a Controlled experiment

[Griz]

to whom it may concern:

just a few ideas on evolving an Evo/ALife sim.
TWYWALTR

first and foremost:

1.)
a stable and consistent version ...
one in which the environment can be flawlessly reproduced ...
and therefore function as an experimental lab in which to develop and study
various 'life forms' and their relationships to one another as well as to the
environment they are also part of.
iow ...
a sim that will accurately load in pre-saved settings, ALL of them ...
including the random seed ...
so the user can set up and realize a 'repeatable' experiment.
that's first ...
the essential starting point of any 'scientific' experiment is ...
total control of the 'system as defined' ... no surprises ...
just as one would have complete control over any/all aspects of any
'thermodynamic'  system under study ...
where one can define all inputs/outputs within the borders/limits of
the system under consideration ...
and then know that what takes place 'inside' the system as defined ...
is not influenced from 'outside'.
ie ... a for real controlled scientific laboratory experiment.
repeatable.

2.)
basic classes of bots.
once the 'environment' is defined ...
to then let introduce classes of bots.

2a.)
an alga/veggie class.
these do not directly interact ...
except to compete by their ability to feed and reproduce more efficiently
then their competition.
they are intermediaries ...
taking the energy provided to the system and distributing it to the formation
of other bots, thru reproduction and being consumed themselves.
just spreadin' it around.
ideally, the environment would provide many 'niches' which would allow
for more than one species of agla to survive ...
ie ... a pond mode that might provide more solar energy at the top of the pond
than the bottom ... having gravity also contribute to a diversity of environment ...
as could an idea for salinity, or currents, or rainfall, or altitude ...
it doesn't matter what we envision these influences to be ...
or what we might name/lable them ...
only that there is a 'variety' of environments which will support a 'variety' of
veggies. diversity, diversity, diversity ...
a large gene pool being preferable to a small one.
everything else builds upon this.

2b.)
a class of basic veggie eaters ...
vegetarians ...
which again ... do not compete directly with one another ...
except thru their ability to more efficiently gather food from the veggie class.
again ... if we have a diversity of alga/veggies ...
we will also have a diversity of these basic alga feeders.
remember ... we are still looking to promote diversity thru specialization.

2c.)
a class of basic predators ...
these feeding on the veggie eaters ...
but still not directly competing with one another ...
except thru their ability to more efficiently prey upon the veggie eaters.
again ... we are looking for a stable and diverse population of veggies,
veggie eaters, and these basic predators.

2d.)
now ... and only now ...
do we begin to introduce predators that directly compete with one another ...
mano el mano, if you will, in addition of course to still being efficient at preying
on the 'lesser' pr editors.

note ...
any of these classes may be endowed with, or develop de fences themselves ...
against any other class ... some plants are not all that tasty, or can even kill.
they too have their place in population control.
but those traits, or abilities to develop them, can always be introduced in a new class ...
... ideally, we want to provide them with the ability ... to 'allow' them to developed
such traits without imposing it upon them.
this is the trick, eh? ;)

a system such as this should allow/promote a hierarchy to develop ...
wherein there are many classes of species able to survive in an interrelated and
interconnected way ... in a 'system' ...
rather than having one bot take over everything ...
which is much more how it seems to go as is.

we still have control over the environment we present them with ...
our 'fishbowl', where we can then experiment with various settings ...
actually allowing the bots to help us evolve the conditions which make for
an interesting evo/alife sim ...
as we too, are part of the evolution ... not totally removed from it ...
not merely observers. whatever we do/don't do ... has an effect.
but we can limit our ID function to providing the 'space' ...
the 'context' in which the bots will be what provides the content.
 
some of these ideas may already be part of DB ...
in place ... or perhaps planned ...
but imo, we need them to all be there.

and first and foremost ...
once again ...
please, please, please ...
let up put a stable and repeatable version in place ...
so we can Begin to play.

just what it looks like from here.

[Testlund]

2c.)
a class of basic predators ...
these feeding on the veggie eaters ...
but still not directly competing with one another ...
except thru their ability to more efficiently prey upon the veggie eaters.
again ... we are looking for a stable and diverse population of veggies,
veggie eaters, and these basic predators.

I agree with this, but if I understand it correctly there is only two types of nutrition:

1. Energy fed directly into veggies from the program.

2. Energy that comes from veggies and bots.

Therefore there is no need for predetors and vegetarians to evolve, because they get the same food from anything. A bot can get it from shooting at a veggie or a bot, or it can just sit next to a corpse and catch energy when the corpse dissolve.

But I hope you plan to implement different nutritions in the future.

Some thing I whould like very much to see is the possibility for several bots to form multicellular organisms where different bots have different jobs. Imagine a primitive worm where the bots at its head is working with catching other bots and transport them into the worm, and the bots in the middle of the worm consumes nutritions and transport it to the other bots through ties.  ^_^

[shvarz]

I thought you left...

Oh well.
Let's read it together.

1.)
a stable and consistent version ...
one in which the environment can be flawlessly reproduced ...
and therefore function as an experimental lab in which to develop and study
various 'life forms' and their relationships to one another as well as to the
environment they are also part of.

Why don't you tell Nums and PY what exactly is not reproducible in current version.  Then they can fix it.  Without telling them what parts are broken all this blah-blah-blah is useless, as they know that we need a stable version.

When I say exactly, this is what I want to see: submit exact steps that need to be done in the program to see that in fact settings are not reproduced faithfully.

2.)
basic classes of bots.
once the 'environment' is defined ...
to then let introduce classes of bots.

In general that already exists.  All you have to do is code that kind of behaviour in DNA.  Moreover, it's been done before, dig through old posts looking for Ursus bots.

2a.)
an alga/veggie class.
these do not directly interact ...

Who are you to say what veggies can and can't do.  Isn't evolution about developing new features?  And how exactly do you propose we stop them from "interacting".

they are intermediaries ...
taking the energy provided to the system and distributing it to the formation
of other bots, thru reproduction and being consumed themselves.
just spreadin' it around.

That's already in the program.  Why propose somthing that's already there?

ideally, the environment would provide many 'niches' which would allow
for more than one species of agla to survive ...

Well, that would be a whole new "hot" feature, on which Nums is working and for which you repeatedly called him an asshole.  Make up your mind, man!

ie ... a pond mode that might provide more solar energy at the top of the pond
than the bottom ... having gravity also contribute to a diversity of environment ...

Again, that is already there.

as could an idea for salinity, or currents, or rainfall, or altitude ...
it doesn't matter what we envision these influences to be ...
or what we might name/lable them ...
only that there is a 'variety' of environments which will support a 'variety' of

Again, calls for new feature, which is already in the works.  Nums is working on it.

2b.)
a class of basic veggie eaters ...
vegetarians ...
which again ... do not compete directly with one another ...
except thru their ability to more efficiently gather food from the veggie class.
again ... if we have a diversity of alga/veggies ...
we will also have a diversity of these basic alga feeders.
remember ... we are still looking to promote diversity thru specialization.

All you have to do is code a bot that eats only a specific kind of veggie.  The tools are already there - just get your brain together and do it.  The main problem here is that if you allow this bot to mutate, it will mutate so that it feeds not just on veggies, but on everything else too.  Why wouldn't it?  Non-veggie bots are still food.  

This has been shown in many different experiments by memebers of this board.

The solution to the above problem is to introduce metabolsim, which would allow to store energy in diffferent forms and, therefore, allow specializtion.  So that veggie-eater would be able to eat only veggies (becasue it does not have enzymes to eat "meat").

Again, this is another "hot" feature that Nums is working on.  And for which you called him an asshole.  I pretty much on my own found a scientific article describing a workable solution and then designed such a system, worked out kinks with Nums and he is almost done coding it.  What have you done, excluding constant complaining?

2c.)
a class of basic predators ...
these feeding on the veggie eaters ...
but still not directly competing with one another ...
except thru their ability to more efficiently prey upon the veggie eaters.
again ... we are looking for a stable and diverse population of veggies,
veggie eaters, and these basic predators.

2d.)
now ... and only now ...
do we begin to introduce predators that directly compete with one another ...
mano el mano, if you will, in addition of course to still being efficient at preying
on the 'lesser' pr editors.

Same as above.  You can code it, but evolution will break it.  

note ...
any of these classes may be endowed with, or develop de fences themselves ...
against any other class ... some plants are not all that tasty, or can even kill.
they too have their place in population control.
but those traits, or abilities to develop them, can always be introduced in a new class ...

The whole idea of "classes" is ridiculous.  Did not you complain that we try to control bots too much.  What you are proposing now is a huge step towards "controlling" from a current system, where bots are not limited by any rules. Tsk-tsk-tsk...

a system such as this should allow/promote a hierarchy to develop ...
wherein there are many classes of species able to survive in an interrelated and
interconnected way ... in a 'system' ...
rather than having one bot take over everything ...
which is much more how it seems to go as is.

No, a system like this would impose hierarchy on bots, not allow it to develop.  This is exactly a direction from which you (and Carlo) warned us to stray.

[Numsgil]

As Testlund pointed out, this is really an issue with lack of food types.  Food is food for the bots, so there's no incentive to specialize, so they don't.

Shvarz's mebo system combined with the idea of physical specialization (which you can find threads about in that particular subforum of suggestions) should allow, if my guess is right, both multicellular and niched creatures to develop.

[Griz]

this is just an outline shvarz ...
just throwing some ideas and questions out there ...
an overview to get a better pic of where BD is in this scenereo ...
one which makes sense to me ... and where it varies from it.
I am not a novice to the method of scientific inquiry by any means ...
I have made my living doing so as a troubleshooter in a hightech
industry for a hell of a lot longer than you have even been sucking
air kid ... so climb down off your high horse.
 
what the hell do you think all these bug reports have been about?
DB is buggy as hell.
now that I can get 2.37.5 and 2.4.9 to actually run for awhile ...
I am able to find what doesn't work, what is deficient, and report it ...
all the little things people have glossed over and don't want to take the
time to fix but are essential to get a stable platform so we can Begin to
experiment in a meaningful way.
so is Testlund ...
where I find it broke or deficient ... I try to pass it on ...
point to it ... and ask quetions as to how I might even look
into it myself.
and what do I find?
help in fixing something or pointing me in the right direction?
hell no ...
Nums is too busy to give an answer to the simplest thing ...
and now I get to hear this rant from your dumb ass.
bullshit!
there is no need to be such a prick, bud.
chillax.

[Numsgil]

I have made my living doing so as a troubleshooter in a hightech
industry for a hell of a lot longer than you have even been sucking
air kid ... so climb down off your high horse.

Let's leave chrono-elitism at the door.  If the internet has taught me anything, it's that people put way too much emphasis on physical age.  Age means nothing.  It's all about grammer and punctuation.  There, I said it :P

Nums is too busy to give an answer to the simplest thing ...

I don't always read your whole post.  Often I just read the first sentence or two of each paragraph.  Sometimes I read a sentence or two in the middle...

Anyway, your posts are sort of stream of conciousness.  That's cool, but I'm a very structured, just-so sort of reader.  Hence a communication break down.

[Testlund]

I don't always read your whole post.  Often I just read the first sentence or two of each paragraph.  Sometimes I read a sentence or two in the middle...

I've suspected that all the time, not only from you.  :P

Any plans on changing that?  ^_^

[Numsgil]

can't help it, that's the way I read textbooks.  You're best bet is to to write such that the first sentence of every paragraph alone is significant.

[Testlund]

Sometimes people here doesn't even read the topic line. I wonder if they just click around at random. What's that picture anyway? A master mouse thief? :lol:

[Griz]

Anyway, your posts are sort of stream of conciousness. That's cool, but I'm a very structured, just-so sort of reader. Hence a communication break down.

sounds like an excuse ...
why not just cop to not being interested in efforts of newbie
scum/users to figure out what's broke and how to fix it ...
but just in your own trip?

and then there's that A.D.D. thing. ;) lol

ok.
I can see this is a waste of time ...
so I'll go back to lurking and trying to figure out stuff for myself.
thanks for all the 'help' ...
 
 
I'm into undermining 'rigid structures' whenever/wherever I find them.
stay flexible and adaptable, boyz ... evolve or die. ;)
why experience rigor mortis before death?

[Numsgil]

What's that picture anyway? A master mouse thief? :lol:

Dunno, I found it.  I'm continuing my white animals with long ears motif.

[shvarz]

Ooh yes, very mature, Griz :)

Instead of focusing on real issues, you switch to name-calling again.

A perfect example that wisdom does not necessarily come with age.

Jeez, in two years of visiting DB forum, this is the first time that I see someone so arrogant, self-righteous and abusive here.  You broke the record, man!  Congratulations!

And since you can't keep your own promises of leaving or staying quiet, I'll just make my own promise to ignore you completely until you start writing intelligent posts.  That would be best for both of us.

[Numsgil]

And since you can't keep your own promises of leaving or staying quiet, I'll just make my own promise to ignore you completely until you start writing intelligent posts.  That would be best for both of us.

Would that I were so able for all imature posts.

[Testlund]

What's that picture anyway? A master mouse thief? :lol:

Dunno, I found it.  I'm continuing my white animals with long ears motif.

You're fond of rodents too? I used to breed mice some years ago. Now I'm into aquariums instead. Sorry. Getting out of topic here.  Hehe. :D

[PurpleYouko]

Getting out of topic here. Hehe.

There's actually a topic to this thread????  :blink: