Computing Substrates and Life

Abstract

Alive matter distinguishes itself from inanimate matter by actively maintaining a high degree of inhomogenous organisation. Information processing is quintessential to this capability. The present paper inquires into the degree to which the information processing aspect of living systems can be abstracted from the physical medium of its implementation. Information processing serving to sustain the complex organisation of a living system faces both the harsh reality of real-time requirements and severe constraints on energy and material that can be expended on the task. This issue is of interest for the potential scope of Artificial Life and its interaction with Synthetic Biology. It is pertinent also for information technology. With regard to the latter aspect, the use of a living cell in a robot control architecture is considered. 1 Life as information process The difference between the living and non-living is not, as once supposed, a material difference or a difference in the applicable laws of nature [1]. Now, life appears to be delimited only by a peculiar organisation of the very same matter that forms the remaining non-living universe.