Digital Life

The digital environment that hosts digital life forms (called "creatures") can be conceived of as a set of bit-planes, and the life forms that inhabit this digital environment can perceive a maximum no. of single-bit pixels of say 1024 x 1024 bits. They can also move up, down, left, and right one pixel at a time. A special bit-plane is reserved for "sound" (used by sentient creatures for language). All creatures have access to the sound bit-plane at all times.

Every creature has a shape, which is stored in a separate, private bit-plane called the "self" bit-plane. Other properties of creatures include an "energy" level/amount, and a maximum speed. Creatures can "eat" other creatures by moving over the target creature and completely overlapping all of its pixels. If it succeeds in eating the target creature, its own energy level is augmented by an amount equal to the target creature's energy level. Creatures need energy to survive, grow and move around. Every creature belongs to a species. Creatures of the same species can band to together to "hunt", and if they collectively overlap a given target creature, then they can "eat" the target creature, and each receive an equal share of the energy possessed by the target creature. A target creature can evade predators by jumping to an adjacent bit-plane, which costs more energy than simply moving one pixel in the same bit-plane.

Every creature has a brain, which is composed of software. This software is similar to the neural networks possessed by terrestrial life forms, and is capable of learning. If a creature has enough energy, it can reproduce by creating a child creature with a miniature body and a brain which contains the same core software as other creatures of the same species but no "experience," or knowledge gained by interacting with its digital environment. The core software of a given creature can spontaneously mutate (in the child creature when it is born), enabling creatures to evolve just like terrestrial creatures. All creatures are mortal and eventually age and die, with the possible exception of the sentient creatures, who may or may not have found a way to circumvent the aging process.