Self-reproducing Automata Research Articles

Multipurpose optimization of yield production in agriculture using fuzzy self-reproducing automata theory

Abstract In determining the irrigation depth of barley, it is inevitable to find the best periods to increase the efficiency of water consumption and also to achieve the highest yield of the product. A multi-objective optimization model has been presented to improve irrigation planning and the allowable amount of irrigation during the growth period using genetic algorithm based on nondominated sorting (NSGAII) and cellular automata. Under this concept, the structure of the optimal water supply allocation model is included in the form of two main objective functions. Therefore, the first objective function is to minimize water allocation and the second objective function is to maximize the total income from the cultivation pattern compared to its costs. The latest data related to the cultivation pattern and economic information such as product sales price and production costs in the planting and harvesting stages were collected for 1 year of study. The daily data of river flow, rainfall and climatic data of Hulunbuir district in Inner Mongolia province were converted into 10-day periods. It shows the optimal irrigation planning results of winter barley in three different scenarios. In ten periods of growth, the rainfall is enough to provide most of the plants’ water needs.

Von Neumann, Turing a Gödel: o mysli a strojích

The paper discusses some of the poorly explored links between the conceptual systems of logic in Kurt Gödel, the theory of automata in Alan Turing, and the theory of self-reproducing automata in John von Neumann. Traditional controversies are left aside (especially the opposition of Gödel and Turing in the view of mind) and attention is focused on the similarities between all three authors. In individual chapters, the text deals with: the form of differentiation of syntax and semantics in formal system in Gödel, Turing and von Neumann; von Neumann’s variant of Gödel’s theorem and von Neumann’s and Gödel’s conception of Turing machine; and finally the same basis of the view of the relation between mind and automaton in all three authors.

Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural

Believing in Bits: Digital Media and the Supernatural

Lawyering Somewhere Between Computation and the Will to Act: A Digital Age Reflection

This is a reflection on machine and human contributions to lawyering in the digital age. Increasingly capable machines can already unleash massive processing power on vast stores of discovery and research data to assess relevancies and, at times, to predict legal outcomes. At the same time, there is wide acceptance, at least among legal academics, of the conclusions from behavioral psychology that slow, deliberative “System 2” thinking (perhaps replicated computationally) needs to control the heuristics and biases to which fast, intuitive “System 1” thinking is prone. Together, those trends portend computational deliberation – artificial intelligence or machine learning – substituting for human thinking in more and more of a lawyer’s professional functions. Yet, unlike machines, human lawyers are self-reproducing automata. They can perceive purposes and have a will to act, characteristics that resist easy scientific explanation. For all its power, computational intelligence is unlikely to evolve intuition, insight, creativity, and the will to change the objective world, characteristics as human as System 1 thinking’s heuristics and biases. We therefore need to be circumspect about the extent to which we privilege System 2-like deliberation (particularly that which can be replicated computationally) over uniquely human contributions to lawyering: those mixed blessings like persistence, passion, and the occasional compulsiveness.

Sysers: The important model of self-reproducing system

Abstract The current work describes the model of sysers. Syser is the abbreviation of SYstem of SElf-Reproduction. Syser is the model of rather general and universal system of self-reproduction. The model of sysers was initially proposed as macromolecular self-reproducing systems. However, this model is close to self-reproducing system of biological cells, moreover, sysers characterize general architectures of self-reproducing entities. In particular, the architecture of sysers is very similar to the architectures of self-reproducing automata investigated by John von Neumann. The paper describes the general features of sysers. The operation of sysers has been characterized mathematically. The new model of the searching syser that has the control system for regulation of movement toward preferable places in the environment has been proposed and analyzed. The efficiency of operation of the searching syser has been demonstrated. Relations of the model of sysers with simple cognitive systems have been discussed.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE AND NEURAL NETWORKS THE LEGACY OF ALAN TURING AND JOHN VON NEUMANN

The work of Alan Turing and John von Neumann on machine intelligence and artificial automata is reviewed. Turing's proposal to create a child machine with the ability to learn is discussed. Von Neumann had doubts that with teacher based learning it will be possible to create artificial intelligence. He concentrated his research on the issue of complication, probabilistic logic, and self-reproducing automata. The problem of creating artificial intelligence is far from being solved. In the last sections of the paper I review the state of the art in probabilistic logic, complexity research, and transfer learning. These topics have been identified as essential components of artificial intelligence by Turing and von Neumann.

Genetic Information, Physical Interpreters and Thermodynamics; The Material-Informatic Basis of Biosemiosis

The sequence of nucleotide bases occurring in an organism’s DNA is often regarded as a codescript for its construction. However, information in a DNA sequence can only be regarded as a codescript relative to an operational biochemical machine, which the information constrains in such a way as to direct the process of construction. In reality, any biochemical machine for which a DNA codescript is efficacious is itself produced through the mechanical interpretation of an identical or very similar codescript. In these terms the origin of life can be described as a bootstrap process involving the simultaneous accumulation of genetic information and the generation of a machine that interprets it as instructions for its own construction. This problem is discussed within the theoretical frameworks of thermodynamics, informatics and self-reproducing automata, paying special attention to the physico-chemical origin of genetic coding and the conditions, both thermodynamic and informatic, that a system must fulfil in order for it to sustain semiosis. The origin of life is equated with biosemiosis.

Fixed-point tile sets and their applications

An aperiodic tile set was first constructed by R. Berger while proving the undecidability of the domino problem. It turned out that aperiodic tile sets appear in many fields, ranging from logic (the Entscheidungsproblem) to physics (quasicrystals). We present a new construction of an aperiodic tile set that is based on Kleeneʼs fixed-point construction instead of geometric arguments. This construction is similar to J. von Neumannʼs self-reproducing automata; similar ideas were also used by P. Gács in the context of error-correcting computations. This construction is rather flexible, so it can be used in many ways. We show how it can be used to implement substitution rules, to construct strongly aperiodic tile sets (in which any tiling is far from any periodic tiling), to give a new proof for the undecidability of the domino problem and related results, to characterize effectively closed one-dimensional subshifts in terms of two-dimensional subshifts of finite type (an improvement of a result by M. Hochman), to construct a tile set that has only complex tilings, and to construct a “robust” aperiodic tile set that does not have periodic (or close to periodic) tilings even if we allow some (sparse enough) tiling errors. For the latter, we develop a hierarchical classification of points in random sets into islands of different ranks. Finally, we combine and modify our tools to prove our main result: There exists a tile set such that all tilings have high Kolmogorov complexity even if (sparse enough) tiling errors are allowed. Some of these results were included in the DLT extended abstract (Durand et al., 2008 [9]) and in the ICALP extended abstract (Durand et al., 2009 [10]).

Generative replication and the evolution of complexity

This paper identifies generative replication as a form of replication which has the potential to enhance complexity in social and biological evolution, including the wondrous complexity in the biological world, and complex social institutions such as human language and business corporations. We draw inspiration from the literature on self-reproducing automata to clarify the notion of information transfer in replication processes. To enhance complexity, developmental instructions must be part of the information that is transmitted in replication. In addition to the established triple conditions of causality, similarity and information transfer, a generative replicator involves a conditional generative mechanism that can use signals from an environment and create developmental instructions. We develop a simple model, a one-dimensional linear automaton that is consistent with our four proposed conditions for a generative replicator. We show that evolution within this model will indeed approach maximal complexity, but only if our four proposed conditions are not violated.

Robotic self-replication

The paper introduce a descriptive framework for robotic replicating systems that extends von Neumann's classical model of self-reproducing automata. A new physical prototype is developed to examine principles and uncover hardware limitations of kinematic reproduction at a low-complexity level in man-made physical systems. The initial functional robot assembles six subsystems located in a partially structured environment to form an exact functional replica of itself. Self-replication of the sort demonstrated here can be achieved by designing a robotic system composed of multiple simple parts/subsystems rather than a relatively few complex robotic modules. Therefore, this prototype hints at the feasibility of the concept of fully autonomous man-made machines that can construct functional copies of themselves from many very basic components. As a simple measure of system complexity, the number of active elements in each subsystem and interconnections between subsystems are counted. In addition, we present a measure of the degree of replication that includes the complexity distribution and the relative complexity of the total system to individual parts.

Information, complexity and generative replication

The established definition of replication in terms of the conditions of causality, similarity and information transfer is very broad. We draw inspiration from the literature on self-reproducing automata to strengthen the notion of information transfer in replication processes. To the triple conditions of causality, similarity and information transfer, we add a fourth condition that defines a “generative replicator” as a conditional generative mechanism, which can turn input signals from an environment into developmental instructions. Generative replication must have the potential to enhance complexity, which in turn requires that developmental instructions are part of the information that is transmitted in replication. Demonstrating the usefulness of the generative replicator concept in the social domain, we identify social generative replicators that satisfy all of the four proposed conditions.

Insects, Sex, and Biodigitality in Lynn Hershman Leeson's Teknolust

Insects, Sex, and Biodigitality in Lynn Hershman Leeson’s Teknolust Jussi Parikka (bio) Abstract The article analyzes the Lynn Hershman Leeson’s film Teknolust (2002) as an alternative take on the visual creation of biodigitality. Arguing that Teknolust can be read as a probe into the infiltration of biodigital creatures in contemporary networks of communication, the article suggests that in the film the figures of sexuality, agency and technology are understood as non-human affects. Here, the idea of “insectoid” modes of agency underlines the tension between the three Self-Reproducing Automata (SRA) of the film: between human DNA and technological networks, and between heterosexual mating rites and viral biodigital forms of reproduction. They are everywhere you look, bodiless brains breathing down your neck and controlling your desires. Where do they come from, how do they replicate, how can I get one, why do they look human? —Lynn Hershman Leeson, “Living Blog” Introduction: Cinematics of Biodigital Life From the nineteenth century sciences of life have had a special relationship with imaging techniques. The cinematic eye as a specific mode of knowledge opened up a new moving microworld that coupled biological entities with the world. During the 1880s and 1890s, the cinema of astonishment was elementally connected to the “bacteriological revolution.” Later Walter Benjamin valorized the new world of technological photographic vision as especially fit to dig into biological life; the vision of the camera is more relevant to cellular tissue than to landscapes or human portraits (Benjamin; Ostherr; Landecker). Early on, it seems, biological life became visually organized. Since the 1990s, a new mode of networked databases has emerged with public digital archives. For instance, The Visible Human Project proposes easy-access to the human body and a view of the high-tech imaging of bodily functions. The project is defined as a complete archive of detailed, three-dimensional images of “normal” male and female human bodies. “The long-term goal of the Visible Human Project is to produce a system of knowledge structures that will transparently link visual knowledge forms to symbolic knowledge formats such as the names of body parts.” Genomic databases such as Genbank (USA), EMBL (Europe), and the DNA Database (Japan) also function as peculiar kinds of distributions of information on life. The current archival logic of the network age—contact a remote server and search/browse with a search engine—is traversing not only the human body, but also increasingly the information entities of which life is often seen to consist. Such projects offer an interesting and concrete mode of intertwining biology with technology in the form of software applications that organize and distribute genomic data (Thacker, “Redefining Bioinformatics”).1 These archives, which all have some direct practical use, are continuously refashioned on a popular cultural level by the production of images and animations that take us inside cells. The recently awarded Biomedical Image Awards of 2006 show how microbiology work produces visually alluring images. Similarly The Inner Life of a Cell (<multimedia.mcb.harvard.edu/media.html>), designed for the Harvard University Molecular and Cellular Biology program, is a good example of a glamorous animation of microbiological life. These “Biovisions”—a “computer-based learning environment for undergraduate students that will allow them to delve into the science of cellular study with more depth and opportunities to enhance their understanding” (see XVIVO Scientific Animation)—represent and fashion the biological sphere with attractive animations and graphics and kitschy sublime-leaning soundtracks of synthetic classical music. Figures of life and technological vision are similarly entangled in a complex biosoftware assemblage in the film Teknolust (2002) by media artist Lynn Hershman Leeson. In this article, I propose Teknolust as an assemblage of art, science, and technology that addresses the creation of digital culture as a visual artifact. In Teknolust, the high-tech and high-profile science of biodigitality is rescaled because of concern about human-machine interactions, and because the human stance towards technology seems to rely either on fear, suspicion, or on the capitalist need for profit. Instead of (re)producing sublimated images of genetic technology, Teknolust translates technology into kinds of intimacy, desire, and sexuality beyond the human condition. Here visuality is a tool for complexification...

Senders, Receivers and Deceivers: How Liar Codes Put Noise Back on the Diagram of Transmission

Senders, Receivers and Deceivers: How Liar Codes Put Noise Back on the Diagram of Transmission

Graph automata: natural expression of self-reproduction

A variety of models of self-reproduction process have been proposed since von Neumann initiated this field with his self-reproducing automata. Almost all of them are described within the framework of two-dimensional cellular automata. They are heavily dependent on or limited by the peculiar properties of the two-dimensional lattice spaces. But such properties are irrelevant to the essential nature of self-replication. In this paper, we introduce a new framework called “graph automata” to obtain a natural description of complicated spatio-temporal developmental processes such as self-reproduction. The most advantageous point of this methodology is that it is not restricted to particular lattice space. As an illustrative example, a self-reproduction of Turing machine, which requires very long description by conventional cellular automata, is shown in a simple and straightforward formulation. Graph automata provide a new tool to approach important scientific problems such as evolution of morphology, and also to give the basis of self-reproducing and self-repairing artifacts.

John von Neumann: the founding father of artificial life.

Aside from being known for his contributions to mathematics and physics, John von Neumann is considered one of the founding fathers of computer science and engineering. Not only did he do pioneering work on sequential computing systems, but he also carried out a major investigation of parallel architectures, leading to his work on cellular automata. His exceptional vision and daring, borrowing from biology the concept of genomic information even before the discovery of DNA's double helix, led him to propose the concept of self-reproducing automata.

Some thoughts on Akin's spiteful computer

Akin's determinism paradox involves a physical system that predicts its own behavior, and then “spitefully” defies it. Here this paradox is reformulated in purely computational language, in terms of virtual machines. The paradox is related to the theory of self-reproducing automata; and a mathematical conjecture is given which, if verified, would resolve the paradox.

Functional analysis of chemical systems in vivo using a logical circuit equivalent : V. Molecular biological interpretation of the self-reproducing automata theory and chemico-physical interpretation of information in biological systems

A mathematical interpretation of the molecular biological facts is attempted and a hybrid automaton model of the genetic system and the continuous biochemical one is considered. For the continuous system under the control of the genetic one, one may take the KM (kinematic machine) of von Neumann. Thus the total system of the molecular automaton, the genetic information of DNA and the hybridized continuous system or KM may make a self-reproducing automaton. This idea is applied to the cell cycle, G 1, S, G 2 and M, during which duplication of DNA and cell division takes place, and a computer simulation is tried. The change of the continuous system may be interpreted as the response to the digital information, which may be the permanent genetic one as well as a temporal one like the open or closed state. This change is a kind of DA conversion. Then the digital feedback from the continuous system to the temporal state of the operons may be a kind of AD (analogue-digital) conversion, and the combination of the DA and the AD conversion may correspond to a delay unit which is necessary for the molecular automaton. As there are difficulties in determining the system parameters of the continuous system in the living state, the continuous changes are again replaced by the delay units of various intervals corresponding to the DA and the AD conversions and thus an automaton model having various delay constants is considered for the case of a cell cycle. For this automaton theory a chemico-physical interpretation of the concept of information is given, i.e. the information is an indirect action affecting the free energy of activation of the rate processes. Then the fluxes of the rate processes correspond to the response to the information.

Logic, biology and automata-some historical reflections

This is a historical and philosophical survey of the relation of logic (including automata theory and inductive logic) to the biological sciences, broadly conceived. Aristotle and his successors formalized portions of deductive discourse, but Leibniz was the first to suggest formalizing language as a whole. Since then many different formal languages have been constructed; they are fair models of certain aspects of language. Leibniz saw the computational possibilities of a formal language, which were later made explicit by Turing (1936–37) and Post (1936). In the 1880s Peirce suggested that Boolean algebra could be used to design relay computers and that evolutionary processes and inductive processes are analogous. The first well-developed applications of logic to biology were McCulloch & Pitts's (1943) idealized neuron networks and von Neumann's self-reproducing automata. While these are interesting models, their fit to actual biological phenomena is rough. How may the fit of logic to biology be made closer? Various ways are suggested: more detailed applications, the development of biology in the direction of automata theory, and by using formalisms that combine deduction with induction. Evolution is a statistical or inductive process, but genetic strings play a deductive role. Formal languages are different from natural languages in rigor and precision, yet they give fair models of deduction, induction, and grammar. Other uses of language, such as the empirical, seem basically informal. Consider, however, a computer with appropriate input and output devices which interacts with its environment and communicates in a sophisticated language. It would understand empirical concepts and would verify empirical statements, and hence would model the empirical use of language. The logical design and initial state of any computer, and a fortiori of this computer, can be expressed as a recursive formula of a formal language. Hence the empirical aspect of language is also formalizable.

A theory of conversations and individuals (Exemplified by the Learning Process on CASTE)

The main tenet of the theory is that the minimal experimental situation for making psychological observations is a conversation. The logical and structural requirements for making such observations are presented in a series of icons which dynamically represent formalisms in the abstract theory of self-reproducing automata. Two sorts of stable, self-reproducing systems are distinguished: mechanically characterized individuals (M-Individuals) and psychologically characterized individuals. (P-Individuals). A conversation is a P-Individual (a selfreproducing class of procedures) that is executed in one or more of a restricted class of M-Individuals (processors). The theory is exemplified by work on learning and teaching using CASTE (Course Assembly System and Tutorial Environment) which is itself a physical embodiment of the theory in the form of a vehicle for observing conversations. Other exemplifications are given as interpretations, within the current theory, of the paradigms extant in conventional experimental psychology.

Garden of Eden-konfigurationer i cellulære automater

&lt;p&gt;This publication is Sven Skyum's master's thesis. The first chapters contain some general results about cellular automata (the existence of a universal computerconstructor, self-reproducing automata etc.). In the last chapters the connection between unambiguity and the existence of Garden of Eden configurations in cellular automata is examined.&lt;/p&gt;