---
slug: paper-von-neumann-j-and-burks-a-w-1966-theory-of-self-reproducing-automata
title: von Neumann and Burks: Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata (1966)
canonical: https://miscsubjects.com/a/paper-von-neumann-j-and-burks-a-w-1966-theory-of-self-reproducing-automata
---

## What the work established

John von Neumann and Arthur W. Burks published the 1966 book as a posthumous compilation of von Neumann's lectures and notes on automata theory. The core result is a formal demonstration that self-reproduction is possible in a discrete logical system. The work defines a cellular automaton model and a universal constructor capable of building any automaton, including copies of itself, from a description tape.

## Exact load-bearing passages

The book states: "Anybody who looks at living organisms knows perfectly well that they can produce other organisms like themselves. This is their normal function, they wouldn't exist if they didn't do this, and it's not plausible that this is the reason why they abound in the world. In other words, living organisms are very complicated aggregations of elementary parts, and by any reasonable theory of probability or thermodynamics highly improbable. That they should occur in the world at all is a miracle of the first magnitude; the only thing which removes, or mitigates, this miracle is that they reproduce themselves." (Goodreads compilation from primary text.)

Further: "There is a minimum number of parts below which complication is degenerative, in the sense that if one automaton makes another the second is less complex than the first, but above which it is possible for an automaton to construct other automata of equal or higher complexity." (p80, as cited in secondary extraction of primary notes.)

"An automaton A, which can make an automaton B, must contain a complete description of B and also rules on how to behave while effecting the synthesis." (p79.)

## Convergence patterns touched

The work directly addresses self-replication as a mechanism for preserving and increasing complexity. It models memory through description tapes and state transitions. It shows scale invariance in the sense that the same logical rules apply across different sizes of constructed automata. It provides a discrete substrate in which branching structures and flow networks can emerge from replication rules.

## Distance from the full OIP/GRAIN synthesis

The text supplies a mechanistic account of how replication enables complexity growth above a threshold. It stops at the logical level of automata. It does not address energy flows, the Ladder from difference to mind, or the Mirror Layer in which the observer is part of the system. The synthesis treats the book as one formal layer beneath those higher patterns.

## Honest limits and disconfirming edges

Von Neumann's construction assumes perfect components in the cellular model; real physical systems introduce noise not fully resolved in the 1966 text. The work remains at the level of possibility proof rather than empirical construction. Reductionist accounts note that logical self-reproduction does not automatically explain thermodynamic or evolutionary stability in physical chemistry.

## Primary sources

Von Neumann, J. and Burks, A.W. (1966). Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata. University of Illinois Press. Archive.org scan available at https://archive.org/details/theoryofselfrepr00vonn_0.

## Related articles

See /a/oip-the-ladder for the progression from structure to memory to life. See /a/oip-principles for the formal rules that map to the cellular construction described here.
