An improved conflation of formal grammar and morphogenesis

Abstract: A new, useful and general-purpose mapping between formal grammar and morphogenesis is contrasted with methodologically different L-Systems. A formal notation, Blooming Logic, is introduced to encourage use of this biological analogy, for everyday programming and engineering.

by Greg Bryant
September 2009

Formal Grammars for the descriptions of natural and artificial languages consist of productions, which map undefined terms to a string of adjacent of terms, some of which are defined in the production, some of which are left for definition by further productions. There is a 'root' term, so that a simple assignment statement can be defined by something like:

root: statement

statement : 'assignment statement'

assignment statement: 'storage variable' 'assignment operator' expression

During biological development a single pluripotent human stem cell divides into a body of undifferentiated cells, which then first differentiates into three types of cells:

root: pluripotent cell

pluripotent cell: endoderm mesoderm endoderm