A Word from the Editors

This issue comprises two parts.

A series of articles form a special issue on “The Distributed Ghost,” an outcome of a workshop held at the 2023 Artificial Life conference in Sapporo, Japan. This has been compiled by editors Stefano Nichele, Hiroki Sayama, Eric Medvet, Chrystopher Nehaniv, and Mario Pavone. Two preceding standard research articles neatly align with the special issue in that they also consider the dynamics of interacting biological systems using traditional computational approaches (cellular automata, Tierra-like assembly languages, feed-forward neural networks, and Turing machines) for modeling activities, from a behavioral rather than an intelligential perspective. Tackling central themes of ALife, they study the emergence of persistent morphologies and the behaviors of mutant specialists and generalists competing for resources in a well-mixed environment. These articles demonstrate two approaches to investigating attributes of interacting populations of simple computational, protocellular creatures.