Anticipatory Artificial Autopoiesis

Artificial Life IX, 2004

The evolution of a mobile cell system is studied here. While a primary definition of life is self-reproduction, mobility is also a major characteristic. Typically, most alife models assume cell mobility a priori. Here, using a development of a cell model due to Varela and McMullin, we show the emergence of cell mobility. A balance between cell repair and mobility is demonstrated. The introduction of a new functional particle is a critical part of the present model. freely through the loop, while CATALYST particles cannot. Each LINK particle, whether bonded or not, decays into two SUBSTRATE particles at a certain rate. A loop of LINK be regarded as a proto-membrane, as the loop

2004

Researchers have recently been looking to biology for inspiration, for ways to automate and simplify software development. Genetic algorithms, genetic programming, artificial neural networks, ant and other agent-based systems, are some of the more mature biologically-inspired technologies. Most of these approaches mine biology for ideas, and then abstract away from these ideas to produce algorithmic processes that can create problem solutions in a bottom-up manner.

Artificial Life 14: Proceedings of the Fourteenth International Conference on the Synthesis and Simulation of Living Systems, 2014

We propose an original 2D agent-based model of biological "autopoiesis", the process by which a cell creates and continuously regenerates itself, considered one of the defining characteristics of life. In the space of our simulations, the positions of free molecules are continuous, and polymerized membrane components are regularly arranged (plus noise). While autopoiesis commonly refers to the self-driven maintenance of a system, we also follow Varela's historical study of emergence, and show that the same model can account for both selfperpetuation and self-formation-a step toward uniting the three main perspectives on life: origins, autopoiesis, and replication. Exploring different initial and environmental conditions, we observe that destructive reactions are important for the survival of our autopoietic system, and evaluate their impact on its lifespan. The tendency of cells to form spurious outgrowths is counteracted by moderate decay of the membrane.

2015

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This article deals with the links between the enaction paradigm and artificial intelligence. Enaction is considered a metaphor for artificial intelligence, as a number of the notions which it deals with are deemed incompatible with the phenomenal field of the virtual. After explaining this stance, we shall review previous works regarding this issue in terms of artifical life and robotics. We shall focus on the lack of recognition of co-evolution at the heart of these approaches. We propose to explicitly integrate the evolution of the environment into our approach in order to refine the ontogenesis of the artificial system, and to compare it with the enaction paradigm. The growing complexity of the ontogenetic mechanisms to be activated can therefore be compensated by an interactive guidance system emanating from the environment. This proposition does not however resolve that of the relevance of the meaning created by the machine (sense-making). Such reflections lead us to integrate human interaction into this environment in order to construct relevant meaning in terms of participative artificial intelligence. This raises a number of questions with regards to setting up an enactive interaction. The article concludes by exploring a number of issues, thereby enabling us to associate current approaches with the principles of morphogenesis, guidance, the phenomenology of interactions and the use of minimal enactive interfaces in setting up experiments which will deal with the problem of artificial intelligence in a variety of enaction-based ways.

Soft Computing and Industry, 2002

1997

This report describes the SCL (v0.04) system. This is an implementation of an articial chemistry, u s i n g t he S w arm 1 simulation system. This chemistry is qualitatively based on the system rst described in Varela, . This involves three distinct chemical species: Substrate, Catalyst and L i n k , h ence SCL. I t was designed with a view to generating simple phenomena o f a utopoietic organisation. Varela et al. included a detailed algorithmic account o f t heir original model however, as documented in , there are a number of problems with interpreting a n d/or re-implementing t hat algorithm. Arising from this, that original algorithm was essentially set aside i n d esigning SCL instead, SCL seeks to c a p t ure only the general, qualitative, reaction schemes described by V arela et al. SCL was developed for two separate purposes. Firstly, i t p r o vides a platform to critically re-evaluate t he p h enomena|particularly autopoietic phenomena|that can be realised with t his general kind of reaction scheme. That p h enomenological investigation will be described in a separate report. The second objective w as to gain experience of the S w arm simulation system and e v aluate i t s suitability for this kind of project. This report is concerned solely with t his second o b j e c t ive: i.e. with d o cumenting t he implementation, and w i t h e v aluating t he u s e o f S w arm.

2015

In 1973, in the middle of rather unfortunate political events, two Chilean biologists, Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, introduced the concept of Autopoietic

Artificial Life, 2009

The effect of shapes on self-movement has been studied with an extended model of autopoiesis.

Progress in Biophysics and Molecular Biology, 2010

This work is an attempt for a state-of-the-art survey of natural and life sciences with the goal to define the scope and address the central questions of an original research program. It is focused on the phenomena of emergence, adaptive dynamics and evolution of self-assembling, self-organizing, selfmaintaining and self-replicating biosynthetic systems viewed from a newly-arranged perspective and understanding of computation and communication in the living nature. The author regards this research as an integral part of the emerging discipline of nature-inspired or natural computation, i.e. computation inspired by or occurring in nature. Within this context, he is interested in studies which represent a significant departure from traditional theories about complex systems and selforganization, emergent phenomena and artificial biology. In particular, these include non-conventional approaches exploring the aggregation, composition, growth and development of physical forms and structures, autopoiesis along with the associated abstract information structures and processes.