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AISB/IACAP World Congress 2012 - Alan Turing 2012
University of Birmingham 2-6 July 2012 http://events.cs.bham.ac.uk/turing12/
Alan Turing’s Legacy:
Info-Computational Philosophy of Nature
Gordana Dodig Crnkovic
School of Innovation, Design and Engineering,
Mälardalen University,
Sweden
http://www.mrtc.mdh.se/~gdc
Turing as Natural Philosopher
Andrew Hodges describes Turing as a natural philosopher:
“He thought and lived a generation ahead of his time, and yet the features
of his thought that burst the boundaries of the 1940s are better described
by the antique words: natural philosophy.” (Hodges, 1997)
Turing’s natural philosophy differs from Galileo’s view that the book of
nature is written in the language of mathematics (The Assayer, 1623).
Computation was not just a language of nature; it was the way nature
behaved. Computers not only calculate numbers, but more importantly,
can produce real time behaviors in physical world (control systems,
robots, simulations).
Intelligent Machinery – ”Electronic Brains”
Turing studied a variety of natural phenomena and proposed their
computational modeling.
He made a pioneering contribution in the elucidation of connections between
computation and intelligence.
He was convinced that intelligent
machines can be constructed
and that machines can be made
able to think.
Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Mathematics - Morphogenesis
Sara Turing’s biography of her son witness his interest for
chemistry, biology and physics. Turing’s work on
morphogenesis provides evidence for natural philosophers’
approach.
His 1952 paper on morphogenesis proposed a chemical
model as the basis of the development of biological
patterns such as the spots and stripes that appear on
animal skin.
“This model will be a simplification and an
idealization, and consequently a falsification. It is to be
hoped that the features retained for discussion are those
of greatest importance in the present state of knowledge.“
Turing, The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis, Aug, 1952
Turing's Reaction-Diffusion Model of Morphogenesis
“Patterns resulting from the sole interplay between reaction and diffusion are
probably involved in certain stages of morphogenesis in biological systems,
as initially proposed by Alan Turing. Self-organization phenomena of this
type can only develop in nonlinear systems (i.e. involving positive and
negative feedback loops) maintained far from equilibrium.” Dulos, E.,
Boissonade, J., Perraud, J. J.Rudovics, B., Kepper, P. (1996) Chemical
morphogenesis: Turing patterns in an experimental chemical system, Acta
Biotheoretica, Volume: 44, Issue: 3, pp. 249 -261
http://cgjennings.ca/toybox/turingmorph
http://docmadhattan.fieldofscience.com/2012/06/turing-patterns-in-coats-and-sounds.html
Present Status of Turing's Reaction-Diffusion Model
“ALL MODELS ARE WRONG BUT SOME ARE USEFUL “
George E. P. Box, section heading, page 2 of Box's paper, "Robustness in the
Strategy of Scientific Model Building" (May 1979) in Robustness in Statistics:
Proceedings of a Workshop (1979) edited by RL Launer and GN Wilkinson
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pN8tVldm6QY&feature=relmfu Philip Maini: Turing's theory of
developmental pattern formation
Computing Nature –
Nature as a Network of Computational Processes
In contemporary reconstruction of Turing's world view we can find that Turing
was one of the first natural computationalists, who believed in computational
nature, even in case of phenomena of human mind.
Naturalist computationalism (Pancomputationalism) is a view that the
universe is a huge computational machine or rather a network of
computational processes which following fundamental physical laws
compute (dynamically develop) its own next state from the current one.
Natural computationalists: Konrad Zuse, Edward Fredkin, Stephen Wolfram,
Gregory Chaitin, Seth Lloyd, Gerard 't Hooft, Charles Seife, David Deutsch,
John Wheeler ("It from bit“) and many others.
Computing Nature and Nature Inspired Computation
Natural computation includes:
Computation Inspired by nature:
Evolutionary computation
Neural networks
Artificial immune systems
Swarm intelligence
Simulation and emulation of nature:
In 1623, Galileo in his book The Assayer - Il
Saggiatore, claimed that the language of
nature's book is mathematics and that the way
to understand nature is through mathematics.
Generalizing ”mathematics” to ”computation”
we may agree with Galileo – the great book of
nature is an e-book!
Fractal geometry
Artificial life
Computing with natural materials:
DNA computing
Quantum computing
http://www.morphographic.com/Gallery/GalleryRadiolarian.htm
Journals: Natural Computing and IEEE Transactions on Evolutionary Computation.
Diatom Morphology
A photomicrograph of an
oceanic diatom, which turns
dissolved phosphorous into an
inorganic mineral shell.
Photo courtesy Argonne
National Laboratory.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/argonne/
What is Computation? How does Nature Compute?
Learning from Nature *
“It always bothers me that, according to the laws as
we understand them today, it takes a computing
machine an infinite number of logical operations to
figure out what goes on in no matter how tiny a
region of space, and no matter how tiny a region of
time …
So I have often made the hypothesis that ultimately
physics will not require a mathematical statement,
that in the end the machinery will be revealed, and
the laws will turn out to be simple, like the chequer
board with all its apparent complexities.”
Richard Feynman “The Character of Physical Law”
* 2008 Midwest NKS Conference, Indiana University — Bloomington, IN
Computation
The Computing Universe: Pancomputationalism
Computation is generally defined as information processing.
(See Burgin, M., Super-Recursive Algorithms, Springer Monographs in
Computer Science, 2005)
For different views see e.g.
http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/mds26/cogsci/program.html Computation and Cognitive Science
7–8 July 2008, King's College Cambridge
Information as a Fabric of Reality
Informational Structural Realism (Floridi, Sayre)
argues that information is the fabric of reality:
Reality consists of informational structures
organized on different levels of abstraction.
The same view is defended in the book:
Ladyman
J.
and Ross D., Spurrett D. and Collier J. (2007)
Every Thing Must Go: Metaphysics Naturalized, Oxford UP
This proto-information that is the fabric of reality gets complexly
structured in living organisms able to “make sense” out of
information in the world.
Structure and Process
Information is the structure, the fabric of reality, according to
Informational structural Realism (Floridi, Sayre)
As we can observe, structures in the world constantly change.
The knowledge of structures is half a story, providing snapshots of
ever changing reality.
The other half is the knowledge of processes that is information
dynamics (=information processing=computation) .
Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Dynamics of Information as Natural Computation, Information 2011,
2(3), 460-477; Selected Papers from FIS 2010 Beijing, 2011.
Computing Nature.
Dual-Aspect Info-computational Metaphysics
ONTOLOGY/
INFORMATION
AGENCY/
COMPUTATION
Gordana Dodig-Crnkovic, Investigations into Information Semantics and Ethics of Computing,, Mälardalen University Press, 2006
Info-computational Morphogenesis
In an info-computational framework, information is a
structure and computation is a process.
Process of computation follows/implements/
realizes/represents physical laws.
Computation governs self-structuring of data
(information)
Through process of computation, structures change
their forms.
All of computation on some level of abstraction is
morphological computation – a form-changing/ formgenerating process.
Butterfly morphogenesis Drawing
- Gabriel Kelemen
Info-computational Character of Morphological Computing
INFORMATION + COMPUTATION 
MORPHOLOGY
CONNECTIONS TO ROBOTICS (AI) AND
MORPHOLOGICAL COMPUTING
(Rolf Pfeifer)
Morphological Computing in Robotics

In recent years, morphological computing emerged as a new idea in robotics,
(Pfeifer 2011), (Pfeifer and Iida 2005), (Pfeifer and Gomez 2009) (Paul 2004).

From the beginning, based on the Cartesian traditions, robotics treated
separately the body as a machine and its control as a program. However,
successively it became evident that embodiment itself is essential for
cognition, intelligence and generation of behavior. In a most profound sense,
embodiment is vital because cognition results from the interaction of brain,
body, and environment. (Pfeifer 2011)
Morphological Computation:
Connecting Body, Brain, and Environment
soft robotics / self-assembly systems and molecular robotics/
self-assembly systems at all scales / embodied robotics /
reservoir computing / physical reservoir computing/ real neural systems
systems medicine / functional architecture / organization /
process management / computation based on spatio-temporal dynamics/
information theoretical approach to embodiment mechatronics /
amorphous computing / molecular computing
http://morphcomp.org
http://www.eucognition.org/index.php?page=theoretical-scheme Tutorial on Embodiment: R Pfeifer
Turing Machine Limits. Self-Generating Systems
Complex biological systems must be modeled as selfreferential, self-organizing "component-systems"
(George Kampis) which are self-generating and whose
behavior, though computational in a general sense,
goes far beyond Turing machine model.
“a component system is a computer which, when executing its operations
(software) builds a new hardware.... [W]e have a computer that re-wires itself in
a hardware-software interplay: the hardware defines the software and the
software defines new hardware. Then the circle starts again.”
(Kampis, p. 223 Self-Modifying Systems in Biology and Cognitive Science)
Dodig Crnkovic, G. (2011). Significance of Models of Computation from Turing Model to Natural
Computation. Minds and Machines, (R. Turner and A. Eden guest eds.) Volume 21, Issue 2, p.301.
Morphological Computing, in Sum
 Morphological computing is information (re)structuring
through computational processes which follow (implement)
physical laws.
 Morphological computing is physical computing or natural
computing in which physical objects perform computation.
Symbol manipulation in this case is physical object
manipulation.
Connections to the work presented in this Symposium
 Unconventional computing – physical computing of natural systems
(Susan Stepney)
 Agent-centered informtion self-dtructuring (Bill Phillips)
 http://www.mdpi.com/journal/information/special_issues/matter A special
issue of journal Information "Information and Energy/Matter“
 Andrée C. Ehresmann: Info-computational model for (neuro-)cognitive
systems up to creativity
Future Work
 Studying the development of structures as they appear in physics,
chemistry and biology through the lens of info-computationalism, search
for computational laws governing dynamics of physical structures.
 In analogy with virtual machines running on a lower level macines, we can
imagine a hierarchy of computational laws running on basic level laws in
cases of complex systems.
 Reformulation of physics in terms of information such as done in the work
of Goyal, Chiribella, Ariano and Perinotti are steps in that direction.
Let me finish with Turing’s words …
“We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty
there that needs to be done.”
(Turing 1950)
Turing, A. M. (1950). Computing machinery and intelligence, Mind LIX, 433-60.
http://cogprints.org/499/0/turing.html
References
Dodig-Crnkovic G., Info-computationalism and
Morphological Computing of Informational
Structure, in Integral Biomathics, Simeonov, P.,
Smith, L. and Ehresmann, A. (Eds.). Springer
Serie on Computational Intelligence and
Complexity, 2012.
Dodig Crnkovic, G. and Müller, V. , A Dialogue
Concerning Two World Systems: InfoComputational vs. Mechanistic; in Dodig
Crnkovic G and Burgin, M., Eds.; World Scientific
Publishing Co., Inc.: Singapore, 2010