A problem with Conway's Game of LIfe is that it is very hard to defend yourself against attack from the rest of the game board. You can put out an eater barrier, but those things aren't impermiable, and you have to take it down if you want to expand. So, most self-reproducing creatures in an otherwise random GOL field might find themselves shot to pieces - and quickly disintegrate.
You can put out an eater barrier, but those things aren't impermiable
Do we have a proof for that? Or a reason to have high confidence that such a thing is not possible? How about preemptive strikes? That is, an expanding field that obliterates all dangerous things it its path.
Conway’s Game of Life is Turing-complete. Therefore, it is possible to create an AI in it. If you created a 3^^3 by 3^^3 Life board, setting the initial state at random, presumably somewhere an AI would be created. Would this AI somehow take over the whole game board, if given enough time?
Would this be visible from the top, as it were?
EDIT: I probably meant 3^^^3, sorry. Also, by generating at random, I meant 50% chance on. But any other chance would work too, I suspect.