An expression of closure to efficient causation in terms of lambda-calculus 1

Matteo Mossio (1) , Giuseppe Longo (2, 3, 4) , John Stewart (5)

1 IHPST - Institut d'Histoire et de Philosophie des Sciences et des Techniques
2 LIENS - Laboratoire d'informatique de l'école normale supérieure
3 CNRS - Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
4 ENS-PSL - École normale supérieure - Paris
5 COSTECH - Connaissance Organisation et Systèmes TECHniques

In this paper, we propose a mathematical expression of closure to efficient causation in terms of λ-calculus; we argue that this opens up the perspective of developing principled computer simulations of systems closed to efficient causation in an appropriate programming language. An important implication of our formulation is that, by exhibiting an expression in λ-calculus, which is a paradigmatic formalism for computability and programming, we show that there are no conceptual or principled problems in realizing a computer simulation or model of closure to efficient causation. We conclude with a brief discussion of the question whether closure to efficient causation captures all relevant properties of living systems. We suggest that it might not be the case, and that more complex definitions could indeed create some obstacles to computability.

Mots clés: Closure; λ-calculus; Computability; Impredicativity; Robert Rosen

Domaines: Informatique [cs]; Mathématiques [math]; Physique [physics]; Sciences du Vivant [q-bio]

Matteo Mossio, Giuseppe Longo, John Stewart. An expression of closure to efficient causation in terms of lambda-calculus 1. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 2009, 257 (3), pp.489-498. ⟨hal-03319959⟩