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Self-organization is a concept I picked up from a book by Stuart Kaufman. The idea is that any systems consisting out of subsystems with a great number of rules that define interactions between the subsystems will show signs of self-organization. Some systems will help others, while other systems will slow neighbors. In these kind of environments it is unavoidable that positive feedback loops will occur. A will help B, B will help C and C will help A, so the whole system will grow in an ABC pattern.
Archean is an implementation of these ideas in the form of a cellular automatum. The idea is rather simpel. Each cell contains a vector of six reals. The average vector of the neighbourhood is then calculated and multiplied by a matrix. This result is added to the vector of the cell. By mapping the six reals to rgb space and filling the matrix with random numbers, fascinating patterns spring to life.
An online version in Java is available and a downloadable one in Delphi. The last one is faster and has a breeding mode, where you see four variants of the same population and you can choose which one you like best. That one is then taken as the seed for four new variants. This allows you to find interesting patterns.
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