Physarum Polycephalum Syllogistic L-Systems and Judaic Roots of Unconventional Computing

Abstract

We show that in Kabbalah, the esoteric teaching of Judaism, there were developed ideas of unconventional automata in which operations over characters of the Hebrew alphabet can simulate all real processes producing appropriate strings in accordance with some algorithms. These ideas may be used now in a syllogistic extension of Lindenmayer systems (L-systems), where we deal also with strings in the Kabbalistic-Leibnizean meaning. This extension is illustrated by the behavior of Physarum polycephalum plasmodia which can implement, first, the Aristotelian syllogistic and, second, a Talmudic syllogistic by qal wa-homer.