Balduzzi},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1105.0158},
year = {2011}
}
Comments
8 pages, 6 figures