Artificial life

http://e-artificial-life.blogspot.com/

Artificial Life relates to Biology
Artificial Life relates to Biology in much the same fashion that Artificial Intelligence relates to Psychology. The goal of artificial life, or ALife, is to provide a different focus for researchers in biology. Rather than emphasize an analytic approach - attempting to understand the complex phenomena of life by breaking them down into simpler units - ALife offers a synthetic perspective - it begins with simple rules and concepts, and combines them to see what complex phenomena are produced. What is surprising, and what has helped legitimize ALife as a research pursuit, is how accurately computer models developed through this methodology have reflected our observations of biological life. An example may help clarify what it is we mean when we talk about combining simple rules in computer simulation to acheive life-like results.
Publicat de health victorro la 03:39 0 comentarii
Etichete: Artificial, Biology, life
The GA Playground

The GA Playground is a general purpose genetic algorithm toolkit where the user can define and run his own optimization problems. The toolkit is implemented in the Java language, and requires (when used as an application, in its full mode), a Java compiler and a very basic programming knowledge (just enough for coding a fitness function). Defining a problem consists of creating an Ascii definition file in a format similar to Windows Ini files, and modifying the fitness function in the GaaFunction source file. In addition, other methods can (optionally) be overwritten (e.g. the drawing method), other classes can be extended or replaced, and additional input can be supplied through Ascii files.

The GA Playground is primarily designed to be used as an application and not as an applet, since it requires re-compiling of at least one class and use of local file I/O. In addition, it is a little heavy as an applet, taking a relatively long loading time over the net. However, although its use as an applet does not enable defining new problems with new fitness functions, it enables extensive playing with many variations of an already existing problem type, by opening every aspect of the problem definition to the user. For example, any TSP test problem can be loaded through the 'Parameters' module. Used as an applet, the toolkit takes advantage of the Java cross-platform nature and the cross-world nature of the Internet, to bring a GA Playground to anyone interested in experimenting with genetic algorithms.
Publicat de health victorro la 03:36 0 comentarii
Etichete: GA, Playground
The Alife
I am fascinated by these three ideas about Evolution, Artificial Life, and Computers

* The idea that complex, sophisticated, adaptive solutions can be generated by automatic, blind, knowledge-lacking mechanisms (Evolution).

* The idea that complex systems, such as life, are actually the emergent behaviors of systems with many elements that interact according to simple, local rules (Artificial Life).

* The idea that a personal desktop or notebook can be used as a laboratory tool, for conducting scientific experiments from one's home (Computers).
Publicat de health victorro la 03:34 0 comentarii
Etichete: alife
Artificial life-Techniques
* Cellular automata were used in the early days of artificial life, and they are still often used for ease of scalability and parallelization. Alife and cellular automata share a closely tied history.

* Neural networks are sometimes used to model the brain of an agent. Although traditionally more of an artificial intelligence technique, neural nets can be important for simulating population dynamics of organisms that can learn. The symbiosis between learning and evolution is central to theories about the development of instincts in organisms with higher neurological complexity, as in, for instance, the Baldwin effect.
Publicat de health victorro la 03:32 0 comentarii
Etichete: Artificial, life, Techniques
Philosophy-Artificial life
At present, the commonly accepted definition of life does not consider any current alife simulations and softwares to be alive, and they do not constitute part of the evolutionary process of any ecosystem. However, different opinions about artificial life's potential have arisen:

* The strong alife (cf. Strong AI) position states that "life is a process which can be abstracted away from any particular medium" (John von Neumann). Notably, Tom Ray declared that his program Tierra is not simulating life in a computer but synthesizing it.

* The weak alife position denies the possibility of generating a "living process" outside of a chemical solution. Its researchers try instead to simulate life processes to understand the underlying mechanics of biological phenomena.

• Added on: Mar 13th, 2009
• Country: Romania
• Language: English

• Author: rorac2009
• Listed in: Health Medicine
• Tags: artificial life relates to biology the ga playground