Artificial Life Experiments Show How Complex Functions Can Evolve

NSF ^ | May 8, 2003 | Staff

[longshadow]

Doesn't it mean he might or might not have a dead cat on his hands?

Well, strictly speaking, I believe it means that Prof Schrödinger's cat is BOTH dead AND alive, until something collapses the wavefunction.

[general_re]

Seems to me that one could as easily say that his cat is neither dead nor alive until the wave function collapses. Of course, that's just my mostly worthless, completely inexpert musing ;)

[Doctor Stochastic]

You mean like Vesuvius collapsing Pompeii's wave function? (The town, Cæsar collapsed the general's wave function.) To be fair, Cæsar flourished around 709AUC.

[general_re]

(What about your vow of silence?)

Ah, but did you hear that, or just read it? ;)

[Doctor Stochastic]

Or as Frau Schroedinger is said to have said: "What have you done to the cat, Erwin. He looks half dead."

[longshadow]

You mean like Vesuvius collapsing Pompeii's wave function?

Well, something tells me Vesuvius pretty much collapsed great deal more than just Pompeii's wave function -- and probably killed all the cats, too.

[RightWhale]

Don't know why some have extended Schroedinger's mathematical result to things outside the original application. They did the same to Einstein. Seems pointless.

[longshadow]

Seems to me that one could as easily say that his cat is neither dead nor alive until the wave function collapses.

Two things:

1) cats are restricted to two known states of existence: dead, or alive. There is no known state that can be described as "neither dead nor alive"

2) Don't try selling your interpretation in Copenhagen!

[Doctor Stochastic]

Don't try selling your interpretation in Copenhagen!

Yeah, his interpretation isn't up to snuff.

[general_re]

cats are restricted to two known states of existence: dead, or alive. There is no known state that can be described as "neither dead nor alive"

How do you know that without opening the box? ;)

[RightWingNilla]

Don't know why some have extended Schroedinger's mathematical result to things outside the original application. They did the same to Einstein. Seems pointless.

I think PH hit the nail on the head in post #1111

[longshadow]

How do you know that without opening the box? ;)

Experience hath shown that all cats are either alive or not alive (dead). In the absence of any compelling evidence, I see point to gratuitously assert another state of existence.

Of course, the cat being dead or alive is supposed to duplicate the QM states of the radioactive particle: decayed, or not decayed.

Besides, we don't want to let the cat out of the box ... we want to let the cat out of the bag!

[longshadow]

I think PH hit the nail on the head in post #1111

A "magic mantra," chanted to keep the "evil evolutionists" at bay?

[RightWingNilla]

I took my car to a quantum mechanic the other day.

Now whenever I look at the odometer I get lost.....

ba dum bum!

[general_re]

Experience hath shown....

Damn you and your inferences anyway ;)

[longshadow]

For yet another Interpretation of QM in general, and the Cat in particular see:

http://www.npl.washington.edu/npl/int_rep/tiqm/TI_40.html#4.3

It also explains various other interpretations of what's going on with the cat.

[js1138]

Do you mean spectral green or perceived green? ;^)

[AndrewC]

Have you tried looking for it? Or are you one of those people who stand in the middle of the room and shout when they can't find things?

Yes, but thanks for the concern about assertions your side makes. You can now expect the same response from me---> "Go find it yourself."

1. I have looked at the original Sci Am article--no one provided me a link. I searched for it and found it without help from anyone here.
2. I read the article searching for evidence supporting the statement. Nothing apparent in the article.
3. I searched the two links given in the article, www.genetic-programming.com and www.genetic-programming.org,(though not exhaustively) for such evidence. None apparent.
4. I searched the home page of Koza and other of pages for such evidence. None apparent.
5. I searched the patent database for Koza, PID, and cubic function. Found lots of Koza, lots of PID and lots of cubic function, but no evidence for either a granted patent for an evolved PID as someone else asserted nor evidence of any evolved cubic function.

Now just how much have you or anyone else here pursued the topic?

[Michael121]

It refers to all events.

If 10 different people see a car accident there ARE 10 different accounts. Ask an investigator. It is their job to look at the evidence and take into account the witnesses and figure out what happened. Sometimes they get it wrong.
So to does science.

If not then why do we get different answers to the same evidence? A T-Rex was a scavenger, no it was a hunter. They argue about it now. They have the same evidence but OBSERVE it differently.

Science tried to disprove the miracles in the Bible. it was pathetic. It aired on NBC a fews years ago. They said the accounts of the existence of Armageddon were wrong. They were proven wrong. A city was built upon the ruins of another. Once they dug at the location 5 cities later they found Armageddon.

As you have stated but yet not answered. It is up to you to prove the absence of GOD. If there is a God then we did not evolve. I await your proof. You must prove to me there is not a diety. We cannot have both. I am the opponent to your science. You are the opponent of my Faith.

[donh]

I take it you aren't a fan of Ray Kurtzweil (sp?) In "Age of Spiritual Machines" he thinks this (and much more) should happen by the end of the 21st century. I know very little regarding AI, but I would be curious what you think about his predictions.

I'm not familiar with the book, but I'm a big fan of the Kurtzweil engine, which I ran into while working on internal fax modems. His was the first really useful attempt I'm aware of to make an engine that would figure out what alphanumeric symbols might be imbedded in a digitized picture. Pretty useful for faxes received by a computer, if you think about it.

What interests me about this set of predictions about how coding will work, is how substantial the change in technical culture is going to be, to go from code we can debug, to code that mostly doesn't care if it's buggy. That's kind the fundamental crux of any of these genetic approaches: try everything--keep what seems to have worked, having accomodated yourself somehow to potential bleeding from errors. That means, for example, that, where programmers write code to execute functions, whatever replaces programmers perhaps invent fields of discourses with goals and constraints, and a certain tolerance for massive resources thrown away in dead-end probes for good solutions. It's sort of like we all get to be meta-mathematicians, because we all can no longer keep up with the math.

To me, code is a treacherous beast that can put your factory on idle from just a moment's carelessness. From my perch on the underbelly of the beast, not tending it assiduously looks like a world gone mad. But I know modern stochastically-oriented kids, including some related to me, that already have no trouble digesting this kind of approach.