Thanks, saw the forum. I'll cut and paste.
On a completely different topic, is there an ETA for allowing the encoding of the mutation rate to be part of the genome and for allowing selection to operate independently on the mutation rate for different parts of the genome? Excuse the verbosity so that I may be as clear as possible. If memory serves, in biological DNA, there are different ways to code for the sme amino acid I.e. different 3 letter sequence encodings can code for the same amino acid, ultimatly producing the same phenotype - they have no impact on expression or behaviour - yet the different encodings have different probabilites (by orders of magnitude) of introducing errors during copying. Such a mechansim allows for selection to operate on the diversity of encodings I.e. on the mutation rates of different parts of the genome such that where it is favorable for organims to have hot spots of mutation in their genome (such as the chemical make up of the posion secreted by cone snails, which can vary from one generation to the next) evolution has selected for those sections of the genome being encoded in ways where the mutation rate is higher. Where stasis is favorable, those portions of the genome are selected to be encoded for a lower probability of copy-induced mutation.
From what I've read, the realization of the role this mechanism plays in "self selection" of mutation rates is relatively recent, yet I think it is critical for providing a means for adaptations to occur more quickly when needed and stability to persist where stability is needed. That is, that the mutation rate can itself be operated upon by selection and that different parts of the genome at different granulatiries can have their own independent mutation rates that get selected for independently is IMHO a not well known yet very important mechanim. I'd love to see it in DB.
I've seen a few posts related to this idea in my cursory browsing, but can't find them at the moment. One can imagine a mechanim where say, each sysvar had multiple underlying numbers which mapped to the same program behaviour. Different numbers wouldn't impact the bot behaviour, but would impact the probability of a mutation at the location in the genome. A similar mechanim could operate at the gene level, impacting the probability of gene copying, deletion, etc. This would be in addition to the "external" cosmic ray mutations currently in the system. If done right, I think this would allow bots to converge on their own favorable mutation rates for different parts of their genome.
Eric