David Green proposed somewhat similar ideas back in around 2000. Someone else (I forget who now) mentioned it again in a slightly different form within the last year in an Artificial Life article. I tried running an experiment implementing this idea using Tierra, but have found that I need to reimplement Tierra, as computers are now so fast that Tierra's genebanker code overflows within a day or so of runtime.
I hope to get around to this over the next year, hopefully before the Budapest ECAL conference. Cheers On Mon, Oct 06, 2008 at 09:33:39PM +0200, Jochen Fromm wrote: > One of the things I am interested in is how nature > creatures complex things. The latest New Scientist > (from 27 Sep. 2008) has an article named "As if from > nowhere" about the topic of "relaxed selection", a > concept invented by Terry Deacon. Terry Deacon is > an anthropology professor at Berkeley. > > According to Deacon, relaxed selection is a special > form of natural selection, where the selection > pressure and the competition is low (i.e. where > natural selection itself is nearly absent), and the > variety of traits which are able to survive and > reproduce is high. When the selection pressures lift, > genomes go wandering and new, unexpected traits may > arise. I think if there is a "relaxed selection", > then one can also speak of a "fierce selection": > a natural selection with fierce competition when > the climate is harsh and the food is sparse. Under > this conditions only the best, well adapted individuals > survive. > > Does natural selection occurs in different degrees? > During "relaxed selection", the system enters an > exploration phase: the chances of finding new > configurations, traits and features are higher. > The selection pressure for a species to remain > in the corresponding niche is lower. > During "fierce selection", the system enters an > exploitation phase: chances of optimizing existing > configurations, traits and features are higher. > The selection pressure for a species to remain > in the corresponding niche is higher. > > What do you think of "relaxed selection" ? > Is Deacon onto something? > > -J. > > > > > > ============================================================ > FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv > Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College > lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- A/Prof Russell Standish Phone 0425 253119 (mobile) Mathematics UNSW SYDNEY 2052 [EMAIL PROTECTED] Australia http://www.hpcoders.com.au ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ============================================================ FRIAM Applied Complexity Group listserv Meets Fridays 9a-11:30 at cafe at St. John's College lectures, archives, unsubscribe, maps at http://www.friam.org
