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The “Imaginary Organism” and Turing’s Delicate Art of Non-Linear Modelling

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Franceschelli, S. The “Imaginary Organism” and Turing’s Delicate Art of Non-Linear Modelling. Yearbook for Philosophy of Complex Systems, 1(1), 21-46. https://doi.org/10.3790/pcs.2025.1461908
Franceschelli, Sara "The “Imaginary Organism” and Turing’s Delicate Art of Non-Linear Modelling" Yearbook for Philosophy of Complex Systems 1.1, 2025, 21-46. https://doi.org/10.3790/pcs.2025.1461908
Franceschelli, Sara (2025): The “Imaginary Organism” and Turing’s Delicate Art of Non-Linear Modelling, in: Yearbook for Philosophy of Complex Systems, vol. 1, iss. 1, 21-46, [online] https://doi.org/10.3790/pcs.2025.1461908
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The “Imaginary Organism” and Turing’s Delicate Art of Non-Linear Modelling

Franceschelli, Sara

Yearbook for Philosophy of Complex Systems, Vol. 1(2025), Iss. 1 : pp. 21–46 | First published online: September 25, 2025

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Article Details

Publisher Name
Duncker & Humblot
DOI
https://doi.org/10.3790/pcs.2025.1461908
Language
German
Pages
26
Keywords

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Author Details

Sara Franceschelli, ENS de Lyon, IHRIM & IXXI.

References

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Abstract

The “Imaginary Organism” and Turing’s Delicate Art of Non-Linear Modelling

I will propose a reading and an interpretation of Turing’s famous 1952 article “The Chemical Basis of Morphogenesis”. Many questions still arise for the reader of the original article: why did Turing not use any informational metaphor associated with the notion of “genetic program” in his work on morphogenesis, preferring instead to embark on a modelling approach based on a system of differential equations, using a mathematics that was far removed from his previous fields of work? Where did he draw his modelling inspiration from, both from the point of view of the mathematics employed and from the point of view of references to biology? In this essay I will address these questions by highlighting the morphological connotations of Turing’s work in biology, that can be easily related to Turing’s interest, from his youth, in D’Arcy Wentworth Thompson’s classic On Growth and Form (1917). After a presentation of what Turing does as a modeler, I will highlight two main features of Turing’s engagement with biological theory (morphology and holism). I will furthermore depict in more details three morphological signatures of his approach in relation with the kind of modelling he proposes (concerning the definition of morphogens, the study of the onset of instability, and the study of numerical solutions in a non-linear case).

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Sara Franceschelli: The “Imaginary Organism” and Turing’s Delicate Art of Non-Linear Modelling 21

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