Cloos's talk was about morphogenesis--the formation of shape. He evolved networks with simple initial conditions by recursively replacing nodes with simple subnetworks, generating networks that resembled biological forms. He claimed that the networks he generated were hard to study, and showed graphics of networks that he had "triangulated" by connecting planar edges to form solid shapes. In this way, he was implementing a kind of cell differentiation on the networks. I wonder about the relationship between Cloos's obviously local rules for differentiation and the cellular differentiation that happens in embryos.
There was a lively question and answer session following Cloos's talk where the audience suggested many intriguing possible solutions to the issues the Cloos raised.
Comments