Author Topic: Sharks and grass  (Read 26998 times)

Offline shvarz

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Sharks and grass
« on: March 10, 2005, 12:09:33 PM »
In discussions about specialization it has often been mentioned that certain species spcialize in eating certain types of food and can't switch to others.  One of the examples was shark, which cannot suddenly learn to eat grass if meat becomes unavailable.

Cows eat only grass, wolves eat only meat, some bacteria survive only on certain and very rare chemical compounds, which can be found next to active volcanoes.  But ability to digest and extract energy from different things cannot be likened to distributing some "points" between different categories.  It cannot be stated that cows gave all their "feeding points" to grass and there was nothing left to give to meat.  In fact, cows could have meat-digesting enzymes.  But why bother?  They don't hunt anyway.  Take a bear - it can eat almost anything - meat, fish, berries, mushrooms, eggs, garbage.  Is bear worse in digesting meat than a wolf?  No.  Is it worse in digesting mushrooms than a squirrel?  No.

The real specialization does not come in form of enzymes - it comes in form of different behaviours and different strategies to find food.  If you can find food in abundance - the enzymes will come.  Here is an example with humans.  Originally the enzymes that digest milk were only present in babies - to digest mother's milk.  Adult humans could not digest milk.  Then they learned to grow cows and obtain milk from them.  As a result, a mutation appeared that allowed adults to digest milk.  Now it is present in majority of population and only some unfortunate people don't have it.  Availability of food lead to appearance of enzymes.
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Offline Zelos

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Sharks and grass
« Reply #1 on: March 10, 2005, 12:21:58 PM »
cows eat meat, they have seen a cow kill a rabit and eat it, honestly. and shvarz, I think it will be that later
When I have the eclipse cannon under my control there is nothing that can stop me from ruling the world. And I wont stop there. I will never stop conquering worlds through the universe. All the worlds in the universe will belong to me. All the species in on them will be my slaves. THE ENIRE UNIVERSE WILL BELONG TO ME AND EVERYTHING IN IT :evil: AND THERE IS NOTHING ANYONE OF you CAN DO TO STOP ME. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Offline shvarz

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« Reply #2 on: March 10, 2005, 01:09:04 PM »
"They" must have been on crack :)
"Never underestimate the power of stupid things in big numbers" - Serious Sam

Offline Zelos

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« Reply #3 on: March 10, 2005, 01:42:27 PM »
nope, they just hadnt all the proteins they needed, but they are in meat, so they eat meat to get it
When I have the eclipse cannon under my control there is nothing that can stop me from ruling the world. And I wont stop there. I will never stop conquering worlds through the universe. All the worlds in the universe will belong to me. All the species in on them will be my slaves. THE ENIRE UNIVERSE WILL BELONG TO ME AND EVERYTHING IN IT :evil: AND THERE IS NOTHING ANYONE OF you CAN DO TO STOP ME. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Offline Numsgil

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« Reply #4 on: March 10, 2005, 04:41:39 PM »
Cows will eat anything.

Scrap Iron, other cows (mad cow disease) etc.  They aren't the smartest animals around.

Meat is relatively easy for all animals to digest, but plants are very difficult.  They require alot of mechanical breakdown and redigestion upon redigestion.

How would you propose we model something like this in DB?

And at what level does multicellular strategies no longer work on unicellular levels?

Offline Botsareus

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« Reply #5 on: March 10, 2005, 04:46:10 PM »
What about all the enzimes and specialization stuff , people have been writing a lot of chemistry latly; Does't it already do that?

Offline Numsgil

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« Reply #6 on: March 10, 2005, 05:19:22 PM »
That would get my vote, but schvarz likes to cause trouble :pokey: :lol:

The final system probably won't be anything like 'contriubte points to carb digeston'.  It will be 'manufacture enzyme 23 because something in your stomach is using alot of enzyme 23'.

Offline shvarz

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« Reply #7 on: March 10, 2005, 05:31:52 PM »
Think of enzymes and biochemistry as an investment.  If you are a big player (a cow), then the investment in enzymes is small change for you, but might give you a pretty good return.  You invest as much as you can and try to diversify.  But if you consistently don't get your money's worth, then even small change is better be kept for yourself.  So if a cow does not eat much meat, keeping meat-digesting enzymes is just not worth it - they will be lost during evolution.

On the other hand, if you invest in several companies and one of them suddenly starts giving better returns, then it might be a good idea to invest a little bit more into that company.  Not put everything in there, just adjust it a little.  This does not require evolution, just redistribution of resources.  It is called enzyme upregulation.

For small players, bacteria, the situation is a bit different.  They don't have that much money, so their investment stratregy is different - they invest in whatever is "hot" right now.  And quite often they put almost all their money in one company.  Give bacteria lactose, they will switch to using lactose, give it glucose, they will re-adjust and eat only glucose.

Now to Nums question, how we model it.  Same as I said before - have genes for digesting each food type (we should get three in v.3, right?).  Use counters to up-regulate those that are used more frequently.  Not a perfect solution, I can probably point out some weak points myself, but a step forward nevertheless.
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Offline shvarz

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Sharks and grass
« Reply #8 on: March 10, 2005, 05:34:28 PM »
I would love to get multiple enzymes and multiple food types!  But that would mean moving away from "gene-function" approach and that saddens me  :(

And yes, I do love causing troubles, you all should be greatful for that :boing:
"Never underestimate the power of stupid things in big numbers" - Serious Sam

Offline Botsareus

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« Reply #9 on: March 10, 2005, 05:39:06 PM »
Shvartz we already are away from the "gene-function" approtch because mutation rates are not defined by dna. In another topic I have proven (more or less) that mutation rates dont work at all.
« Last Edit: March 10, 2005, 05:43:18 PM by Botsareus »

Offline shvarz

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« Reply #10 on: March 10, 2005, 06:12:05 PM »
I don't see any proof of that mutation rates don't work at all.  I certainly see them working in every single sim I run.  As for rates being defined in genes.  That is a small sidestep and I can overlook that, especially because you can set the rate to be very low and use .mrepro when necessary to get high rates.
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Offline Botsareus

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« Reply #11 on: March 10, 2005, 06:19:54 PM »
Thats because I manualy set the best mutation rate (witch I got from the best bot from the run before) to all the new bots in the new run. It simply does not work , the not mutating virsions of the bot win. (yet again) Maybe the mutation rates are case specific and do not apply as "the best mutation rates for all bots".

Offline Numsgil

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« Reply #12 on: March 10, 2005, 06:25:53 PM »
Quote
Now to Nums question, how we model it.  Same as I said before - have genes for digesting each food type (we should get three in v.3, right?).  Use counters to up-regulate those that are used more frequently.  Not a perfect solution, I can probably point out some weak points myself, but a step forward nevertheless.
More than three, I think we'll have close to 20 energy types in 3.0.  Some organic, some inorganic.  THen you can set what substances are available through the sim, so you can run general or very specific simulations.

The counter idea is pretty much what I'm thinking.

Each enzyme has something that counts how often it is used by things in the stomach.  If something is using alot of one enzyme, the bot will produce more of that enzyme automatically.

However, on top of this autotomic system the DNA can override any of the default actions.  So if you are smart enough to know that you'll be getting more of a certain substance soon, you can stimulate your stomach to produce more enzymes as if that substance were already in your stomach.

There are still a few issues to work out, but that's the basic system in a nutshell.

Offline shvarz

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« Reply #13 on: March 10, 2005, 06:39:36 PM »
20 energy types?!?!  When are we getting this, again?  We wants it  :boing:  :boing: NOW :boing:  :boing:
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Offline PurpleYouko

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« Reply #14 on: March 10, 2005, 06:39:40 PM »
Earlier, Shvarz said
Quote
Adult humans could not digest milk. Then they learned to grow cows and obtain milk from them. As a result, a mutation appeared that allowed adults to digest milk. Now it is present in majority of population and only some unfortunate people don't have it. Availability of food lead to appearance of enzymes.

This is what I have been saying. While it should be possible for some robots to eat most things, they should never be able to eat everything from the start.

New enzymes need to be available only by mutation.

I really don't like the idea that a robot could be able to produce ALL of the possible enzymes. That would put us right back where we are now. Everything would become a complete and utter omnivire.

 :(  PY  :(
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