
<ftp://ftp.eeng.dcu.ie/pub/autonomy/bmcm9301/README.TXT>


             What *is* a Universal Constructor?

             Barry McMullin,
             School of Electronic Engineering,
             Dublin City University,
             Dublin 9,
             IRELAND.

             <McMullinB@DCU.IE>

                        May 1993

               Technical Report: bmcm9301

        Presented at the Second European Conference on
        Artificial Life, Brussels, 1993.


ABSTRACT:
---------

John von~Neumann's seminal investigations into the theory of
complex automata
\cciteAD{VonNeumann:GeneralAndLogical,Burks:TSRA} arguably marked
the original birth of the field now called {\em Artificial Life}.
In the years since, von~Neumann's work has been studied and
elaborated in many ways; but it is my view that it has also been,
to a significant extent, misunderstood.  One facet of this
misunderstanding revolves around von~Neumann's concept of the
{\em Universal Constructor}. Von~Neumann introduced this concept
as a preliminary step in tackling the problem of realising a
spontaneous and open-ended growth in automaton complexity. He
formulated the concept by an analogy with Turing's earlier notion
of a {\em Universal (Computing) Machine}
\cciteAD{Turing:ComputableNumbers}. This paper attempts to
identify precisely what should, and, more importantly, should
{\em not}, be read into this analogy.

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.bib entry for *this* TR:
-------------------------

@TECHREPORT{
  McMullin:UniversalConstructor,
  AUTHOR      = "Barry McMullin",
  TITLE       = "What {\em is\/} a Universal Constructor?",
  INSTITUTION = "School of Electronic Engineering, Dublin City University",
  YEAR        = "1993",
  MONTH       = "May",
  NUMBER      = "{\tt bmcm9301}",
  TYPE        = "Technical Report",
  ADDRESS     = "Dublin 9, Ireland",
  URL         = "ftp://ftp.eeng.dcu.ie/pub/autonomy/bmcm9301/"
  }

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REFERENCES:
-----------

@INCOLLECTION{
  VonNeumann:GeneralAndLogical,
  AUTHOR    = "J. von Neumann",
  TITLE     = "The General and Logical Theory of Automata",
  CROSSREF  = "Taub:VonNeumann",
  YEAR      = 1951,
  CHAPTER   = 9,
  PAGES     = "288--328",
  NOTE      = "First published 1951 as {\em pages 1--41 of:\/} L.
               Jeffress, A.~(ed), {\em Cerebral Mechanisms in
               Behavior---The Hixon Symposium}, New York: John
               Wiley\nocite{Taub:VonNeumann}"
  }

@BOOK{
  Taub:VonNeumann,
  TITLE     = "John von Neumann: Collected Works. Volume V:
               Design of Computers, Theory of Automata and
               Numerical Analysis",
  BOOKTITLE = "John von Neumann: Collected Works. Volume V:
               Design of Computers, Theory of Automata and
               Numerical Analysis",
  PUBLISHER = "Pergamon Press",
  ADDRESS   = "Oxford",
  YEAR      = 1961,
  EDITOR    = "A. H. Taub",
  UCD       = "5/6:92 NEU (Dewey)"
  }

@BOOK{
  Burks:TSRA,
  EDITOR    = "A. W. Burks",
  TITLE     = "Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata [by] John
               von~Neumann",
  BOOKTITLE = "Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata [by] John
               von~Neumann",
  PUBLISHER = "University of Illinois Press",
  ADDRESS   = "Urbana",
  YEAR      = 1966
  }

@ARTICLE{
  Turing:ComputableNumbers,
  AUTHOR    = "Alan Turing",
  TITLE     = "On Computable Numbers, with an Application to the
               Entscheidungsproblem",
  JOURNAL   = "Proc.\ London Math.\ Soc.",
  YEAR      = 1936,
  VOLUME    = "Series 2, Vol.\ 42",
  PAGES     = "230--265"
  }

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