Code center > Suggestions
Emergent Systems
Ulciscor:
Why does what the bots are even matter? They are entities that can manipulate the environment in specific ways and do so based upon their DNA.
The answer to (2) is not introduce potentially complex situations. Don't model chemical reactions. Don't give the entities flagellae. Don't allow them to broadcast EM radiation. All this kind of stuff. Make available situations as simple as possible, and take a shortcut for the complex ones and (yes I'm suggesting this) impose a direct rule instead of calculation.
Numsgil:
And that's different fom now how?
Ulciscor:
Well at the moment the environment is just a passive arena that contains the bots. All the movement, energy etc has no actual source or meaning.
10 .up store makes the bot move forwards, but the force has no source or meaning; I suppose you could say the DNA interpreter is magically moving the bots with no visible cause.
Say DNA was instead composed of more basic actions.
eject material x from rear
eject material y from front
hold substance z
This would surely allow much more freedom in programming complex behaviour? It would be more difficult to program to be sure, but would allow all sorts of complex behaviours. More importantly (for me) it would allow emergent behaviour, which interests me loads.
I'm not putting Db down, I think it's an awesome program and everyone has done a great job on it. I'm just suggesting alternate methods for make sims that are based on a slightly different concept.
Numsgil:
10 .up store does indeed have a meaning.
It is just an abstract meaning. It implies a conversion of the substance nrg into an impulse, which then may or may not cause the bot to move. The amount moved depends on friction, drag, mass, etc.
Now, say we define that the bots are ejecting X out their rear causes movement by rocket propulsion (Ignroing for the moment that no creature alive moves by squirting things out because the amount of energy needed to accomplish locomotion in this matter is phenomenal (squids and jellyfish are probably the closest, but they aren't really doing that exactly)).
Let's take the process and have it occur within some "black box" that we don't look inside of. In the way it works now:
nrg -> black box -> impulse
what you're proposing:
some element -> black box -> impulse.
The only details that are different are inside the black box. But the bots don't get to tinker with the black box eitehr way. Both are just physical consequences of the world.
I just think in the end you're going to end up with more or less exactly what we have now, just with different labels.
Ulciscor:
OK well here's probably where we disagree about what artificial life means. Does it have to be a model of currently existing life on Earth? Or can it be any entity that satisfies the 7(?) rules for life?
But what causes the bot to move? What is the source of the force that makes it (attempt) to move forwards? What is the meaning of a force with no source? (Hehe I rock at poetry)
I'm thinking that this system will allow more realistic, non-artificial and natural behaviours than the current one. It's only an idea though.
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