Prototype
Matrix Evolution
Browser implementation of the paper's 2D BFF spatial soup, with worker execution and compressed visualization.
What you are seeing
- Each cell holds a 64-byte BFF program (tape)
- Color = the tape's dominant opcode, compressed to one pixel (< > { } - + . , [ ])
- Dark cells contain no opcode bytes
- Uniform-color waves = self-replicating programs spreading
How to explore
- Lower mutation to let dominant replicators stabilize
- Raise mutation to keep the soup turbulent
- Lower max steps to speed up the run at the cost of fidelity
- Randomize resets the soup while keeping the current controls
How it works
1) The substrate
240×135 grid of programs, each a 64-byte BFF tape. Instructions and data share the same bytes: there is no separate code memory. The initial soup is uniform random noise.
2) Interaction
Each epoch, nearby programs are greedily paired within a Chebyshev radius-2 neighborhood, concatenated, then interpreted together for up to 8192 steps before being split back into the grid.
3) Browser implementation
The simulation runs in a Web Worker to keep the page responsive at paper-scale defaults. The canvas shows one compressed pixel per tape using its dominant opcode rather than rendering all 64 bytes.
Inspired by Computational Life (Agüera y Arcas et al., 2024) — self-replication from random initial conditions with no designed fitness.