Life, the Universe and Cellular Automation (part II)

So what has all this to got do with CA and Groovy Lava?  Well, not much really.  However, I do believe that programs such as Groovy do reveal an interesting insight into the way our world appears to work.  We now know that the physical world is made up of an unimaginable number of particles, all interacting with each other and more or less following the same set of rules.  From this springs all the diversity of life and objects that exists around us.  But this all seems too hard to believe.  How can such things just appear from the apparently random movements of fundamental particles?  This is where cellular automata begin to reveal just how this might be possible.  By creating simple rules and by providing enough 'particles' to use these rules, you can evolve real structure and form, all based purely on the interaction of each particle with it's neighbour.  Each individual particle is doing it's own thing, but if you can step back and take a look at all the particles in unison - something remarkable appears.