Agnosiophobia in a virtual agent: behavior and dynamical architecture in Lenia

All embodied agents are fundamentally patterns in physiological or other excitable media, blurring the distinction between objects and processes. Emergent patterns with complex behaviors, such as Gliders in the Game of Life and virtual patterns in Lenia, are powerful model systems in which to understand the properties and origins of behavioral traits in novel agents. We equip patterns in Lenia with the capacity to perceive environmental occlusions – regions in the Lenia grid from which no numerical information is available. Complementing the conventional concept of infotaxis, we observe avoidance of these occluded regions, a behavior we term agnosiophobia. To explain this behavior, we map each test creature’s sensitivity to targeted occlusions and interpret the results in the language of dynamical systems. We observe Lenia creatures taking advantage of their freedom to change heading in order to achieve what appears to be a more fundamental goal: the preservation of their morphology. This work is one step along an important path to understand how emergent agents’ behavioral propensities interact with the informational topography of their world. Data/Code available at: github.com/jessescool/lenia-umwelt