The Enlightened Game of Life

The interaction of light with complex matter is one of the fundamental subjects in modern physics and biology. This topic is relevant from a variety of different perspectives, including, among others, modelling of animal behaviour (as the moonlight driven coral reef spawning), evolution (the development of the eye), and light activated matter (as, e.g., opto-genetics and laser-driven micro-motors). From a very abstract point of view, if one accepts cellular automata (CA) as the simplest mathematical model for life (as originally suggested by Conway), one can try to include the interaction with light and electromagnetic radiation by enlarging the set of evolution rules to obtain a photo-sensible CA.