From: Andrew Wuensche (100020.2727@CompuServe.COM)
Date: Fri Jul 23 1993 - 13:02:33 UTC
"THE GLOBAL DYNAMICS OF CELLULAR AUTOMATA" Thanks very much to Harold V. McIntosh for his commentaries on "the Atlas" (see below). I appreciate his close scrutiny of the book from his perspective of the de Bruijn diagram. On the question of copyright of the software raised by Harold in episode 14 of his commentaries, I would like to clarify the issue as follows. Harold says.. "We sincerely hope that the phrase '... and any images implicit in the software, ...' on page 61 does not carry the dire implications alluded to above." It doesnt. This phrase was included to prevent any COMMERCIAL exploitation of the images without the authors permission, (ie as posters, book covers, art books, T shirts etc, note the impact of fractals). The images are very pretty (some have even said beautiful), quite apart from their scientific interest. However, if researchers want to use the software in their work, and publish the images in their papers, I would be only too pleased. This is implied in the Atlas in a number of places, ie on page xvi of the introduction "we hope that the atlas..., and the program for exploring further into rule space, will provide new oppertunities for CA research". And on the back cover "The Atlas ... is intended, with the accompanying software, as an aid to navigation into the vast reaches of rule behaviour space." Researchers who want to published the images should seek permission as a matter of form. This will not be refused provided the appropriate acknowledgments are included. Recent developments ------------------- I have developed the software so that basins of attraction can be drawn for CA with a neighbourhood of up to 9, ie (2,4). The basins of attraction for random Boolean networks can also be drawn using a new reverse algorithm. Stuart Kauffman used examples of these images for the cover of his new book "Origins of Order" (with permission of course). Note that random Boolean networks are a superset of finite CA of any dimension. Attractor basins of 2-D CA can be drawn using this algorithm. The algorithm is described in my paper "The Ghost in the Machine", see below, available in hard copy. The new software will run on the Sun and Mac as well as PCs. I hope to make it available next year. Any further comments on "the Atlas" are very welcome! Andy Wuensche contact address: Santa Fe Institute 48 Esmond Road, London W4 1JQ and The University of Sussex (COGS) tel 081 995 8893 fax 081 742 2178 wuensch@santafe.edu 100020.2727@compuserve.com andywu@cogs.susx.ac.uk THE GLOBAL DYNAMICS OF CELLULAR AUTOMATA An Atlas of Basin of Attraction Fields of One-Dimensional Cellular Automata ----------------------------------------- Andrew Wuensche Mike Lesser Foreword by Chris Langton Diskette included for PC-compatible computers. Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity Reference Vol 1 Addison-Wesley IBSN 0-201-55740-1 THE GHOST IN THE MACHINE Basins of Attraction of Random Boolean Networks ----------------------------------------------- Cognitive Science Research Paper 281, University of Sussex, 1993, to be published in Artificial Life III, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity.
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