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From RNA Replicators to Genes to Survival Machines with Brains

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Brain-Inspired Computing (BrainComp 2013)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNTCS,volume 8603))

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Abstract

I describe the evolution of life and the evolution of complex dynamical systems such as the brain as an emergent phenomenon, which allow a subset of multicellular life to learn its environment and adapt to it, enabling it to survive and replicate. Its ultimate purpose is to allow organisms to project their genetic materials into subsequent generations. It can only be understood in the context of its function.

“If superior creatures from

space ever visit earth, the first question

they will ask, in order to assess the level

of our civilization is

‘Have they discovered evolution yet?’ ”

Richard Dawkins in “The Selfish Gene”

Invited talk given at the “International Workshop on Brain Inspired Computing: Computational models, algorithms, applications, and implementations”, Cetraro, Italy, July 8–11, 2013.

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Acknowledgement

None of the work described here is original. In the process of preparing this manuscript, I learned a lot. I am grateful to the Juelich Supercomputing Centre (JSC) at the Forschungszentrum Juelich for the opportunity to learn from the talks and discussions at the workshop, and for their hospitality and support, which enabled me to attend this workshop. This work was also supported by Grant Nos. NSF PHY11-25915 and NSF Grant #1066293 from the National Science Foundation, the Kavli Institute of Theoretical Physics at UCSB. I thank the Aspen Center for Physics for their hospitality during the writing of this manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Physics, Department of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry, Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ, USA

    Gyan Bhanot

  2. Institute for Advanced Simulation (IAS) and Jülich Supercomputing Centre (JSC), Jülich, Germany

    Gyan Bhanot

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  1. Gyan Bhanot
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Correspondence to Gyan Bhanot .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Engineering, University of Calabria, Arcavacada di Rende, Italy

    Lucio Grandinetti

  2. Jülich Supercomputing Centre, Jülich, Germany

    Thomas Lippert

  3. Computing Science, University of Groningen Institute for Mathematics &, Groningen, The Netherlands

    Nicolai Petkov

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Bhanot, G. (2014). From RNA Replicators to Genes to Survival Machines with Brains. In: Grandinetti, L., Lippert, T., Petkov, N. (eds) Brain-Inspired Computing. BrainComp 2013. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8603. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12084-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-12084-3_2

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-12083-6

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-12084-3

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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