Life-Span Expectancy and Cycle Size in the Original Autopoiesis Algorithm

We implement Varela, Maturana and Uribe's original autopoiesis algorithm with suitable modifications as proposed by McMullin. We further investigate how environmental factors affect formation of autopoietic entities - namely how long an entity remains a whole after formation and to what size does it grow in its life span i.e. Life span and Cycle size respectively. We find that ratios of different basic elements like Holes, Substrates and Catalysts do not affect Life span and Cycle size meaningfully but both properties are affected negatively if disintegration probability—the probability of a Link element to transform into a Substrate element—is increased.