Abstract
We introduce a new formal computational model designed for studying the information transfer among the generations of offspring–producing machines — so–called autopoietic automata. These can be seen as finite state transducers whose “program” can become a subject of their own processing. An autopoietic automaton can algorithmically generate an offspring controlled by a program which is a modification of its parent’s program. We show that the computational power of lineages of autopoietic automata is equal to that of an interactive nondeterministic Turing machine. We also prove that there exists an autopoietic automaton giving rise to an unlimited evolution, providing suitable inputs are delivered to individual automata. However, the problem of a sustainable evolution, asking for an arbitrary autopoietic automaton and arbitrary inputs whether there is an infinite lineage of its offspring is undecidable.
This research was carried out within the institutional research plan AV0Z10300504 and partially supported by grant No. 1ET100300517 within the National Research Program “Information Society”.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsPreview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
McMullin, B.: John von Neumann and the Evolutionary Growth of Complexity: Looking Backwards. Looking Forwards. Artificial Life 6(4), 347–361 (Fall 2000)
McMullin, B.: Thirty Years of Computational Autopoiesis: A Review. Artificial Life 10(3), 277–296 (2004)
van Leeuwen, J., Wiedermann, J.: The Turing machine paradigm in contemporary computing. In: Enquist, B., Schmidt, W. (eds.) Mathematics unlimited - 2001 and beyond, pp. 1139–1155. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
van Leeuwen, J., Wiedermann, J.: Beyond the turing limit: Evolving interactive systems. In: Pacholski, L., Ružička, P. (eds.) SOFSEM 2001. LNCS, vol. 2234, pp. 90–109. Springer, Heidelberg (2001)
von Neumann, J.: Theory of Selfreproducing Automata. In: Burks, A. (ed.). University of Illinois Press, Urbana (1966)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2005 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Wiedermann, J. (2005). Computing by Self-reproduction: Autopoietic Automata. In: Calude, C.S., Dinneen, M.J., Păun, G., Pérez-Jímenez, M.J., Rozenberg, G. (eds) Unconventional Computation. UC 2005. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 3699. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/11560319_21
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/11560319_21
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-29100-8
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-32022-7
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)