Excerpt

It is seldom that one has the opportunity of spending such a pleasant weekend in the company of scholars from so many fields. Even more remarkable is the fact that, although different in outlook and methodologies, the presentations at this workshop display a serious attempt at bridging the gaps that separate our disciplines. From reports of studies of the origin of life to attempts at understanding the nature of daydreaming, one perceives the great potential that interdisciplinary approaches might have for the solution of these problems.

My talk will mostly deal with the convergence of two apparently dissimilar disciplines, dynamical systems and computers, and its implications for the understanding of both complexity and biological computation. Before closing, I will also mention some speculations about the application of dynamical systems to human behavior. Since it is superfluous to remind you of the phenomenal progress that we are witnessing in computer technology, I will start by giving a very short status report on our current understanding of the dynamics of nonlinear systems, and of the problems that I perceive lie ahead.

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