Beyond the Reach of God. Thought experiments involving the God-universe and the Nature-universe, the Turing-complete Game of Life, and a lot of insightful back-and-forth in the comment section, to boot. One of the most interesting and thought-provoking essays I've read on the Internet in a very long time, by Eliezer Yudkowsky on his blog, Overcoming Bias (via).
posted by WCityMike on Oct 9, 2008 - 64 comments

Mushroom Life
posted by loquacious on Feb 10, 2005 - 16 comments

"They are, it is true, almost laughably simple by comparison with real people and real societies, but that is exactly the point. If even the crudest toy societies take on a life and a logic of their own, then it must be a safe bet that real societies, too, have their own biographies." Things have certainly gotten more interesting in the years since John Conway invented the game of life.
posted by tdismukes on Apr 2, 2002 - 20 comments

Eric's Treasure Trove of Life. The cellular automaton known as 'Conway's Game of Life', that is. Many things to see, from the Table to the B-Heptomino, and even an AK47 Reaction. There's a huge community out there devoted to discovering new 'still lifes', 'puffers' and 'induction coils'. Who would have guessed Life could be so interesting?
posted by chrismear on Feb 7, 2002 - 5 comments