Monday, February 24, 2003, 8:55:26 PM, Kevin wrote: K> Does this have AI implications??
K> The idea that there are large-scale trends in the evolution of K> biological organisms, such as increasing complexity, is highly K> controversial. But Peter Turney presents a simple computational K> model showing that local adaptation to a dynamic, randomly changing K> environment results in a global trend towards increasing K> evolutionary versatility, which implies an accelerating K> evolutionary pace, and that this trend can continue without bound K> if there is sufficient ongoing change in the environment. K> http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=memelist.html?m=1%23550 <ramble> I've been reading about information content, complexity (in the mathematical/CS sense), randomness etc. quite a bit recently. One of the things that stands out is the idea (implicit, mostly) that TANSTAAFL (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch) -- that you cannot get more complexity from less (if you could, that would be a valid compression, and therefore not as complex). So what I've been picturing is that organisms, in evolving, are "absorbing" complexity from the Universe around them. And although I used to think evolution always strives for more complexity, lately I see this a bit differently... I suspect that in a sense, what is going on is a holographic process: that if the whole shebang keeps going on, in the end every bit of complexity is mirrored everywhere else -- each organism absorbing or reflecting the complexity of their surroundings, which includes the other organisms. A sort of Indra's Net of complexity. One thing that's interesting to ask is: is there some innate complexity to begin with in, say, the natural number system -- such that Stephen Wolfram's idea of generating true complexity from simple cellular automata is possible? Or is the "generating force" in a sense the energy that gets put into calculating the successive states? Or, alternately, is Wolfram wrong, and does it truly take a "dynamic, randomly changing environment" to give/borrow/share its complexity? </ramble> -- Cliff ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
