The earliest patterns were found by simply doodling on the Life board and seeing what happened. Then programs like lifesrc (https://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Life

The earliest patterns were found by simply doodling on the Life board and seeing what happened. Then programs like lifesrc (https://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Lifesrc https://www.conwaylife.com/wiki/Lifesrc) were used to bruteforce patterns with specified properties. There are also 'soup searches' in which trillions of random starting conditions are evolved to see what emerges (https://catagolue.hatsya.com/home https://catagolue.hatsya.com/home). Finally, patterns found in these ways can be combined to engineer more complex patterns, including computers.