If you squint just right, you may think there are no conditionals. Just straight-line data flow to compute cell values based on a fixed neighborhood of the preceding state. A big fluid dynamics simulation has a similar characteristic.
However, this squinty interpretation can just as simply show you that the whole thing is just a DFA, as mentioned a few posts up! The finite mutable register just encodes the name of each state in the state machine, and each simulation cycle is just computing the next state transition within that large but finite state space.
The earlier description of a cycle of functional updates to state sounds like the classic basis for latched digital circuit design. But, assuming the commenters were interested in software examples, I brought up analogous programs for cellular automata and grid simulations.
Also, since the state transition is purely functional with a finite input and output, it could theoretically be implemented with any functionally equivalent method, including flat lookup tables. No branching or conditional execution is required, even though it might be convenient.
