IIRC these are called "totalistic" rules. The most interesting aspect of this project, it seems to me, is the isInteresting() predicate. However (as the OEIS shows) defining "interesting" can be a challenge. One possible choice in this context might be "can be used to build a Turing machine". But--considering the heroics entailed constructing a Turing-equivalent pattern just for the single Life rule--this seems kinda daunting. But if we had even a quick partial implementation at least we might winnow out the vast majority of the quarter million rules and just concentrate on the most promising candidates. For example, the always-0 and always-1 rules are obviously unviable; can we set any sharper bounds on the number of 1s required for a rule to be an interesting candidate? Life has three 1s. Can we prove that three is a minimum? Simpler than full Turing: when can we construct a "wire" that can be used to transmit state changes across space, like the Life glider streams? (This isn't a logical requirement, but it enables engineering). Alternatively we might start with the simpler 4 cell neighborhood, thus only 2^10 cases. Also, what happens when interesting 1-D rules move to bigger neighborhoods?

="Warren D Smith" <warren.wds@gmail.com>

On the usual 2D integer grid with 0/1 binary state on each grid point, there are exactly 262144=2^18 possible cellular automaton rules of the form

MyNewState = F(MyOldState, NumberOfNeighborsWhichAre1)

based on each grid point regarded as having 8 neighbors, any number 0-8 of which can be in state 1.

One could, I suppose, try to classify all 262144 trying to find the small fraction among such rules which are "interesting." LIFE and the new rule Lunnon just pointed out (if I understand it aright), are interesting.