Author Topic: Emergent Systems  (Read 29613 times)

Offline Ulciscor

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Emergent Systems
« on: October 26, 2005, 08:57:35 AM »
Well since everyone has been quite zen lately in the discussion about artificial laws and the emergence of complex systems from a simple set of rules, I have been thinking a lot.

In a lecture today I had an idea, which may well be already known or discussed, or indeed already in practice. But what the hey.

Why not first define an environment in terms of substances and physics, and then impose some rules for how these substances interact. This would be the only artificial rule-making and if it were modelled after real-life then wouldn't be artificial at all, simply a simplification of reality.

You could then add bots (composed of environmental substances) and define all their behaviours as manipulations of the environment.

You wouldn't need rules for their behaviour as they would already be defined from the basic interactions of the environment and its components.

This would also allow new behaviours to be introduces without the problem of them being artificially engineered. In fact, if DNA were remade so that actions were based on the manipulation of substances, all possible behaviours the bot could do would be described.

Does this make ANY sense? It does to me but I'm not too good at describing it.  :(

Also I'm sorry if this has already been suggested or discussed elsewhere; if that's the case then someone can delete this thread and point me in the direction of the old one.
:D Ulciscor :D

I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

Offline PurpleYouko

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« Reply #1 on: October 26, 2005, 09:24:21 AM »
You are actually describing what I have been saying all along.

The complexity needs to be in the way the bots interact with the world, in physical laws and so on.

Such a program would be cool beyond belief but unfortunately, incredibly tricky to set up.

The bots themselves would also need to be very complex to enable them to interact with the world.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
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and those who don't

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Offline Ulciscor

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« Reply #2 on: October 26, 2005, 09:26:28 AM »
Quote
You are actually describing what I have been saying all along.

Oops! Sorry [PY] maybe I had the same flash on insight as you did. Just after a sizable delay.


Why would it be tricky to set up? Wouldn't you just need rules for physics and entity interactions? The rest would sort itself out.
:D Ulciscor :D

I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

Offline PurpleYouko

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« Reply #3 on: October 26, 2005, 09:44:44 AM »
On the face of it yes.

But what rules of physics and chemistry would you plan to use and which ones would you leave out.

During my Chemistry degree I learned hundreds of rules governing specific chemical reactions and what is scarier is that I also learned that there are close to an infinite number of other specific rules that we didn't even cover on the course.
Beyond that, there are probaly hundreds of times more interactions that we don't even know about than there are ones that have been discovered.

Then there is physics.  :blink:

Where do we draw the line? We can't possibly do it all.

What we are left with is a stylized and greatly simplified system which we can impose on our world. Not reality but possibly a close approximation. Maybe not. Perhaps it's better not to even attempt to reproduce real world stuff. Take DB shots and ties. They have no real world counterpart.

Anyway, we have our world now so how do we allow our creatures to interact with it. How do they move, eat, see, reproduce? They can never learn to do it on their own because we haven't yet hard programmed the possibilities into our universe.

In order for a collection of chemicals inside a little membrane to be able to self replicate, there has to be a physical mechanism (chunk of program code) to allow it. There has to be something within the creature that instigates it. There has to be something to control the outcome etc. etc. etc.

You see the problem is that for every action that the creatures can possibly ever take, the world has to be set up to deal with it. If it just wants to rotate 90 degrees, we have to have a section of code specifically designed to allow that to happen.

Maybe somebody else can see a way to make a totally rule-less system but I just can't see any way we can do it.

I would love to try it though.  :D
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Offline Greven

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« Reply #4 on: October 26, 2005, 09:46:11 AM »
But the difference from Ulciscor and PY thought is:
I understand perfectly what Ulciscor is saying, while you PY have been vague in describing your ideas (no offense).
And--->
ULCISCOR that is exctractly what I am thinking!!!!!!!!!

Ulciscor's ideas = PY's ideas = Greven's ideas => PERFECT

It seems we all see it the same way, but have explain them differently, and we therefore have misunderstood each other.

Ulciscor, you have the power of the written text, or what ever I should call it! Thank you!
10010011000001110111110100111011001101100100000110110111000011101011110010110000
011000011000001100010110010111101001110100110010111100101000001000001111001011101
001101001110011011010011100011110100111000011101100100000100110011010011100110110
010110000011100111101001110110111101011101100110000111101001101001110111111011101
01100100000111010011010001100001110111010000010001001000010100001

Offline Zelos

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« Reply #5 on: October 26, 2005, 09:49:37 AM »
greven, ure kinda like hitler, in the meaning of having hybris (is it called that in english?). but from that ure different. greven remember NOTHING IS PERFECT.
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 Ulciscor

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« Reply #6 on: October 26, 2005, 09:52:06 AM »
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Where do we draw the line? We can't possibly do it all.

Totally agreed, so we only add what we need. We can do without EM. We can do without gravity. We can do without strong/weak interactions. Why would we need them?

We will have a finite number of substances. Say 10, then we would need 10^10 rules for them if we define a rule for each substance's interactions with others (including itself). But there might be shortcuts for that too, such as grouping them into collections based on a certain property. Daunting but certainly doable.

The creatures would still run from their DNA, but the DNA would be different. The .up command might be translated as firing a gas or liquid from the rear of the bot (hehe), .shoot may be the ejection of a specified substance from the front.

I think if you group actions and interactions together you can vastly reduce the number of rules neccessary.
:D Ulciscor :D

I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

Offline Greven

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« Reply #7 on: October 26, 2005, 09:53:28 AM »
Zelos, You swedish have no kind of humour! So sad! What I mean is perfect is: perfect = good! It good that we actually share same ideas!
« Last Edit: October 26, 2005, 11:10:40 AM by Greven »
10010011000001110111110100111011001101100100000110110111000011101011110010110000
011000011000001100010110010111101001110100110010111100101000001000001111001011101
001101001110011011010011100011110100111000011101100100000100110011010011100110110
010110000011100111101001110110111101011101100110000111101001101001110111111011101
01100100000111010011010001100001110111010000010001001000010100001

Offline PurpleYouko

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« Reply #8 on: October 26, 2005, 10:01:35 AM »
Quote
The creatures would still run from their DNA, but the DNA would be different. The .up command might be translated as firing a gas or liquid from the rear of the bot (hehe), .shoot may be the ejection of a specified substance from the front.

This is still really going down the same route as DB though.

What we have is a "high level" DNA language with word sized commands just like BASIC.

To get true emergence we probably need to break these down still further into "bit" sized controls such that a bunch of bits can cause a certain action to take place. Change the order of the bits and a slightly different action will take place.

This concept will both simplify the DNA and complicate the inteface.

I still can't quite see how to do this effectively but I think I am starting to come up with a few ideas.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Offline PurpleYouko

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« Reply #9 on: October 26, 2005, 10:03:15 AM »
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I understand perfectly what Ulciscor is saying, while you PY have been vague in describing your ideas (no offense).

I'm sorry you see it that way. I thought I was being rather precise about the problems I foresee.

So long as we reach some kind of understanding eventually, that is all that matters.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Offline Ulciscor

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« Reply #10 on: October 26, 2005, 10:11:12 AM »
:( I feel bad now.. Sorry [PY] I just never got what you meant. I expect you were describing it as a scientist whereas I was describing it as a complete novice (no offense to anyone!)

[PY] what is was thinking was:

Code: [Select]
DNA command --> Environmental interaction --> Action
Do you mean that you don't want commands to commute? (Have been doing maths for the last month so I'm going crazy with maths words).

I.e. "x y" doing one thing and "y x" doing another?
:D Ulciscor :D

I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

Offline PurpleYouko

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« Reply #11 on: October 26, 2005, 10:24:46 AM »
Not in so many words.

Quote
DNA command --> Environmental interaction --> Action

Let's break this down a tad.

DNA command:
In real life this is a code made of base pairs. let's treat each pair as a "bit". Bang 64 of them together to make a full command. Mutate them bitwise. Result = incredibly complex DNA language that few if any people will be able to program.

Environmental Interaction (I would call it Interface):
This is the crux of the issue. Somehow every possible DNA command has to be translatd into an action in the real world. This is where the disagreements seem to appear.
Think of this as a DNA interpretter. Every possible DNA command has to be interpretted into an action. No emergent funtion can possibly get through this interpretter unless it already contains the possiblity.

Imagine it as an English-Swedish interpretter. All existing word of both languages must be included if there is to be meaningful comunication. If The Swedish language evolves a new word that cannot be directly interpretted into English under the existing rules then it will result in a NULL action.

Am I making sense here with these analogies? Let me know if not. I have always had the hardest job comunicating this concept to others. I think Num is about the only other person who really sees this problem as clearly as I do.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Offline Ulciscor

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« Reply #12 on: October 26, 2005, 10:29:16 AM »
Maybe I am underestimating this, but I was thinking group commands together when they have common manipulations.

I'm not entirely getting this base pair/bit thing. Can you try and make it clearer? Or possibly word it differently. I'm notoriously dense.
:D Ulciscor :D

I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.

Offline PurpleYouko

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« Reply #13 on: October 26, 2005, 10:39:35 AM »
Grouping commands together is good but what I am suggesting is an almost infinite variability within a single command that will allow them to almost flow into each other.

Base pairs are the way that real DNA works. A base pair is kind of like a digital system in a way. Only a certain number of possible combinations exist. The complexity is created by having huge strings of base pairs in different orders to make up a single strand of DNA.
In a computer sim we need to translate this into binary math (the bit system) so I am just thinking that a digital DNA strand would be made up of a stream of bits which for sake of argument could be 64 bits in length.(this will fit into a long type variable nicely) This effectively simulates a very simplified DNA strand in which each base pair can only be in one of two states (0 or 1) instead of the number available in real DNA. The combinations possible with 64 bits making up a single command are 9.22E18 (otherwise know as LOTS)

Some kind of interpretter than takes this DNA command and acts on it to do all kinds of stuff is what we need next.
There are 10 kinds of people in the world
Those who understand binary.
and those who don't

:D PY :D

Offline Ulciscor

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« Reply #14 on: October 26, 2005, 10:43:43 AM »
Yeah that is a big number, but can't we rule out some commands as impossible?  Rule out others as duplicates?

Aren't 64 bits for a command quite a lot?
:D Ulciscor :D

I used to be indecisive, but now I'm not so sure.