It’s interesting how most of the machines seem to quickly reach a steady loop, freeze with no further changes, or descend into static with no discernible pattern. It would be cool to see how they would behave if they had access to limited I/O—the current display notwithstanding, as it’s less like listening to a person speak and more like watching their brain function.
I mentioned New Kind of Science below, but also relevant here, he did a lot of quantifying these kinds of patterns and islands of complexity in cellular automata... I never finished the book, so unsure how or if he really connected it to other disciplines, but a good reference point if interested in this stuff.