I've been exploring a lot lately, and I've found a few scripts that, in simulating the kinds of patterns biologists and astronomers and other scientists study, may also offer some insight into social patterns or the patterns of an individual life. Here's one that's interested me today: it's called Cellular Automata, and it simulates cell behavior based upon the following four rules:

1. Cells die when they are lonely. In this simulation, a cell is lonely when it has less than two neighbors.

2. Cells die when they are overcrowded. Here, a cell becomes overcrowded when it has more than three neighbors.

3. Cells reproduce when they're in good company. Here, three's company. An empty cell with three neighbors will come to life.

4. Cells reach stasis when they're in the right company. A cell with exactly two neighbors will remain unchanged.

Go visit the link first, and then come back here for more pointers on what you can do with the animation. 

You can click the grid while the animation is playing to add a cell to the mixture. You can also clear the grid and experiment with different patterns of cells by clicking to add cells and then starting the animation. You can also increase the number of cells in the grid. Interesting. Lovely. Fascinating.

Cellular Automata was developed by Grant Robinson, who says he found his inspiration for the app in a book called Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software by Steven Johnson. I plan to find a copy of that book asap.

And who is Grant Robinson? He is a digital designer in New Zealand. You can look at more of his fascinating designs and other projects he's working on at his page.