The Royal Society of South Africa and The Academy of Science of South Africa Public Lecture

2012 marks the birth centenary of Alan Mathison Turing (1912-1954) – mathematician, pioneer computer scientist and code-breaker. To celebrate this occasion, the Royal Society of South Africa and the Academy of Sciences of South Africa present a lecture by Emeritus Professor George Ellis - Emeritus Distinguished Professor of Complex Systems - at the Department of Mathematics and Applied Mathematics at University of Cape Town entitled ‘On the Nature of Causation in Digital Computer Systems’. The ongoing development of digital computers is based in the extraordinary ability of digital systems to represent language, pictures, sound, mathematical relationships, and indeed all human knowledge. As such, while computers are the ultimate in algorithmic causation, as characterized so precisely by Alan Turing in his development of the idea of Turing Machines, digital computers embody and demonstrate the causal efficacy of many kinds of non-physical entities. Developing the analogies between computer systems and biological systems in terms of their structures, functioning and development may help to understand how truly complex behaviour can emerge from simple constituents. *Directions to SAAO Auditorium : Coming from the N2, turn off to the M57 – Liesbeek Parkway; turning in the direction of Cape Town and continue to the traffic lights with Hartleyvale (hockey and football) on your left. Turn right at traffic lights into Observatory Road, pass the River Club; the South African Astronomical Observatory is next on the left. Once through the security gates bear left following the SALT signs to the last building on the left (white with stoep & ramp).