A hungry CA
The CA is controlled by the following buttons:
Hide CA-2
Shorter: Makes CA shorter.
Longer: Makes CA longer.
Plant CA-1: CA-1 is planted.
Plant CA-2: CA-2 is planted.
CA-2 control: when true, the CA controls its behavior. When
false, the observer controls it.
hungry: CA-2 adds some of its bits to CA-1 (perturbs it),
which happens only when they touch each other.
Information:
Resources= the amount of resources the CA has
Accumulation rate:
interaction: indicates when the CA meet.
CA-2 control: hungry: CA size:
1. Set hungry = false, CA-2 control = false
When the experiment starts the two CA start moving up and down. Both bounce back from the borders. Their resources decline at a rate of 1 unit / time unit. While CA-1 gets thinner, CA-2 size is constant. When they touch or overlap (interaction = true) resources are replenished and CA-1 gets wider. Resource accumulation is proportional to the CA count. The fatter a CA is the more resources it accumulates. As the CA move up or down they may briefly touch (interact=true) and accumulate resources. When parting they lose them again
2. Set hungry = true. CA-2 control = false
This makes CA-2 hungry and when it meets CA-1,
it will perturb it which has two outcomes: 1. CA-1 becomes wider.
2. CA-2 hijacks CA-1 and they travel together which prolongs interaction.
However perturbation may kill part of CA-1, the CA part and lose
their resources (resource == 0). Let them interact for a while and
set hungry = false. CA-2 stops perturbing CA-1 and they may
travel together for a while.
3. Set CA-2 control = true
CA-2 controls its own behavior. When resources <-50 it gets
hungry (hungry = true). During their next encounter CA-2 will perturb
CA-1 and hijack it. When resources > 50 CA-2 is satiated and
stops perturbing CA-1 (hungry = false). They may travel together
for a while and then part whereupon they lose their resources and
start accumulating them from scratch. You may induce this state
by replanting either one.
Driver: Whenever the CA are separated, they lose 1 unit /
step of their resources. This loss drives the entire system.
Response: The behavior of the two CA, collectively regarded
as the system, is driven by the CA-2 resource level.
1. When resources decline CA-1 moves faster improving its chance
to meet CA-2
2. When CA-2 is hungry it will perturb and hijack CA-1 during their
next encounter.
Benefit to CA-2: Hijacking will prolong their interaction
until CA-2 attains satiation (hungry = false).
Indirect benefit to CA-2: During the prolonged interaction
CA-1 will grow more and more which will raise the probability of
their encounter should they part.
Benefit to CA-1: As CA-1 grows it accumulates resources
faster. Since accumulation rate is proportional to its size,
CA-1 strength or wellbeing depends entirely on CA-2
Perturbation benefit: CA-1 accumulates resources faster.
CA-2 gains more time to accumulate its resources.
Perturbation risk: Since the perturbation outcome varies,
both CA may part an lose their resources.
The scheme depicts the relationship between the
variables. The system in the applet is the solution
of this scheme. It is a strange attractor.