Polycomputation

The claim that a single assemblage computes at several scales and in several media at once — electrical, chemical, mechanical, tissue-level — rather than having one computational layer served by inert support. In the organoid case: the microelectrode array is not the only thing computing; the culture medium is a computational layer (via Cronin's chemputation, "if liquids can compute"), and the geometry of a microdevice's channels programs organoid growth through mechanical force alone. Derives from Bongard and Levin's "overloaded, multi-scale machines." The consequence for design is that inputs, substrates, media and enclosures are all parameters of the same computer.