VINCENT@buclln11.bitnet ("Vincent Bauchau - Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium") (07/14/89)
Dear POP$BIOlogits,
I enclose 2 notes that I received from the EVOLUTION list and that might be
interesting for us.
For more details on this topic, the following ref should also be usefull:
Artificial Life, ed. C G Langton 1989
Procedings of an interdisciplinary workshop on the synthesis and simulation
of living systems. Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity.
- Addison-Wesley, Amsterdam.
If anyone on this list has done any research in simulated evolution or
cellular automata, I would like to hear about it.
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Vincent Bauchau, Department of Biology,
Vincent@Buclln11 Univ. Louvain-la-Neuve
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Original notes from EVOLUTION list follows...
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Date: 13 July 89, 11:38:36 EST
From: TCEISELE at MTUS5
To: EVOLUTION at KESTREL.ARPA
Subject: evolutionary core wars
Ever since I heard about "core wars" (the game where specialized assembly-
language programs try to obliterate each other from a computer memory array)
I have been wondering what would happen in an evolutionary version allowed
to run with self-reproducing programs for a few hundred thousand generations.
Has anyone actually tried this? Or is there some reason why it is unworkable?
I have a few vague notions as to how it may be done, but not the knowledge
to go ahead and try to write the thing. Anyone have any thoughts on this?
Tim Eisele
TCEISELE at MTUS5.BITNET
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Date: 13 Jul 89 11:50 CST
From: VINCE STREIF <STREIF%UWEC.BITNET@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU>
Subject: Evolutionary CORE WARS...
To: EVOLUTION@kestrel.edu
There have actually been a couple of programs that addressed this issue
to a greater or lesser extent. One was WATCHMAKER which is featured in
_The Blind Watchmaker_ by Richard Dawkins. It allows the evolution of
'Biomorphes' on a Macintosh, although the selection mechanism is simply
decisions of the part of the person running the program about which ones
he (or she) wants to reproduce. You can also find this system described
in Scientific American, February 1988, pp. 128-131.
A second program is SIMULATED EVOLUTION, which was written by Michael
Palmiter from Temple City, California. Again, this was described in
Scientific American (May, 1989; pp. 138-141) and includes info on how
to obtain a copy. The basic idea is that 'bugs' (imagine them to be
similar to protozoa) wander around eating things and (if they don't
starve) reproducing. Thus, what is produced is really an evolution of
foraging strategies.
Personally, I'd be fascinated to see more work done in this area. But
then my own interests are in computers, evolution and molecular biology,
so I have a slight (:-)) bias toward this type of activity.
Vince Streif
Univ of Wisc - Eau Claire