Stefan Helmreich, Sophia Roosth, and Michele Friedner
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691164809
- eISBN:
- 9781400873869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691164809.003.0001
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines three limit biologies that theorize what life was—that is, they declare the possible end of “life”: Artificial Life, marine microbiology, and astrobiology. Artificial Life is a ...
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This chapter examines three limit biologies that theorize what life was—that is, they declare the possible end of “life”: Artificial Life, marine microbiology, and astrobiology. Artificial Life is a genre of theoretical biology that flourished most vigorously in the 1990s and sought to model living things in the medium of computer simulation. Marine microbiology is a field that has as its object of study the world's tiniest, most abundant, and metabolically extreme ocean creatures, including microbes at deep-sea volcanoes. Astrobiology is the study of life as it might exist on other worlds. The chapter argues that the conceptual trouble bedeviling “life” is shadowed by worries about what form “theory” might take in natural and social analysis these days. The emphasis is on how accounts of life forms in biology and ideas about social and cultural forms of life inform and deform one another.Less
This chapter examines three limit biologies that theorize what life was—that is, they declare the possible end of “life”: Artificial Life, marine microbiology, and astrobiology. Artificial Life is a genre of theoretical biology that flourished most vigorously in the 1990s and sought to model living things in the medium of computer simulation. Marine microbiology is a field that has as its object of study the world's tiniest, most abundant, and metabolically extreme ocean creatures, including microbes at deep-sea volcanoes. Astrobiology is the study of life as it might exist on other worlds. The chapter argues that the conceptual trouble bedeviling “life” is shadowed by worries about what form “theory” might take in natural and social analysis these days. The emphasis is on how accounts of life forms in biology and ideas about social and cultural forms of life inform and deform one another.
Stefan Helmreich, Sophia Roosth, and Michele Friedner
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691164809
- eISBN:
- 9781400873869
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691164809.003.0003
- Subject:
- Anthropology, Social and Cultural Anthropology
This chapter examines how scientists working on Artificial Life have understood their practices as situated historically. It first considers the practice of finding genealogies for Artificial Life, ...
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This chapter examines how scientists working on Artificial Life have understood their practices as situated historically. It first considers the practice of finding genealogies for Artificial Life, arguing that such a search for ancestors carries acute historiographical and epistemological dangers. It then comments on computer simulations that fashion the computer as a kind of fish tank into which users can peer to see artificial life forms swimming about. It also discusses a different realm of modeling, that of cognition in Artificial Intelligence. The chapter concludes by suggesting a mode of imagining history that it calls an underwater archaeology of knowledge. In an underwater archaeology of knowledge, representational artifacts become mixed in with portraits of the world, requiring new sorts of narrative disentangling and qualification.Less
This chapter examines how scientists working on Artificial Life have understood their practices as situated historically. It first considers the practice of finding genealogies for Artificial Life, arguing that such a search for ancestors carries acute historiographical and epistemological dangers. It then comments on computer simulations that fashion the computer as a kind of fish tank into which users can peer to see artificial life forms swimming about. It also discusses a different realm of modeling, that of cognition in Artificial Intelligence. The chapter concludes by suggesting a mode of imagining history that it calls an underwater archaeology of knowledge. In an underwater archaeology of knowledge, representational artifacts become mixed in with portraits of the world, requiring new sorts of narrative disentangling and qualification.
B. Jack Copeland (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198565932
- eISBN:
- 9780191714016
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198565932.001.0001
- Subject:
- Mathematics, History of Mathematics
The mathematical genius Alan Turing (1912-1954) was one of the greatest scientists and thinkers of the 20th century. Now well known for his crucial wartime role in breaking the ENIGMA code, he was ...
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The mathematical genius Alan Turing (1912-1954) was one of the greatest scientists and thinkers of the 20th century. Now well known for his crucial wartime role in breaking the ENIGMA code, he was the first to conceive of the fundamental principle of the modern computer — the idea of controlling a computing machine's operations by means of coded instructions, stored in the machine's ‘memory’. In 1945, Turing drew up his revolutionary design for an electronic computing machine — his Automatic Computing Engine (‘ACE’). A pilot model of the ACE ran its first programme in 1950 and the production version, the ‘DEUCE’, went on to become a cornerstone of the fledgling British computer industry. The first ‘personal’ computer was based on Turing's ACE. This book describes Turing's struggle to build the modern computer. It contains first-hand accounts by Turing and by the pioneers of computing who worked with him. The book describes the hardware and software of the ACE and contains chapters describing Turing's path-breaking research in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial Life (A-Life).Less
The mathematical genius Alan Turing (1912-1954) was one of the greatest scientists and thinkers of the 20th century. Now well known for his crucial wartime role in breaking the ENIGMA code, he was the first to conceive of the fundamental principle of the modern computer — the idea of controlling a computing machine's operations by means of coded instructions, stored in the machine's ‘memory’. In 1945, Turing drew up his revolutionary design for an electronic computing machine — his Automatic Computing Engine (‘ACE’). A pilot model of the ACE ran its first programme in 1950 and the production version, the ‘DEUCE’, went on to become a cornerstone of the fledgling British computer industry. The first ‘personal’ computer was based on Turing's ACE. This book describes Turing's struggle to build the modern computer. It contains first-hand accounts by Turing and by the pioneers of computing who worked with him. The book describes the hardware and software of the ACE and contains chapters describing Turing's path-breaking research in the fields of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Artificial Life (A-Life).
B. Jack Copeland and Diane Proudfoot
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- January 2008
- ISBN:
- 9780198565932
- eISBN:
- 9780191714016
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198565932.003.0006
- Subject:
- Mathematics, History of Mathematics
This chapter discusses Turing's contributions to the field of computing. Topics covered include the Turing machine, cryptanalytic machines, the ACE and the EDVAC, the Manchester computer, artificial ...
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This chapter discusses Turing's contributions to the field of computing. Topics covered include the Turing machine, cryptanalytic machines, the ACE and the EDVAC, the Manchester computer, artificial intelligence, and artificial life.Less
This chapter discusses Turing's contributions to the field of computing. Topics covered include the Turing machine, cryptanalytic machines, the ACE and the EDVAC, the Manchester computer, artificial intelligence, and artificial life.
David M. Wilkinson
- Published in print:
- 2006
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780198568469
- eISBN:
- 9780191717611
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198568469.003.0009
- Subject:
- Biology, Ecology
Arguments based on both in vitro and in silico models suggest that biogeochemical cycles will readily evolve on planets with life, along with many of the putative fundamental processes described in ...
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Arguments based on both in vitro and in silico models suggest that biogeochemical cycles will readily evolve on planets with life, along with many of the putative fundamental processes described in this book. Artificial life models illustrate the potential for these emergent cycling systems to have a positive Gaian effect. The well-known potential for exponential growth in unconstrained ecological systems suggests that these emergent systems will often regulate their environments around low nutrient states (biotic plunder), rather than at states which optimize productivity. In this context, it makes sense to define Gaia in relation to prolonged habitability of a planet, but not as a process which maximises biological productivity.Less
Arguments based on both in vitro and in silico models suggest that biogeochemical cycles will readily evolve on planets with life, along with many of the putative fundamental processes described in this book. Artificial life models illustrate the potential for these emergent cycling systems to have a positive Gaian effect. The well-known potential for exponential growth in unconstrained ecological systems suggests that these emergent systems will often regulate their environments around low nutrient states (biotic plunder), rather than at states which optimize productivity. In this context, it makes sense to define Gaia in relation to prolonged habitability of a planet, but not as a process which maximises biological productivity.
Wolfgang Banzhaf and Lidia Yamamoto
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029438
- eISBN:
- 9780262329460
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029438.001.0001
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
The field of Artificial Life (ALife) is now firmly established in the scientific world, but it has yet to achieve one of its original goals: an understanding of the emergence of life on Earth. The ...
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The field of Artificial Life (ALife) is now firmly established in the scientific world, but it has yet to achieve one of its original goals: an understanding of the emergence of life on Earth. The new field of Artificial Chemistries draws from chemistry, biology, computer science, mathematics, and other disciplines to work toward that goal. For if, as it has been argued, life emerged from primitive, prebiotic forms of self-organization, then studying models of chemical reaction systems could bring ALife closer to understanding the origins of life. In Artificial Chemistries (ACs), the emphasis is on creating new interactions rather than new materials. The results can be found both in the virtual world, in certain multiagent systems, and in the physical world, in new (artificial) reaction systems. This book offers an introduction to the fundamental concepts of ACs, covering both theory and practical applications. After a general overview of the field and its methodology, the book reviews important aspects of biology, including basic mechanisms of evolution; discusses examples of ACs drawn from the literature; considers fundamental questions of how order can emerge, emphasizing the concept of chemical organization (a closed and self-maintaining set of chemicals); and surveys a range of applications, which include computing, systems modeling in biology, and synthetic life. An appendix provides a Python toolkit for implementing ACs.Less
The field of Artificial Life (ALife) is now firmly established in the scientific world, but it has yet to achieve one of its original goals: an understanding of the emergence of life on Earth. The new field of Artificial Chemistries draws from chemistry, biology, computer science, mathematics, and other disciplines to work toward that goal. For if, as it has been argued, life emerged from primitive, prebiotic forms of self-organization, then studying models of chemical reaction systems could bring ALife closer to understanding the origins of life. In Artificial Chemistries (ACs), the emphasis is on creating new interactions rather than new materials. The results can be found both in the virtual world, in certain multiagent systems, and in the physical world, in new (artificial) reaction systems. This book offers an introduction to the fundamental concepts of ACs, covering both theory and practical applications. After a general overview of the field and its methodology, the book reviews important aspects of biology, including basic mechanisms of evolution; discusses examples of ACs drawn from the literature; considers fundamental questions of how order can emerge, emphasizing the concept of chemical organization (a closed and self-maintaining set of chemicals); and surveys a range of applications, which include computing, systems modeling in biology, and synthetic life. An appendix provides a Python toolkit for implementing ACs.
Wendell Wallach and Colin Allen
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- January 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195374049
- eISBN:
- 9780199871889
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195374049.003.0008
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Moral Philosophy
This chapter surveys bottom‐up approaches to the development of artificial moral agents. These approaches apply methods from machine learning, Kohlberg's theory of moral development, and techniques ...
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This chapter surveys bottom‐up approaches to the development of artificial moral agents. These approaches apply methods from machine learning, Kohlberg's theory of moral development, and techniques from artificial life (Alife) and evolutionary robotics, such as evolution through genetic algorithms, to the goal of facilitating the emergence of moral capacities from general aspects of intelligence. Such approaches hold out the prospect that moral behavior is a self‐organizing phenomenon in which cooperation and a shared set of moral instincts (if not a “moral grammar”) might emerge – this despite the logic of game theory which seems to suggest only self‐interested rationality can prevail in an evolutionary contest. A primary challenge for bottom‐up approaches is how to provide sufficient safeguards against learning or evolving bad behaviors as well as good.Less
This chapter surveys bottom‐up approaches to the development of artificial moral agents. These approaches apply methods from machine learning, Kohlberg's theory of moral development, and techniques from artificial life (Alife) and evolutionary robotics, such as evolution through genetic algorithms, to the goal of facilitating the emergence of moral capacities from general aspects of intelligence. Such approaches hold out the prospect that moral behavior is a self‐organizing phenomenon in which cooperation and a shared set of moral instincts (if not a “moral grammar”) might emerge – this despite the logic of game theory which seems to suggest only self‐interested rationality can prevail in an evolutionary contest. A primary challenge for bottom‐up approaches is how to provide sufficient safeguards against learning or evolving bad behaviors as well as good.
Stefan Helmreich
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226720807
- eISBN:
- 9780226720838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226720838.003.0015
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter discusses how current designers of artificial creatures place their creations in a medium in order to make them seem lifelike, and provides a commentary on the practice of finding ...
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This chapter discusses how current designers of artificial creatures place their creations in a medium in order to make them seem lifelike, and provides a commentary on the practice of finding genealogies for Artificial Life. Floating shows how the effect of empiricity can be sustained through the medium of interpretation itself. Artificial Life has been no stranger to epistemological debates about the relation between the world and the agent that knows it. Like the Museum of Jurassic Technology, an institution that reproduces, repurposes, parodies, and confuses the very notion of a museum by archiving and displaying knowledge and artifacts that may or may not be part of actual human history, Artificial Life simulations may be “a setting of and for confabulation where hermeneutics is suspended.”Less
This chapter discusses how current designers of artificial creatures place their creations in a medium in order to make them seem lifelike, and provides a commentary on the practice of finding genealogies for Artificial Life. Floating shows how the effect of empiricity can be sustained through the medium of interpretation itself. Artificial Life has been no stranger to epistemological debates about the relation between the world and the agent that knows it. Like the Museum of Jurassic Technology, an institution that reproduces, repurposes, parodies, and confuses the very notion of a museum by archiving and displaying knowledge and artifacts that may or may not be part of actual human history, Artificial Life simulations may be “a setting of and for confabulation where hermeneutics is suspended.”
John Johnston
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262101264
- eISBN:
- 9780262276351
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262101264.003.0006
- Subject:
- Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
This chapter charts the history of artificial life (ALife) after Langton in relation to theories of evolution, emergence, and complex adaptive systems by examining a series of experiments carried out ...
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This chapter charts the history of artificial life (ALife) after Langton in relation to theories of evolution, emergence, and complex adaptive systems by examining a series of experiments carried out on various software platforms, including Thomas Ray’s Tierra, John Holland’s Echo, Christoph Adami’s Avida, Andrew Pargellis’ Amoeba, Tim Taylor’s Cosmos, and Larry Yaeger’s PolyWorld. It concludes by considering the limits of the first phase of ALife research and the new research initiatives represented by “living computation” and attempts to create an artificial protocell.Less
This chapter charts the history of artificial life (ALife) after Langton in relation to theories of evolution, emergence, and complex adaptive systems by examining a series of experiments carried out on various software platforms, including Thomas Ray’s Tierra, John Holland’s Echo, Christoph Adami’s Avida, Andrew Pargellis’ Amoeba, Tim Taylor’s Cosmos, and Larry Yaeger’s PolyWorld. It concludes by considering the limits of the first phase of ALife research and the new research initiatives represented by “living computation” and attempts to create an artificial protocell.
George Khushf
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262012621
- eISBN:
- 9780262255301
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262012621.003.0013
- Subject:
- Biology, Bioethics
This chapter argues that ethical reflection must be an integral part of the development of protocell science and technology. It presents a representative example of a body of research in artificial ...
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This chapter argues that ethical reflection must be an integral part of the development of protocell science and technology. It presents a representative example of a body of research in artificial life connected with the design of a self-assembling membrane, and shows how this new, hybrid science undermines the conditions for a traditional post hoc, downstream mode of ethical reflection. This chapter shows that traditional ethical analysis is closely intertwined with a specific view of science and technology. It suggests that upstream ethics cannot be viewed as a simple adjunct to science.Less
This chapter argues that ethical reflection must be an integral part of the development of protocell science and technology. It presents a representative example of a body of research in artificial life connected with the design of a self-assembling membrane, and shows how this new, hybrid science undermines the conditions for a traditional post hoc, downstream mode of ethical reflection. This chapter shows that traditional ethical analysis is closely intertwined with a specific view of science and technology. It suggests that upstream ethics cannot be viewed as a simple adjunct to science.
Jessica Riskin
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226720807
- eISBN:
- 9780226720838
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226720838.003.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This book is about a long tradition of attempts to sound the Sistine gap. It discusses the efforts to simulate life in machinery, to synthesize life out of material parts, and to measure living ...
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This book is about a long tradition of attempts to sound the Sistine gap. It discusses the efforts to simulate life in machinery, to synthesize life out of material parts, and to measure living beings against inanimate mechanisms. A historical approach to artificial life is also presented. The chapter then contributes to the current conventions regarding the nature of animal life, sentience, and human cognition. Moreover, the book is divided into three parts. Part 1 explores the efforts to connect intellect with matter, souls with mechanisms, magic with engineering. Part 2 emphasizes the importance of interactions within living beings, among the distributed parts of the complex systems that comprise them. Part 3 concentrates on the exchanges between creatures and the outside world, and on attempts to understand life in terms of these exchanges. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in this book is given.Less
This book is about a long tradition of attempts to sound the Sistine gap. It discusses the efforts to simulate life in machinery, to synthesize life out of material parts, and to measure living beings against inanimate mechanisms. A historical approach to artificial life is also presented. The chapter then contributes to the current conventions regarding the nature of animal life, sentience, and human cognition. Moreover, the book is divided into three parts. Part 1 explores the efforts to connect intellect with matter, souls with mechanisms, magic with engineering. Part 2 emphasizes the importance of interactions within living beings, among the distributed parts of the complex systems that comprise them. Part 3 concentrates on the exchanges between creatures and the outside world, and on attempts to understand life in terms of these exchanges. Finally, an overview of the chapters included in this book is given.
- Published in print:
- 2004
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226577128
- eISBN:
- 9780226577135
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226577135.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
This chapter discusses artificial life and the homunculus. The vast literature focusing on alchemy in the debate on art and nature often draws on the spontaneous generation of animals for examples ...
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This chapter discusses artificial life and the homunculus. The vast literature focusing on alchemy in the debate on art and nature often draws on the spontaneous generation of animals for examples that are relevant to alchemical transmutation. Late antique and medieval theories of artificial life can be broken into two main categories: those predicated on the theory of spontaneous generation, primarily as outlined in the biological works of Aristotle; and those based on the cosmogonyc myths of a creator God, like the golem of medieval Judaism. One of the great pillars in the edifice of artificial life was Aristotle's theory of sexual, as opposed to spontaneous, generation. The concept of the marvelous power of male sperm, like the ability of specific types of matter to generate life spontaneously, opened up a vast field of speculation about the possibilities of artificial life.Less
This chapter discusses artificial life and the homunculus. The vast literature focusing on alchemy in the debate on art and nature often draws on the spontaneous generation of animals for examples that are relevant to alchemical transmutation. Late antique and medieval theories of artificial life can be broken into two main categories: those predicated on the theory of spontaneous generation, primarily as outlined in the biological works of Aristotle; and those based on the cosmogonyc myths of a creator God, like the golem of medieval Judaism. One of the great pillars in the edifice of artificial life was Aristotle's theory of sexual, as opposed to spontaneous, generation. The concept of the marvelous power of male sperm, like the ability of specific types of matter to generate life spontaneously, opened up a vast field of speculation about the possibilities of artificial life.
John Johnston
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262101264
- eISBN:
- 9780262276351
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262101264.001.0001
- Subject:
- Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
This book examines new forms of nascent life that emerge through technical interactions within human-constructed environments—“machinic life”—in the sciences of cybernetics, artificial life, and ...
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This book examines new forms of nascent life that emerge through technical interactions within human-constructed environments—“machinic life”—in the sciences of cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial intelligence. With the development of such research initiatives as the evolution of digital organisms, computer immune systems, artificial protocells, evolutionary robotics, and swarm systems, it argues, machinic life has achieved a complexity and autonomy worthy of study in its own right. Drawing on the publications of scientists as well as a range of work in contemporary philosophy and cultural theory, but always with the primary focus on the “objects at hand”—the machines, programs, and processes that constitute machinic life—the book shows how they come about, how they operate, and how they are already changing. This understanding is a necessary first step, it further argues, that must precede speculation about the meaning and cultural implications of these new forms of life. Developing the concept of the “computational assemblage” (a machine and its associated discourse) as a framework to identify both resemblances and differences in form and function, the book offers a conceptual history of each of the three sciences. It considers the new theory of machines proposed by cybernetics from several perspectives, including Lacanian psychoanalysis and “machinic philosophy.” The book examines the history of the new science of artificial life and its relation to theories of evolution, emergence, and complex adaptive systems (as illustrated by a series of experiments carried out on various software platforms).Less
This book examines new forms of nascent life that emerge through technical interactions within human-constructed environments—“machinic life”—in the sciences of cybernetics, artificial life, and artificial intelligence. With the development of such research initiatives as the evolution of digital organisms, computer immune systems, artificial protocells, evolutionary robotics, and swarm systems, it argues, machinic life has achieved a complexity and autonomy worthy of study in its own right. Drawing on the publications of scientists as well as a range of work in contemporary philosophy and cultural theory, but always with the primary focus on the “objects at hand”—the machines, programs, and processes that constitute machinic life—the book shows how they come about, how they operate, and how they are already changing. This understanding is a necessary first step, it further argues, that must precede speculation about the meaning and cultural implications of these new forms of life. Developing the concept of the “computational assemblage” (a machine and its associated discourse) as a framework to identify both resemblances and differences in form and function, the book offers a conceptual history of each of the three sciences. It considers the new theory of machines proposed by cybernetics from several perspectives, including Lacanian psychoanalysis and “machinic philosophy.” The book examines the history of the new science of artificial life and its relation to theories of evolution, emergence, and complex adaptive systems (as illustrated by a series of experiments carried out on various software platforms).
Jessica Riskin (ed.)
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780226720807
- eISBN:
- 9780226720838
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226720838.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, History of Science, Technology, and Medicine
Since antiquity, philosophers and engineers have tried to take life's measure by reproducing it. Aiming to reenact Creation, at least in part, these experimenters have hoped to understand the links ...
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Since antiquity, philosophers and engineers have tried to take life's measure by reproducing it. Aiming to reenact Creation, at least in part, these experimenters have hoped to understand the links between body and spirit, matter and mind, mechanism and consciousness. This book examines moments from this centuries-long experimental tradition: efforts to simulate life in machinery, to synthesize life out of material parts, and to understand living beings by comparison with inanimate mechanisms. The author collects seventeen essays from scholars in several fields. These studies offer an unexpected and far-reaching result: attempts to create artificial life have rarely been driven by an impulse to reduce life and mind to machinery. On the contrary, designers of synthetic creatures have generally assumed a role for something nonmechanical. The history of artificial life is thus also a history of theories of soul and intellect.Less
Since antiquity, philosophers and engineers have tried to take life's measure by reproducing it. Aiming to reenact Creation, at least in part, these experimenters have hoped to understand the links between body and spirit, matter and mind, mechanism and consciousness. This book examines moments from this centuries-long experimental tradition: efforts to simulate life in machinery, to synthesize life out of material parts, and to understand living beings by comparison with inanimate mechanisms. The author collects seventeen essays from scholars in several fields. These studies offer an unexpected and far-reaching result: attempts to create artificial life have rarely been driven by an impulse to reduce life and mind to machinery. On the contrary, designers of synthetic creatures have generally assumed a role for something nonmechanical. The history of artificial life is thus also a history of theories of soul and intellect.
Inge Hinterwaldner
- Published in print:
- 2017
- Published Online:
- September 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780262035040
- eISBN:
- 9780262335546
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262035040.003.0005
- Subject:
- Society and Culture, Technology and Society
Within real-time simulations, the calculated simulation dynamic is only one movement-generating instance. There exist further and other movement-generating elements of a sensorial nature. Typically, ...
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Within real-time simulations, the calculated simulation dynamic is only one movement-generating instance. There exist further and other movement-generating elements of a sensorial nature. Typically, the simulation program encompasses many diverse processes – internal and external ones – taking place simultaneously. Several artificial life applications are analysed with respect to the multi-layered dynamics and with a special focus on how the sensorial levels contribute motions not present in the simulation dynamics itself. Computer simulations also have the potential for deception (some applications aim at exploiting the suspense of disbelief), but surprisingly it is located in their domain, in the process and reaction or consequence design. The optical level follows other logics. Being aware of this fact with all its consequences is crucial for a critical and responsible attitude towards computer simulations.Less
Within real-time simulations, the calculated simulation dynamic is only one movement-generating instance. There exist further and other movement-generating elements of a sensorial nature. Typically, the simulation program encompasses many diverse processes – internal and external ones – taking place simultaneously. Several artificial life applications are analysed with respect to the multi-layered dynamics and with a special focus on how the sensorial levels contribute motions not present in the simulation dynamics itself. Computer simulations also have the potential for deception (some applications aim at exploiting the suspense of disbelief), but surprisingly it is located in their domain, in the process and reaction or consequence design. The optical level follows other logics. Being aware of this fact with all its consequences is crucial for a critical and responsible attitude towards computer simulations.
Wolfgang Banzhaf and Lidia Yamamoto
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780262029438
- eISBN:
- 9780262329460
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262029438.003.0001
- Subject:
- Public Health and Epidemiology, Public Health
The introduction to Artificial Chemistries discusses its root in Artificial Life research before explaining with a simple example from the mathematical area of Arithmetic what we can imagine under an ...
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The introduction to Artificial Chemistries discusses its root in Artificial Life research before explaining with a simple example from the mathematical area of Arithmetic what we can imagine under an artificial chemistry. It explains how some fundamental questions of Artificial Life are connected to questions of Artificial Chemistry and shows a few of the general features we’d expect to be exhibited by an AC.Less
The introduction to Artificial Chemistries discusses its root in Artificial Life research before explaining with a simple example from the mathematical area of Arithmetic what we can imagine under an artificial chemistry. It explains how some fundamental questions of Artificial Life are connected to questions of Artificial Chemistry and shows a few of the general features we’d expect to be exhibited by an AC.
Matthew Schlesinger and Domenico Parisi
- Published in print:
- 2007
- Published Online:
- March 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780198529934
- eISBN:
- 9780191689727
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780198529934.003.0006
- Subject:
- Psychology, Cognitive Psychology
This chapter emphasises that adaptation can occur at a developmental timescale — within the lifetime of an individual — but also across individuals (phylogeny). To explore these interactions, it uses ...
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This chapter emphasises that adaptation can occur at a developmental timescale — within the lifetime of an individual — but also across individuals (phylogeny). To explore these interactions, it uses a modelling method referred to as ‘genetic algorithms’. This method combines the simulation of learning within the individual using standard neural network technique with an evolutionary selection process in which successive ‘generations’ of networks gradually evolve to change the learning properties of the individuals as a result of longer-term adaptive pressures. An important point is that while this kind of mechanism can be used to model processes occurring across the lifetimes of many individuals, it can also be used to model the slow evolution of neural or cognitive structures within the timescale of an individual developing child.Less
This chapter emphasises that adaptation can occur at a developmental timescale — within the lifetime of an individual — but also across individuals (phylogeny). To explore these interactions, it uses a modelling method referred to as ‘genetic algorithms’. This method combines the simulation of learning within the individual using standard neural network technique with an evolutionary selection process in which successive ‘generations’ of networks gradually evolve to change the learning properties of the individuals as a result of longer-term adaptive pressures. An important point is that while this kind of mechanism can be used to model processes occurring across the lifetimes of many individuals, it can also be used to model the slow evolution of neural or cognitive structures within the timescale of an individual developing child.
Phil Husbands, Owen Holland, and Michael Wheeler (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262083775
- eISBN:
- 9780262256384
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262083775.001.0001
- Subject:
- Computer Science, Artificial Intelligence
The idea of intelligent machines has become part of popular culture. But tracing the history of the actual science of machine intelligence reveals a rich network of cross-disciplinary ...
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The idea of intelligent machines has become part of popular culture. But tracing the history of the actual science of machine intelligence reveals a rich network of cross-disciplinary contributions—the unrecognized origins of ideas now central to artificial intelligence, artificial life, cognitive science, and neuroscience. In this book, scientists, artists, historians, and philosophers discuss the multidisciplinary quest to formalize and understand the generation of intelligent behavior in natural and artificial systems as a wholly mechanical process. The chapters illustrate the diverse and interacting notions that chart the evolution of the idea of the mechanical mind. They describe the mechanized mind as, among other things, an analogue system, an organized suite of chemical interactions, a self-organizing electromechanical device, an automated general-purpose information processor, and an integrated collection of symbol-manipulating mechanisms. The chapters investigate the views of pivotal figures that range from Descartes and Heidegger to Alan Turing and Charles Babbage, and emphasize such frequently overlooked areas as British cybernetic and pre-cybernetic thinkers. The book concludes with the personal insights of five highly influential figures in the field: John Maynard Smith, John Holland, Oliver Selfridge, Horace Barlow, and Jack Cowan.Less
The idea of intelligent machines has become part of popular culture. But tracing the history of the actual science of machine intelligence reveals a rich network of cross-disciplinary contributions—the unrecognized origins of ideas now central to artificial intelligence, artificial life, cognitive science, and neuroscience. In this book, scientists, artists, historians, and philosophers discuss the multidisciplinary quest to formalize and understand the generation of intelligent behavior in natural and artificial systems as a wholly mechanical process. The chapters illustrate the diverse and interacting notions that chart the evolution of the idea of the mechanical mind. They describe the mechanized mind as, among other things, an analogue system, an organized suite of chemical interactions, a self-organizing electromechanical device, an automated general-purpose information processor, and an integrated collection of symbol-manipulating mechanisms. The chapters investigate the views of pivotal figures that range from Descartes and Heidegger to Alan Turing and Charles Babbage, and emphasize such frequently overlooked areas as British cybernetic and pre-cybernetic thinkers. The book concludes with the personal insights of five highly influential figures in the field: John Maynard Smith, John Holland, Oliver Selfridge, Horace Barlow, and Jack Cowan.
Andrew Assad and Norman H. Packard
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262026215
- eISBN:
- 9780262268011
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262026215.003.0014
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
This chapter offers a definition of the term “emergent” that is relevant to the study of Artificial Life. Since its inception, the field of Artificial Life has consistently referred to the property ...
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This chapter offers a definition of the term “emergent” that is relevant to the study of Artificial Life. Since its inception, the field of Artificial Life has consistently referred to the property of “emergent” phenomena as one of its primary distinguishing features. Despite its frequent use in the literature, however, a clear and widely accepted definition of the term “emergent” is yet to be realized. The chapter studies emergence in the realm of an ALife model, and notes the rich history of the concept, which the ALife approach will hopefully expand. The idea of emergence could perhaps be traced to Heraclitus, with his theory of flux; and Anaxagoras, with his theory of perichoresis, which held that all discernible structures in the world are products of a dynamical unmixing process which began with a homogeneous chaos.Less
This chapter offers a definition of the term “emergent” that is relevant to the study of Artificial Life. Since its inception, the field of Artificial Life has consistently referred to the property of “emergent” phenomena as one of its primary distinguishing features. Despite its frequent use in the literature, however, a clear and widely accepted definition of the term “emergent” is yet to be realized. The chapter studies emergence in the realm of an ALife model, and notes the rich history of the concept, which the ALife approach will hopefully expand. The idea of emergence could perhaps be traced to Heraclitus, with his theory of flux; and Anaxagoras, with his theory of perichoresis, which held that all discernible structures in the world are products of a dynamical unmixing process which began with a homogeneous chaos.
Edmund M. A. Ronald, Moshe Sipper, and Mathieu S. Capcarrère
- Published in print:
- 2008
- Published Online:
- August 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780262026215
- eISBN:
- 9780262268011
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- The MIT Press
- DOI:
- 10.7551/mitpress/9780262026215.003.0019
- Subject:
- Philosophy, Philosophy of Science
This chapter illustrates how the concept of emergence has become a great attention grabber due to the striking behaviors demonstrated in artificial life experiments. Emergence has been called upon ...
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This chapter illustrates how the concept of emergence has become a great attention grabber due to the striking behaviors demonstrated in artificial life experiments. Emergence has been called upon conveniently whenever the unexpected intrudes into the visual field of the experimenter, consequently requiring or justifying an economy of explanation. This abuse of the term will eventually devalue its significance and put the concept of emergence itself under a bad light. In the absence of an acceptable definition, researchers in the field would be better off adopting an emergence certification mark that would garner approval from the ALife community. This standardization is the motivation behind the proposed “emergence test,” a set of criteria through which one can justify conferring the emergence.Less
This chapter illustrates how the concept of emergence has become a great attention grabber due to the striking behaviors demonstrated in artificial life experiments. Emergence has been called upon conveniently whenever the unexpected intrudes into the visual field of the experimenter, consequently requiring or justifying an economy of explanation. This abuse of the term will eventually devalue its significance and put the concept of emergence itself under a bad light. In the absence of an acceptable definition, researchers in the field would be better off adopting an emergence certification mark that would garner approval from the ALife community. This standardization is the motivation behind the proposed “emergence test,” a set of criteria through which one can justify conferring the emergence.
