I try to clarify several confusions in the popular literature concerning chaos, determinism, the arrow of time, entropy and the role of probability in physics. Classical ideas going back to Laplace and Boltzmann are explained and defended while some recent views on irreversibility, due to Prigogine, are criticized.

. Evolutionary Computation focuses on probabilistic search and optimization methods gleaned from the model of organic evolution. Genetic algorithms, evolution strategies and evolutionary programming are three independently developed representatives of this class of algorithms, with genetic programming and classifier systems as additional paradigms in the field. This paper focuses on the link between evolutionary computation and DNA-based computing by discussing the relevant aspects of evolutionary computation both from a practical and a theoretical point of view. In particular, theoretical results concerning the calculation of convergence velocities and the derivation of optimal schedules for mutation rates respectively steps sizes are presented. The potential for cross-fertilization between the fields of DNA-based computing and evolutionary computation is outlined both from a principal point of view and by means of an experimental investigation concerning the NP-hard maximum clique pr...

Introduction Within DAI and the game theoretical literature a fundamental question is often posed: Given bounded rationality and knowledge, what conditions produce cooperative and/or altruistic interagent behaviour? One line of enquiry involves the application of simple learning rules within game theoretic environments (Liebrand & Messick 1996). This approach assumes that agents are individual satisficing learners. Another approach applies selective mimicry from a spatial "neighbourhood" based on maximum payoff (Nowak & May 1992). Although elegant, and able to produce cooperation, neither can produce sustained altruism - where individual needs are driven by the needs of a group to the individuals detriment. Here, a fresh perspective on cooperation is applied which is a synthesis of these two approaches yet moves beyond them. A "memetic" (Bura 1994, Dennett 1995, Hales 1997) approach is developed which takes it's inspiration from theories concerning the cultural evolut

Abstract. A Recent [14] model demonstrated that image scoring produces high cooperation between strangers in the Prisoner’s Dilemma (PD). Here we outline a simpler approach in which players – which are either pure cooperators or defectors – can sustain cooperation with strangers by biasing game interactions towards others with the same tags (arbitrary bit strings representing “cultural markers ” [11]). In our model there is no requirement for knowledge of past performance or recognition of individual players. Unlike spatial models [13] reproduction of strategies is population wide. Contrary to previous tag models [15] cooperation is demonstrated in the single round game. 1

. An on-going project investigating group formation, stereotyping and cultural evolution using an artificial society is outlined. Agents culturally interact by exchanging behavioural rules and cultural markers. They economically interact by playing games of the Prisoners Dilemma. The mode of game play is novel because agents apply stochastic repeated game strategies not to individuals but to subjectively stereotyped groups (based on cultural makers). Agents consequently treat stereotyped groups as single players with whom they are involved in an on-going game of iterated PD. It is envisaged that such cultural processes may display a form of "second order emergence" [11] in which agents come to recognise the cultural groupings that have emerged within the society. Some initial experimental results are presented with tentative observations. 1 Introduction In complex social worlds, individuals are required to interact with many strangers using limited knowledge and bounded rationality. ...

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The field of evolvable hardware or bio-inspired hardware holds the promise of automatically engineering complex electronic systems that remain adaptive and fault-tolerant during use. A growing number of experiments along these lines have been performed recently, mostly using off-the-shelf hardware [ 1 ] or straightforward extensions of building blocks used by human engineers [2][3]. In this paper we use the POE (Phylogeny Ontogeny Epigenesis) framework of bio-inspired hardware systems [4] and restrict evolutionary search and development considerations to pure hill-climbing search only, in order to develop some theory around evolution of electronic circuits. From this theory a new analog re-configurable hardware architecture is proposed for use in evolvable hardware. The hardware is a context switchable analog computer which can implement any general non-linear dynamic system on the level of the vector field representation. The optimization algorithm is a bio-inspired "molding" of the state-space description of the system. We call this novel hardware/ optimization algorithm platform the "modeling clay" approach to bio-inspired electronic hardware.

this paper. They are not responsible for my views, however

Abstract. An idea is not a replicator because it does not consist of coded self-assembly instructions. It may retain structure as it passes from one individual to another, but does not replicate it. The cultural replicator is not an idea but an associatively-structured network of them that together form an internal model of the world, or worldview. A worldview is a primitive, uncoded replicator, like the autocatalytic sets of polymers widely believed to be the earliest form of life. Primitive replicators generate self-similar structure, but because the process happens in a piecemeal manner, through bottom-up interactions rather than a top-down code, they replicate with low fidelity, and acquired characteristics are inherited. Just as polymers catalyze reactions that generate other polymers, the retrieval of an item from memory can in turn trigger other items, thus cross-linking memories, ideas, and concepts into an integrated conceptual structure. Worldviews evolve idea by idea, largely through social exchange. An idea participates in the evolution of culture by revealing certain aspects of the worldview that generated it, thereby affecting the worldviews of those exposed to it. If an idea influences seemingly unrelated fields this does not mean that separate cultural lineages are contaminating one another, because it is worldviews, not ideas, that are the basic unit of cultural evolution. Does culture evolve like biological lineages do?

The design of adaptive systems will be among the key research problems of the 21st century. This new field is emerging from several distinct lines of work. • Modern immunology is based on the theory of clonal selection and adaptive immunity. The remarkable recognition abilities of the vertebrate