So what is the big fuss about Life? What makes it so important that it deserves hundreds of entire websites dedicated to it?

Well, the study and analysis of the game of Life, which is an example of the larger field of cellular automata, can yield many potential benefits. These include new applications of cellular automata such as developing better modeling or simulation systems for biology, chemistry, and physics and in tackling modern day problems like traffic in cities. Studies in these areas can shed light on hard problems by providing new perspectives of approach and also explain the complex behaviors of cells, animals, and various other objects.

Life, as a simple computational universe, can furthermore be used as a Turing Machine to compute values while the cells still follow Conway's simple rules. Life is also a work of art as it exhibits natural symmetry and unites mathematics with the universe. Future developments in these fields will provide a greater understanding of the world and allow further advances in the scientific quest for knowledge.

The game of Life exhibits certain qualities analogous to its real-life counterpart, the biological and living world. At its most basic core, Life is simply a representation of the many minute interactions of numerous small parts based on a few simple rules. Thus leading to the idea that living things are greater than the sum of their parts, that complexity is created. Emergent properties of life appear in all living organisms as a result of tiny chemical interactions, which build up to cellular interactions, to organs and subsystems, to organisms, to communities, and finally to the entire global system - all dependent on this layered development and interaction. From simple rules, there develops greater layers of complexity just like a computer's architecture that is layered in growing complexity. Life seeks to find the fundamental "rules" of the universe, which can possibly unite all the philosophies of science and thus allow mankind to achieve a greater understanding of our world.