Towards a Computational Formalization for Foundations of Medicine

A Metamodel for Foundations of Medicine

What would a general theory of medicine look like? Stephen Wolfram proposes one grounded in computation. By evolving simple programs as model organisms, he shows how perturbations can stand in for disease and how counter-perturbations can mimic treatment, with genetic diversity reflected in variant rules. The results mirror core challenges of medical science: the wide range of outcomes, the difficulty of prognosis and the uneven success of treatments. The essay positions medicine alongside physics and evolution as a domain whose essential features can be captured in abstract computational form.

This is not applied biomedicine but a research agenda: an invitation to study medicine's foundations with computation as the guiding principle. It points towards a future in which algorithmic models deepen our intuition for health, disease and healing.

© 2025 Wolfram Media (Ebook): 9781579551087

Release date

Ebook: 28 October 2025