Forms of life: Unprogrammability constitutes the outside of a system and its autonomy (Q686065)

If a system described by an input-output automaton is to be able to evolve then the map describing the automaton must evolve. On this basis one can construct an infinite regression argument suggesting that self referential systems are unprogrammable. This paper uses the finite velocity of propagation of observations to argue that autonomic systems are unprogrammable and thus necessarily incomplete. The methods are categorical and the exposition is philosophical in tone.