Abstract
What exactly is life? How do we define the essential difference between a life system and a non-living one? This has been a long-lasting question for scientific research. In the 1950s, a famous mathematician and computer scientist Von Neumann proposed that self-reproduction is the unique characteristic of living things, and also the necessary condition for anything to be considered life. At that time, the mechanism of biological self-reproduction was not fully understood yet, therefore, such a theory demonstrated Von Neumann’s genius foresight.
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Li, X., Wu, J., Li, X. (2018). The Working Principle of Cellular Automata. In: Theory of Practical Cellular Automaton. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7497-4_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-7497-4_2
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