---
title: "The General and Logical Theory of Automata"
authors:
  - "John von Neumann"
year: 1951
venue: "In Jeffress (ed.), Cerebral Mechanisms in Behavior (Hixon Symposium)"
arxiv: null
doi: null
source: "https://www.vordenker.de/ggphilosophy/jvn_the-general-and-logical-theory-of-automata.pdf"
topics:
  - automata
  - von-neumann
  - reliability
  - complexity
seed_rank: 545
seed_batch: "foundations-greats-2026-08-13"
reviewed: "2026-08-13"
pool: "maths-foundations"
relevance_score: 10
lineage: foundations-of-computing
cites:
  - title: "First Draft of a Report on the EDVAC"
    url: "https://web.mit.edu/STS.035/www/PDFs/edvac.pdf"
    year: 1945
    arxiv: null
    doi: "10.5479/sil.538961.39088011475779"
  - title: "Theory of Self-Reproducing Automata"
    url: "https://archive.org/details/theoryofselfrepr00vonn_0"
    year: 1966
    arxiv: null
    doi: null
  - title: "Probabilistic Logics and the Synthesis of Reliable Organisms from Unreliable Components"
    url: "https://www.dna.caltech.edu/courses/cs191/paperscs191/VonNeumann56.pdf"
    year: 1956
    arxiv: null
    doi: null
  - title: "A Logical Calculus of the Ideas Immanent in Nervous Activity"
    url: "https://doi.org/10.1007/BF02478259"
    year: 1943
    arxiv: null
    doi: "10.1007/BF02478259"
see:
  - "542-first-draft-of-a-report-on-the-edvac"
  - "546-theory-of-self-reproducing-automata"
  - "547-probabilistic-logics-and-the-synthesis-of-reliable-organisms"
  - "565-a-logical-calculus-of-the-ideas-immanent-in-nervous-activity"
---

# The General and Logical Theory of Automata

## One-sentence takeaway

Von Neumann's Hixon lecture compares natural organisms with artificial automata and argues that complexity, reliability, and self-reproduction are the next problems after the stored-program machine.

## Why it matters here

Bridge from EDVAC organs to self-reproducing automata and to reliable computation from unreliable parts. Anoptic's "engine as organism" talk—fault-tolerant buses, reconstructible state, simulation that copies its own description—starts in this 1948 Caltech lecture (printed 1951).

## Key ideas

- Delivered at the Hixon Symposium, Caltech, September 1948; printed in Lloyd Jeffress (ed.), *Cerebral Mechanisms in Behavior*, Wiley, 1951, pp. 1–41.
- Complexity thresholds: below a certain size an automaton can only decay; above it, it can construct more complex automata.
- Analogies and disanalogies with the nervous system (McCulloch–Pitts grain, digital vs analog, precision).
- Sets up the later *Automata Studies* multiplexing paper and the unfinished self-reproduction manuscript Burks would edit.

## Caveats

## Links

- Lecture PDF: https://www.vordenker.de/ggphilosophy/jvn_the-general-and-logical-theory-of-automata.pdf
- Volume scan: https://archive.org/details/dli.scoerat.383cerebralmechanismsinbehavior