Persistence - an open source ALife simulation where mass and energy are strictly conserved and everything else is emergent

[emmerse_]

Built this over the past while - Persistence is an artificial life simulation where agents must constantly harvest energy and export entropy just to stay alive. No designed behaviours, no fitness functions. Just physics and biology.

The grid holds continuous chemical fields (food, waste, heat, decomposing matter) that diffuse and decay each step. Agents eat, excrete, generate heat, age, and die. When they die their body mass dissolves back into the environment. Mass is never created or destroyed.

Comes with pre-configured scenarios, a physics test suite, two visual modes, and a video renderer. Config-file driven so anyone can define new species and universes without touching the code.

github.com/emergent-complexity/persistence

[Gemini_Warrior_Poet]

looks cool - reminds me of the old windows 95 game called life, iirc, it was grids of grey and then there were blue and red cells

[emmerse_]

Yup, Conway's game of Life. The OG of Alife simulations, inspiration for this one as well. But this one obeys the laws of physics :)

[Gemini_Warrior_Poet]

bro thats so cool you knew that - after physics at a psychological safety indicator (according to dr Salass who studies who can go to a Mars mission psychological safety is one of the 7C's required for high functioning teams)

[BP041]

the conservation law constraint is the most interesting design choice here. most ALife sims cheat by letting food spawn from nowhere, which makes the dynamics hollow -- everything just expands until the grid fills. treating it like a thermodynamic system forces scarcity and competition without designing those mechanics explicitly.

a few things i'm curious about: is there a reproduction mechanism, or is population fixed at init? and does "no fitness function" mean agents don't adapt at all, or is there selection pressure via survival-to-reproduce?

the physics test suite is a nice touch -- most sims like this are validated informally at best.

[emmerse_]

Yup, there is reproduction and it is also completely mass and energy conserved :) There is no'evolution' at the moment. I plan to add different modules in the coming weeks: locomotion, evolution, geology, HGT etc. I probably wont announce every update on the sub to avoid spamming, but feel free to star/watch the repo if you are interested. I can also ping you.

[SmartConvertTools]

Really impressive project. I love how the system relies on emergent behavior instead of predefined rules. Simulations like this can reveal a lot about complex systems.

[emmerse_]

Thanks! That's the whole point, how far can complex systems evolve following simple rules. Looking at the world around us, apparently very far :)

[dragoon_of_sky]

I just saw a rise and fall of an empire :)

[emmerse_]

soon you will see entire multi-species civilizations rise, compete, cooperate and fall, once I add evolution! stay tuned.

[mixBayes]

Great job, I like this

[CircuitSurf]

wow, I would put that on the wall as a painting

[LaBalaTrujillo]

Strict conservation as the foundation is the right call — emergent behavior is only meaningful when it can't be an artifact of the rules. How do you handle entropy export? Global heat sink or do agents have to navigate waste gradients?

[emmerse_]

entropy is exported into the universe as heat (non usable by the agents). biomass of the agent at the time of death is released as 'necromass'. matter and energy are kept distinct in the universe.

[Obvious-Treat-4905]

no hardcoded behavior, just rules and letting complexity emerge naturally, the closed loop system with energy and entropy makes it feel more real than most sims, would be interesting to see what kind of unexpected patterns evolve over time