Computability and non-computability issues in amorphous computing

Abstract

Amorphous computing systems consist of a huge set of tiny simple stationary or mobile processors whose computational, communication and sensory part is reduced to an absolute minimum. In an airborne medium the processors communicate via a short-range radio while in a waterborne medium via molecular communication. In some cases the computational part of the processors can be simplified down to finite state automata or even combinatorial circuits and the system as a whole can still possess universal computational power with a high probability. We will argue that the amorphous systems belong among the simplest (non-uniform) universal computational devices. On the other hand, it is questionable as to what extent the standard universal models of computation can faithfully capture the behavior of amorphous computing systems whose functionality also depends on the non-computational and/or unpredictable operations of certain parts of the entire system. © 2012 IFIP International Federation for Information Processing.