Tootfinder

Open Questions about Time and Self-reference in Living Systems
Samson Abramsky, Wolfgang Banzhaf, Leo S. D. Caves, Michael Levin, Penousal Machado, Charles Ofria, Susan Stepney, Roger White
https://arxiv.org/abs/2508.11423

Open Questions about Time and Self-reference in Living Systems
Living systems exhibit a range of fundamental characteristics: they are active, self-referential, self-modifying systems. This paper explores how these characteristics create challenges for conventional scientific approaches and why they require new theoretical and formal frameworks. We introduce a distinction between 'natural time', the continuing present of physical processes, and 'representational time', with its framework of past, present and future that emerges with life itself. Representa…