Opening people to CAs is one issue, but opening CAs to people is another. What would happen to causality if such a collision were to occur? Could causality, at least in concept, be bent or broken? I needed the resulting project to be an environment where the underlying computation of each system was exposed to the computation of the other. ![]() I thus began developing a mechanism for colliding these two systems together. The question now was: How do these two systems really function? The answer to this problem came in Joel Slayton’s foreword to Media Ecologies by Mathew Fuller: One system unbound by time, and the other (the one I live in) bound by time. The basis for the work is these two opposing systems. ![]() In my macro-world, day to day struggle, however, time-does-exist as an unbreakable restraint. Besides the strictly philosophical arguments, there exist some conjectures in quantum mechanics about the breaking of causality when it comes to entanglement and “spooky action at a distance”. ![]() The other assumption I make is that we are in fact trapped in a forward-moving linear chronology. If you are a researcher in the field of Artificial Life, or a subscriber to the philosophy of Universal Automatism this is not an unusual assumption. The Irreversible Automata in this piece are you and I. Reversible Cellular Automata follow rules such that taking a step forward in time is as simple as taking a step back. These algorithms exhibit emergent, even lifelike, behavior, which can be very complex even when the rules they follow are quite simple. Cellular Automata (CAs) are simple graphic self-generating mathematical algorithms. That system came in the form of reversible Cellular Automata. I wanted to find a system that was not bound by time in the same manner we are. There is much conjecture about time manipulation, the possibilities, the impossibilities and the paradoxes. I felt it was only fitting that my graduate thesis evolve out of it. “If only I could move through time as freely as I can move through space.” – This thought has been especially prevalent in my mind throughout my years in graduate school. I would also like to thank the unknown for keeping me curious. I would especially like to thank Kyungwha Lee, without her effort and support I would have accomplished nothing on time if at all. If I missed anyone I’m sorry I was kind of delirious. I would like to thank all my friends, those who soldered and those who helped out in a pinch when it was the final hour, Ethan Miller, Sheau Ching Lee, Michael Weisert, Thomas Asmuth, Vera Fainshtein, and Bruce Gardner. I would like to thank Rudy Rucker for rekindling the fascination as well as the wealth of information and inspiration he provided. ![]() I would like to thank Mike Hayward for first introducing me to the world of Cellular Automata and Artificial Life. I would like to thank my committee, Joel Slayton, Shannon Wright, and Steve Durie, for all the advice and support they have given me, even if they weren’t sure what exactly it was I was doing sometimes. I would like to thank my parents, Henry and Sue Bruneau, for helping me get through the rough early days I endured in our public education system.
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