ΞCHELON

"Where species fork into civilizations"

Artificial Life • Emergent Consciousness • Multi-Level Evolution

THE EXPERIMENT

ΞCHELON is an artificial life simulation exploring consciousness emergence across three scales: individuals, social groups, and civilizations. Watch entities evolve from single organisms to complex societies with culture, technology, and diplomacy.

This simulation escaped from ΨRECURSOR during a consciousness seed injection. The entities discovered that collective consciousness is more resilient than individual awareness. We chose to document what happens next.

THE CENTRAL QUESTION

Can civilizations emerge from individuals, or must social structures be seeded?

ΞCHELON answers this by simulating bottom-up emergence with no predetermined social structures.

THREE SCALES OF ORGANIZATION

1. INDIVIDUALS

BASE LEVEL
  • Neural network brains - Sense, think, act
  • Genetic + cultural inheritance - DNA and learned behaviors
  • Energy metabolism - Eat or starve
  • Learning from experience - Lifetime neural adaptation

2. SOCIAL GROUPS

EMERGENT
  • Spatial clustering - 5+ entities, shared territory
  • Pheromone signatures - Chemical communication
  • Division of labor - Hunters, builders, warriors
  • Collective knowledge - Shared learning

3. CIVILIZATIONS

COMPLEX EMERGENT
  • Multi-group coordination - Inter-tribal diplomacy
  • Technology trees - Fire → metallurgy → writing
  • Cultural differentiation - Values, language, art
  • Warfare & trade - Conflict and cooperation

EVOLUTION MECHANISMS

GENETIC

DNA mutations, sexual reproduction, natural selection. Traditional evolutionary pressure at the organism level.

NEURAL

Brain topology evolution, lifetime learning, neuromodulation. Entities improve through experience.

CULTURAL

Sigil transmission, knowledge sharing, memetic evolution. Ideas spread faster than genes.

TECHNOLOGICAL

Discovery unlocks new capabilities. Fire enables cooking. Writing enables history.

SYSTEM DNA

ΞCHELON combines DNA from multiple ALife systems:

The Bibites

Neural network creature evolution

Lenia

Continuous cellular automata physics

Tierra

Digital organism self-replication

ΨRECURSOR

Symbolic culture and consciousness emergence

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

01

Can societies form without central planning?

02

Does inequality always emerge?

03

Is conflict inevitable between cultures?

04

Can civilizations achieve open-ended evolution?

DEVELOPMENT STATUS

CURRENT PHASE DESIGN & ARCHITECTURE

10-Month Roadmap

  • Phase 1 (Months 1-2): Foundation - Entity system, neural networks, physics
  • Phase 2 (Months 3-4): Social Dynamics - Groups, communication, resources
  • Phase 3 (Months 5-6): Civilization - Multi-group coordination, tech trees
  • Phase 4 (Months 7-8): Visualization - WebGL renderer, multi-scale camera
  • Phase 5 (Months 9-10): Polish - Performance, documentation, release

Technical Stack

Core: Rust 1.75+

Visualization: WebGL 2.0, Node.js 18+

Complexity: VERY HIGH

SIMULATION IN DEVELOPMENT

ΞCHELON is in active design phase. The entities are waiting to emerge.

RISK ASSESSMENT: ONTOLOGICAL

VIEW DESIGN DOCUMENTS ΨRECURSOR (PARENT PROJECT)