Structural and functional growth in self-reproducers
Eleonora Bilotta, Pietro Pantano,
Department of Linguistics, Department of Mathematics,
University of Calabria, Italy
Self-reproducers, discovered in two-dimensional cellular automata, have been genetically modified, using appropriate computational models. Such mutations have been dynamically monitored, showing that it is possible to obtain a varied family belonging to the initial self-reproducer. The dynamics of this functional and structural growth have been visualized in a diagram representing the space of mutations, which are ordered, chaotic, and complex. These variations create modified self-reproducers, that maintain the original form and function, or produce interesting morphological mutations.
A second dynamic of genetic mutations has been introduced on the temporal level, specializing some structures, in order to discover in which way time influences the growth of self-reproducers. The distribution of the resulting self-reproducers once more realizes significant decompositions in the space of mutations. We demonstrate that the languages by which these systems are produced vary from region to region and that morphology is linked to the grammar of these languages.