Bots and Simulations > Evolution and Internet Sharing Sims
Zerobot sims
shvarz:
I don't see the value of such experiment. Reproduction in DB is not a complicated mechanism that can be developed. It is already hard-coded into the program. It simply requires some junk numbers or commands followed by .repro store Essentially what you are doing is using point mutations to generate random genotypes. Surely you can just calculate a probability of appearance of a genotype that has .repro store commands in a row. All you are doing in this experiment is testing the probability theory and I don't think it needs to be tested
The real question is what happens to this simple reproducer after it appears.
Jez:
er, seeing as you guys are discussing what a zerobot is and I was thinking of having some sort of zerobot league thingy (maybe not competitive) with, perhaps, a template zerobot that all entries had to start from, what would you suggest for that template?
I am in agreement with Shvarz, simply starting with a zero and waiting for probability to make the bots reproduce does seem just an exercise in patience to reach a point you know you are going to (have to) reach.
Numsgil:
--- Quote from: shvarz ---I don't see the value of such experiment. Reproduction in DB is not a complicated mechanism that can be developed. It is already hard-coded into the program. It simply requires some junk numbers or commands followed by .repro store Essentially what you are doing is using point mutations to generate random genotypes. Surely you can just calculate a probability of appearance of a genotype that has .repro store commands in a row. All you are doing in this experiment is testing the probability theory and I don't think it needs to be tested
The real question is what happens to this simple reproducer after it appears.
--- End quote ---
Right, it's inevitable that a reproducer will eventually form. You're starting from 100% scratch. Eventually a reproducer will develop, and natural selection will kick in. The idea is three fold:
1. In which order to actions appear? That is, do bots learn to shoot before they reproduce? Do bots learn to turn before they move?
2. Remove as much bias in the initial bot as possible. An evolved algae, for instance, is going to bear a remarkable similarity in structure to its ancestor for a long time. If you start from a genome that is 100% void of any meaningful bias, what develops?
3. Will a population of viable animal bots ever develop that don't need to be force fed by the program?
In answer to 1 and 2: It appears that viruses are one of the first constructs to appear. The viruses tend to be extremely simplistic. Generally they just store a random small number in different memory locations each cycle. This does cause moderate reproduction, but it works far better at distributing the viral gene. 3 is still somewhat an open question, although Zinc Avenger's simulations seem to point to some valid conclusions even if it isn't technically ex nihilo.
shvarz:
--- Quote ---In which order to actions appear? That is, do bots learn to shoot before they reproduce? Do bots learn to turn before they move?
--- End quote ---
These questions are meaningless without reproduction. If a bot learns to shoot, but will not reproduce, what good will it do? It's just going to be a single bot. You can't draw any conclusions from this. It is also of no importance to evolution, because evolution is based on reproduction. All you've shown is that in your system some commands assembled by pure chance may give a phenotype that you find interesting. That random shooter will likely not even be the best bot, as shots are expensive and it will just waste energy firing into nothing.
Now, the fact that viruses are the first thing that develops is an interesting finding. Even more so, because I would predict that viruses would be difficult to develop. That's a pretty cool result if confirmed by others!
As far as your concerns for bias, I don't agree at all. The simple genome that I started with is completely gone in 1 million cycles. There is nothing left at all. One mistake I made was that I started with a reproduction gene that had a condition and a predefined % to give to baby. Something like this would have been much better:
start
rand 100 mult repro store
stop
EricL:
FYI, in my experience, it takes between 10M and 15M cycles to produce a first replicator in a sim with 100 heterotrofs using a starting genome consisting of a sequence of 30 0's and the default mutation rates ocsillating between 1/6X and 16X.
One thing I have found is that whether you generate a replicator from a 0 sequence genome or start with your own, replication by itself is insufficient for evolution to proceed. There must be some means for the organism to aquire nrg. Even when costs are zero, reproduction takes nrg as some must be given to the offspring. If some nrg aquisition method is not stumbled upon in conjuction with replication, replication ceases and of course evolution cannot proceed.
One strategy I have used to deal with this is to provide a source of random nrg shots in the sim by adding a (single - one is sufficient) veggy to the sim in addition to my 'normal' mix of DNA disabled veggies which has the following gene:
cond
start
1 .aimdx store
-2 .shoot store
stop
In conjunction with the everlasting nrg shots options, this results in enough random nrg aquisition to buy nacent replicators time to evolve some crude means of aquiring their own nrg, usually via constantly shooting -1 shots. Brownian motion brings them in proximity to veggies and they aquire more nrg then they would randomly, giving them an advantage.
Once you have these two things - replication and nrg aquisition, then evolution can happen. Costs can start to be applied, selection occurs and so on.
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