2011/05/01 by David Balduzzi, Balduzzi, David
Computer Science · Mathematics · Physics and Astronomy · #Cellular Automata and Applications #Cellular Automata and Lattice Gases (nlin.CG) #FOS: Biological sciences #FOS: Computer and information sciences #FOS: Physical sciences #Information Theory (cs.IT) #Neurons and Cognition (q-bio.NC) #Stochastic processes and statistical mechanics #Theoretical and Computational Physics
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1105.0158
openalex publication_date 2011/05/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Many natural processes occur over characteristic spatial and temporal scales.\nThis paper presents tools for (i) flexibly and scalably coarse-graining\ncellular automata and (ii) identifying which coarse-grainings express an\nautomaton's dynamics well, and which express its dynamics badly. We apply the\ntools to investigate a range of examples in Conway's Game of Life and Hopfield\nnetworks and demonstrate that they capture some basic intuitions about emergent\nprocesses. Finally, we formalize the notion that a process is emergent if it is\nbetter expressed at a coarser granularity.\n