Posted by
Carlos Gershenson on
May 21, 2006; 2:35pm
URL: http://friam.383.s1.nabble.com/Generative-Entrenchment-and-the-Possiblity-of-Inheritance-tp521822p521825.html
Dear Nick,
I also don't see a problem for inheritance, but from a different
perspective, that of discrete dynamical systems (such as cellular
automata and random Boolean networks).
In the early 90's, people like Langton (using CA) and Kauffman (using
RBNs) suggested that life and computation (and also evolvability)
must lie somewhere close to the phase transition between ordered and
chaotic (the popular "edge of chaos"). This is because ordered (or
frozen) dynamics do not allow novelty in evolution nor information
transfer in computing. On the other hand, chaos (given by too many
dependencies or links) loses useful traits already acquired by
evolution or stored information. Thus, you need a bit of both:
stability to keep what you already evolved or computed, but with some
variability to allow the exploration of new solutions and information
transfer...
There are other subtleties that have been coming up in the years
since, but I think this is enough to explain why there is no problem
of inheritance: natural selection selects inheritable systems...
(If anybody is interested, I have a short tutorial on random Boolean
networks at
http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/rbn/tut/index.html )
Best regards,
Carlos Gershenson...
Centrum Leo Apostel, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Krijgskundestraat 33. B-1160 Brussels, Belgium
http://homepages.vub.ac.be/~cgershen/ ?Tendencies tend to change...?