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Unlike computation or the numerical analysis of differential equations, simulation does not have a well established conceptual and mathematical foundation. Simulation is an arguable unique union of modeling and computation. However,…
The search for universal laws that help establish a relationship between dynamics and computation is driven by recent expansionist initiatives in biologically inspired computing. A general setting to understand both such dynamics and…
Nature has found one method of organizing living matter, but maybe other options exist -- not yet discovered -- on how to create life. To study the life "as it could be" is the objective of an interdisciplinary field called Artificial Life…
This manuscript explores the evolutionary emergence of semantic closure -- the self-referential mechanism through which symbols actively construct and interpret their own functional contexts -- by integrating concepts from relational…
What determines whether an organism or collective will survive under particular conditions? This question is asked across the life sciences when determining adaptive fit, developing efficacious treatments for diseases, and assessing the…
Various features of the development of individual living species, including individual humans, are programmed. Is death also programmed, and if yes, how is it implemented and what can be the underlying mechanism providing the inevitability…
Rigidity is an emergent property of materials - it is not a feature of individual components that comprise the structure, but instead arises from interactions between many constituent parts. Recently, it has been recognized that…
Systems of systems differ from traditional systems in that they are open at the top, open at the bottom, and continually (but slowly) evolving. "Open at the top" means that there is no pre-defined top level application. New applications may…
The focus of a survival study is partly on the distribution of survival times, and partly on the health or quality of life of patients while they live. Health varies over time, and survival is the most basic aspect of health, so the two…
Despite the obvious advantage of simple life forms capable of fast replication, different levels of cognitive complexity have been achieved by living systems in terms of their potential to cope with environmental uncertainty. Against the…
As early indicated by Charles Darwin, languages behave and change very much like living species. They display high diversity, differentiate in space and time, emerge and disappear. A large body of literature has explored the role of…
We extend the concept that life is an informational phenomenon, at every level of organisation, from molecules to the global ecological system. According to this thesis: (a) living is information processing, in which memory is maintained by…
Representation is a key notion in neuroscience and artificial intelligence (AI). However, a longstanding philosophical debate highlights that specifying what counts as representation is trickier than it seems. With this brief opinion paper…
Computation, if treated as a set of physical processes that act on information represented by states of matter, encompasses biological systems, digital systems, and other constructs, and may be a fundamental measure of living systems. The…
The crisis in the reproducibility of experiments invites a re-evaluation of methods of inquiry and validation procedures. The text challenges current assumptions of knowledge acquisition and introduces G-complexity for defining decidable…
When a prediction algorithm serves a collection of users, disparities in prediction quality are likely to emerge. If users respond to accurate predictions by increasing engagement, inviting friends, or adopting trends, repeated learning…
Over the past decade, machine learning has revolutionized computers' ability to analyze text through flexible computational models. Due to their structural similarity to written language, transformer-based architectures have also shown…
The aim of this review is to highlight the possibility to apply the mathematical formalism and methodology of quantum theory to model behaviour of complex biosystems, from genomes and proteins to animals, humans, ecological and social…
The now classical replicator equation describes a wide variety of biological phenomena, including those in theoretical genetics, evolutionary game theory, or in the theories of the origin of life. Among other questions, the permanence of…
One of the basic frameworks in science views behavioral products as a process within a dynamic system. The mechanism might be seen as a representation of many instances of centralized control in real time. Many real systems, however,…