Author Topic: Selection for horizontal orientation  (Read 3400 times)

Offline EricL

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2266
    • View Profile
Selection for horizontal orientation
« on: April 10, 2006, 09:44:55 PM »
This is the minimal organism sim I have running where I started out with a pretty minimal 14bp single gene bot that only shoots (endlessly) and reproduces.  The only cost in the system is a small nrg/cycle cost to keep the population down.  After 600k cycles, the average DNAlen has grown to 17 and the average # of mutations is over 9.

But here's a funny thing.  All my bots are oriented the same way, firing a stream of shots pretty much horizontal either left or right.  I wonderred what would casue that?

It took me while to figure it out, but I think its selection for orientation.  Take a look at the attached jpg and you can see my incubator habitat for my bots.  Because they can't turn or move on their own (yet) I set up a ring of stable, high energy veggies to keep them in the nursury.  Some escape and die of starvation but enough remain that I'm 750+ generations down the road.

Now, clearly, if you arn't lined up like all the other guys in the nursury, you are at a disadvantage.  You tend to float into an endless stream of shots coming from the rest of the pack and you die pretty quick.  If you are lined up right, when you give birth, your offspring has the opposite orientation.  You each take a few shots until you spearate, but if you seperate fast enough, you have successfully repreoduced a bot with a survivable orienation.  Viola!  A heritable trait that isn't encoded in the DNA!!!.  The physics of the sim don't seem to impart much rotational momentum to the bots, so bots tend to keep their orientation for quite a while, even outside the hive as you can see.

Pretty damn cool.

-E

Well, hell it won't let me attach the image.  Guess we only get 100k total in all forums for attachments and I've used mine up.  Too bad.
« Last Edit: April 10, 2006, 09:55:48 PM by EricL »
Many beers....

Offline Numsgil

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 7742
    • View Profile
Selection for horizontal orientation
« Reply #1 on: April 10, 2006, 09:59:19 PM »
I think something similar was discovered trying to evolve Botsareus's "First bot".  Bots that don't turn really seem to end up all pointing along the same vectors.  It's as you describe, a problem with getting massacred if you don't conform.

Offline EricL

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2266
    • View Profile
Selection for horizontal orientation
« Reply #2 on: April 11, 2006, 01:04:16 AM »
Well I may be rediscovering stuff others have found before me, but its all new to me and I find it fasinating none the less.  I came back after a few hours and the orientation has now morphed to all upper left to lower right diagonal.  Simply amazing.

-E
Many beers....

Offline PurpleYouko

  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2556
    • View Profile
Selection for horizontal orientation
« Reply #3 on: April 11, 2006, 09:02:47 AM »
Quote
Well, hell it won't let me attach the image. Guess we only get 100k total in all forums for attachments and I've used mine up. Too bad.

I wasn't aware that we had limits.  

images shouldn't take any space at all if you are linked into an external url.
Try hosting it at image shack
« Last Edit: April 11, 2006, 09:03:28 AM by PurpleYouko »
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Offline Numsgil

  • Administrator
  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 7742
    • View Profile
Selection for horizontal orientation
« Reply #4 on: April 11, 2006, 10:00:21 AM »
Let me see if there are uploading limits I get to play with.

Offline PurpleYouko

  • Bot God
  • *****
  • Posts: 2556
    • View Profile
Selection for horizontal orientation
« Reply #5 on: April 12, 2006, 09:08:57 AM »
There are but the use of image tags doesn't actually upload anything at all. The actual hosting is done elsewhere.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D