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PaulRobinson | 22 days ago

I actually think this is just computer science. Why? Because the first "computer scientist" - Alan Turing - was interested in this exact same set of ideas.

The first programs he wrote for the Atlas and the Mark II ("the Baby"), seem to have been focused on a theory he had around how animals got their markings.

They look a little to me (as a non-expert in these areas, and reading them in a museum over about 15 minutes, not doing a deep analysis), like a primitive form of cellular automata algorithm. From the scrawls on the print outs, it's possible that he was playing with the space of algorithms not just the algorithms themselves.

It might be worth going back and looking at that early work he did and seeing it through this lens.

discuss

order

gnfargbl|22 days ago

By the same argument, it's mathematics because John Conway was a mathematician, and it's physics because Ulam and Von Neumann were physicists.

mathgradthrow|22 days ago

Von Neumann was a mathematician, thank you very much.

gilleain|22 days ago

I think this is 'Reaction-diffusion models'

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reaction%E2%80%93diffusion_sys...

The idea iiuc, is that pattern formation in animals depends on molecules diffusing through the growing system (the body) and reacting where the waves of molecules overlap.

Kim_Bruning|22 days ago

To me , the 1952 paper is very important, since it shows up in theoretical biology a lot. Seeing generality at all these different emergence levels is really exciting to me. (and it makes me sad when others don't see it). Can you imagine? Set up a few gradients, and now you have coordinates. Put all the bits where they're supposed to go like uhhh... GLSL sort of loosly fits. How cool is THAT?

More recently I've gotten into all sorts of debates on HN by people who like Searle. Often the argument goes "Turing is all wrong, he knows nothing about biology."

Turns out towards the end of his life he was applying his knowledge to biology. Most of which experimentally verified, besides!

(ps. just to be sure: Never wondered how DNA encodes the trick? You started out as a clump of cells, all the same. How did one part decide to become the tip of your nose, and the other the tips of your toes? Segmentation controlled by Turing patterns all the way down!)

oulipo2|22 days ago

Alan Turing is FAR from the first computer scientist, though, if we want to be pedantic

SideburnsOfDoom|22 days ago

Right. is "the basic science of what simple rules do" not the same as Formal systems?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formal_system

lupire|22 days ago

It's not Formal Systems.

Formal Systems is the study of logical systems themselves.

Ruliology is a study of what actual systems do.

It's doing the arithmetic computations and looking at the results, not the abstract algebra.

nurettin|22 days ago

It is generative functions. Wolfram is grifting again.