Morphological stability and identity in self-organizing systems

TL;DR

This paper explores how self-organizing systems, specifically Lenia cellular automata, maintain morphological stability and identity, aiming to develop methods to distinguish autonomous subsystems like solitons from their environment.

Contribution

It applies a framework of structural stability analysis to Lenia, proposing a way to formally identify autonomous subsystems within self-organizing systems.

Findings

Lenia exhibits diverse, lifelike subsystems called solitons.

Structural stability analysis can distinguish subsystems from environment.

Proposes a formal method for identifying autonomous units in self-organizing systems.

Abstract

In this essay I aim to investigate and discuss the process through which bundles of things "self-organize" into other things. In particular, I engage in such investigation by trying to apply a framework of analysis of structural stability of morphological forms to the context of a continuous cellular automata known as $\textit{Lenia}$, which displays great diversity of distinguishable, individuated complex subsystems, who behave autonomously and in lifelike manner (such subsystems are often known as $\textit{solitons}$). I do so in order to suggest a path to the development of methods to formally distinguish said subsystems from their environment.