The Game of Life, a two-dimensional computationally universal cellular automaton, is known to exhibits 1/f noise in the evolutions starting from random configurations. In this paper we perform the spectral analysis on the computation process by a Turing machine constructed on the array of the Game of Life. As a result, the power spectrum averaged over the whole array has almost flat line at low frequencies and a lot of sharp peaks at high frequencies although some regions in which complicated behavior such as frequent memory rewriting occurs exhibit 1/f noise. This singular power spectrum is, however, easily turned into 1/f by slightly deforming the initial configuration of the Turing machine. These results emphasize the peculiarity of the computation process on the Game of Life that is never shared with the evolutions from random configurations. The Lyapunov exponents have positive values in three out of six trials and zero or negative values in other three trails. That means the computation process is essentially chaotic but it has capable of recovering a slight error in the configuration of the Turing machine.

There is evidence in favor of a relationship between the presence of 1/f noise and computational universality in cellular automata. To confirm the relationship, we search for two-dimensional cellular automata with a 1/f power spectrum by means of genetic algorithms. The power spectrum is calculated from the evolution of the state of the cell, starting from a random initial configuration. The fitness is estimated by the power spectrum with consideration of the spectral similarity to the 1/f spectrum. The result shows that the rule with the highest fitness over the most runs exhibits a 1/f type spectrum and its transition function and behavior are quite similar to those of the Game of Life, which is known to be a computationally universal cellular automaton. These results support the relationship between the presence of 1/f noise and computational universality.

This paper is concerned with a concept called universality or completeness of sets of logic devices. Universality characterizes sets of logic devices which can be used for the construction of arbitrary logic circuits. The elemental universality proposed here is the most general condition of universality which covers logic devices with/without delay time and combinational/sequential circuits. The necessary and sufficient condition of elemental universality shows that nonlinearity and nonmonotonicity are essential conditions for the realization of various digital mechanisms.