A standard procedure in biology (and in many fields of science) is to conduct an experiment, observe the entire progress of a system and then take the result of this observation as the final output. A momentary picture of the observed system is irrilevant, and rather the entire dynamics of the system is evaluated.
"Computing by observing" uses a similar approach: The result of a computation is obtained by observing the entire trajectory of a system. In other words, the entire observed progress constitutes the output of the computation.
This way of computing stresses the role of the observer in defining the complexity of a computation.
It has been shown that "simple" systems observed by "simple" observers can form very powerful computing devices (i.e., Turing machines). In other words, simple experiments observed in a clever manner by simple tools can compute that which much more complex experiments can compute.
If the observed system is sufficiently complex, one can obtain every possible computational device without changing the observed system but only by finding the "correct" external observer.
An Introductory Talk, 2008 Computing by Observing
A survey of results (automata theory, formal grammars and natural computing)
M. Cavaliere, Computing by Observing: A Brief Survey, Computability in Europe 2008, Logic and Theory of Algorithms, CiE2008, LNCS 5028, Springer, 2008 (invited paper).
P. Leupold, How to Make Biological Systems Compute: Simply Observe Them, Proceedings
of the Workshop on Computing and Communications from Biological Systems, CCBS 2008, Hyogo, ACM Digital Library.
(Main) Publications
Applied to Formal Languages and Automata Theory
M. Cavaliere, P. Leupold, Evolution and Observation - A Non Standard Way to Generate Formal Languages, Theoretical Computer Science, 321, 2004.
M. Cavaliere, P. Frisco, H.J. Hoogeboom, Computing by Only Observing, Tenth Int. Conference on Developments in Language Theory 2006, DLT2006, Santa Barbara, CA, LNCS 4036, Springer, 2006. Talk.
M. Cavaliere, P. Leupold, Evolution and Observation - A Non Standard Way to Accept Formal Languages, Machines, Computations and Universality 2004, St. Petersburg, Russia, LNCS 3354, Springer, 2005.
Extended version Observation of String-Rewriting Systems, Fundamenta Informaticae, 74, 4, 2006.
Applied to Natural Computing
M. Cavaliere, N. Jonoska, P. Leupold, DNA Splicing: Computing by Observing, Natural Computing, 2007.
A. Alhazov, M. Cavaliere, Computing by Observing Bio-Systems: the Case of Sticker Systems, DNA 10 -Tenth Int. Conference on DNA Computing, Milan, Italy, LNCS 3384, Springer, 2005.
For other papers about "computing by observing" see publications
The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes
but in having new eyes.
M. Proust