Cell state

A state is one of several forms that a cell can be in. Life, outer-totalistic rules, isotropic non-totalistic rules, MAP rules, and Larger than Life rules have two states: on and off. Others, such as Generations and deficient rules, as well as LifeHistory, variants of Life such as Immigration and Symbiosis, and circuitry rules such as WireWorld, are multistate rules.

Multistate rules have each state defined by an integer from 0 to the number of states minus one, where 0 is the background state. Some multistate rules clearly have some "on" states and "off" states. For example, Generations rules have state 1 as the only "on" state, in Immigration and QuadLife, every state except the background is "on", and in LifeHistory and LifeSuper, odd-numbered states are "on". Other rules have no clear distinction between on states and off states.