open_questions

Lana’s Open Questions

Website version: https://lanasina.github.io/open_questions/

A list of research questions that either have no answers, or which consensus answers I do not find convincing. If the question was formulated by someone else, their name is next to the question.

Discuss here: https://github.com/LanaSina/open_questions/discussions

  1. Why do the rules in simulations demonstrating 1st order emergence (eg individuas -> swarm) not also cause second order emrgence (swarm -> swarms of swarms, or cell -> multicellular organism -> society)?

  2. What is the equivalent of Turing Completeness for simulations of life? (How do you know a simulation has the potential to simulate, eg, a cell?) Is there a list of elements such that, if they can exsit in the simulation, it means that the simulation can simulate life?

  3. Where does complexity hide in a CA? Rules, initial state, number of states? Can you shift complexity from one of these to the other?

  4. What are systematic methods to increase the complexity of a system, for any definition of complexity?

  5. Are life and any concept of “complexity” related?

  6. Is complexity “good” for anything in living systems?

  7. How much engineering in a simulation is overengineering? When does the complexity of the setup exceed the complexity of the outputs?