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« on: December 27, 2007, 04:27:03 AM »
I know that enzymes won't be set up for quite a while, but I thought I could chip in my two cents.
So far, the primary idea is some sort of mutatable string that would consist of one or more enzymes.
I think I've got an idea that would allow both random mutations and programmers to utilize these enzyme strings.
So, let's say we've got a chart of some sort. In this chart, we'll have various base molecules aligned vertically. Lines could join these elements, and some other molecules could be added along the way. In theory, a single base element could have many branches.
So, the value should look something like this:
0120214
The first two digits would represent the base molecule (00 being the top molecule, 01 being the next one down on the chart, and so on. This could be truncated to one digit if we decide that we won't need more than ten base molecules.) Then, the next digit after that would represent the next "fork" on that reaction path. In this case it would be the third fork (0, 1, 2), then the first fork, the third, the second, and the fith.
Let's suppose that that last digit (the four) goes to a spot with only three possible forks. If that were the case, then that five (or any value from zero to nine) would be moded by the number of forks (no +1, since it starts at zero).
Now, let's suppose that one reaction path, for instance, only has one fork. This would mean that everything after the first two became "junk" enzyme data. This could mutate on its own and if an earlier fork changed, then this section could become useful.
Mutations could just randomly add or subtract one or two to one of the digits, with an higher likelihood for later digits (since that would change the overall reaction less).
In this system, humans could easily program an enzyme they wanted, while mutational algorithims would work. Furthermore, this is just the bit code (not really bits, but you get what I mean), that would determine what type of reaction it is, meaning that efficiency and whether or not DNA can effect it are somewhat seperate issues.
This system should be exstensible, seeing as how you could add additional molecules and reactions without breaking most bots (although mutants that relied on the moding might be broken).
Notes:
I'm really not sure how to model efficiency on these. Perhaps a seperate bit pattern could be affixed onto this for that.
Each enzyme in this manner would represent one full reaction.
The whole value could be made as long as the longest reaction, I guess.
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