Why is the question of the di?erence between living and non-living matter - tellectually so attractive to the man of the West? Where are our dreams about our own ability to understand this di?erence and to overcome it using the ?rmly established technologies rooted? Where are, for instance, the cultural roots of the enterprises covered nowadays by the discipline of Arti?cial Life? Cont- plating such questions, one of us has recognized 6] the existence of the eternal dream of the man of the West expressed, for example, in the Old Testament as follows: . . . the Lord God formed the man from...

Gheorghe Păun has played an important role within a wide range of disciplines, from the foundations of traditional computation theory and formal language theory to research gaining its inspiration from living nature. He has significantly contributed to the development of these diverse fields, initiating and pioneering some of them with remarkable imaginativeness and enthusiasm. Gheorghe Păun's research focusses on systems inspired by structures and processes found in living systems, with the field of membrane computing or P systems being the most important of his initiatives. This...

Products of modern artificial intelligence (AI) have mostly been formed by the views, opinions and goals of the "insiders", i.e. people usually with engineering background who are driven by the force that can be metaphorically described as the pursuit of the craft of Hephaestus. However, since the present-day technology allows for tighter and tighter mergence of the "natural" everyday human life with machines of immense complexity, the responsible reaction of the scientific community should be based on cautious reflection of what really lies beyond AI, i.e. on the frontiers where the...