Embryonics: A Macroscopic View of the Cellular Architecture

The ontogenetic development of living beings suggests the design of a new kind of multicellular automaton endowed with novel quasi-biological properties: self-repair and self-replication. In the framework of the Embryonics (embryonic electronics) project, we have developed such an automaton. Its macroscopic architecture is defined by three features: multicellular organization, cellular differentiation, and cellular division. Through a simple example, a stopwatch, we show that the artificial organism possesses the macroscopic properties of self-replication (cloning) and self-repair. In order to cope with the complexity of real problems, the cell will be decomposed into an array of smaller elements, the molecules, themselves defined by three features: multimolecular organization, self-test and self-repair, and finally cellular self-replication, which is the basis of the macroscopic process of cellular division. These microscopic properties are the subject of a companion paper [9].

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