Towards a Self-Replicating Turing Machine

TL;DR

This paper presents a minimalistic approach to constructing self-replicating Turing machines by implementing universal constructors and copiers with simple building blocks, enabling mutations and a description language.

Contribution

It introduces a novel method for building self-replicating Turing machines using minimal assumptions and simple components, extending von Neumann's concepts.

Findings

Partial implementations of universal constructor and copier

Construction of Turing machines from simple blocks

Proposal for a mutation-capable self-replicating Turing machine

Abstract

We provide partial implementations of von Neumann's universal constructor and universal copier, starting out with three types of simple building blocks using minimal assumptions. Using the same principles, we also construct Turing machines. Combining both, we arrive at a proposal for a self-replicating Turing machine. Our construction allows for mutations if desired, and we give a simple description language.