The biggest 'baked in' abstraction with Fontana's work in my view is that reactions are one-way - one lambda expression is applied to another to create a new product, and the reaction is not reversible except in trivial cases. Sure makes using the lambda calculus make more sense, but not especially realistic. Pretty amazing stuff nonetheless.
On Sep 20, 2011, at 11:30 AM, Wesley Smith wrote: >>> random expression trees mutating. >> >> OK, so less Ray's Tierra then Koza's Genetic Programming? Still too much >> structure "baked in", I'd say. All the GP stuff I've ever seen has been more >> about selection than "natural" evolution; the modularity, replication and >> selection is provided for free by the environment. >> Thanks for the author reccomendations! I haven't head of Ganti (or Kampis or >> Fontana) before, and I share your discomfort with philosophizing. I do have >> a fond spot for Kauffman, though... > > I'd be curious if you still think there's too much baked in after > reading up on Fontana's work. Chemistry is already a functional > language, so I'm not so sure that there's any more baked in than what > chemical reaction rules give you. > > _______________________________________________ > fonc mailing list > [email protected] > http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc _______________________________________________ fonc mailing list [email protected] http://vpri.org/mailman/listinfo/fonc
