Development of a Cultural Algorithm and a Trans-disciplinary Framework for Evolutionary Processes

进化过程的文化算法和跨学科框架的开发

• 批准号: 328096-2012
• 负责人: Gabora, Liane
• 金额: $ 1.53万
• 依托单位: University of British Columbia
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2015-01-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=572133
• 关键词: Development; Cultural; Algorithm; Trans; disciplinary

Elements of culture adaptively build on one another, diversify, and become more complex over time. It has been proposed that culture, like early and microbial life, evolves through, not survival of the fittest, but transformation by way of communal exchange. This research program aims to develop a general understanding of evolution that incorporates these processes. The research will in part build on EVOC, a communal exchange based computational model of cultural evolution consisting of neural network based agents that invent and imitate ideas and thereby evolve fitter and more diverse actions. The new agents will restructure information using an existing mathematical model of concept interactions that accounts for (1) how concepts change in different contexts, and (2) how humans shift between different modes of thought depending on the situation. EVOC2 will generate economic networks involving both invention of goods and recycling of wastes. Waste recycling is an ideal application for EVOC2 because it entails restructuring of information from one domain to another. EVOC2 is expected to evolve novelty that is not just cumulative, adaptive, and open-ended, but transformative. The skeleton of EVOC2 will be abstracted to develop a general-purpose cultural algorithm (CA) analogous to the genetic algorithm (GA), an optimization tool with diverse applications. The CA is expected to outperform the GA on tasks that require that information be considered from a different perspective, and thereby restructured. The research will build on previous efforts toward the development of an integrated framework for evolutionary processes that encompasses cultural evolution and natural selection, as well as early and microbial life. The proposed research is necessary to achieve a unification of the social and behavioral sciences comparable with Darwin's unification of the life sciences. It is expected to promote a scientific understanding of the current accelerated pace of cultural change and its transformative effects on humans and our planet, and to aid us in finding solutions to complex crises we now face.

文化的各种要素相互适应，多样化，并随着时间的推移而变得更加复杂。有人提出，文化就像早期的微生物生命一样，不是通过适者生存而进化的，而是通过社区交换的方式进行的转变。该研究计划旨在发展对包含这些过程的进化的一般理解。 这项研究将部分建立在EVOC的基础上，EVOC是一种基于公共交换的文化进化计算模型，由基于神经网络的代理人组成，这些代理人发明和模仿想法，从而进化出更适合和更多样化的行动。新的智能体将使用现有的概念交互数学模型来重构信息，该模型解释了（1）概念如何在不同的上下文中变化，以及（2）人类如何根据情况在不同的思维模式之间转换。EVOC 2将产生经济网络，涉及商品的发明和废物的回收利用。废物回收是EVOC 2的理想应用，因为它需要将信息从一个域重组到另一个域。预计EVOC 2将发展出新奇，不仅是累积的，适应性的和开放式的，而且是变革性的。EVOC2的骨架将被抽象为开发一个通用的文化算法（CA）类似的遗传算法（GA），具有不同的应用程序的优化工具。预计CA在需要从不同角度考虑信息的任务上的表现将优于GA，从而进行重组。 这项研究将建立在以前的努力，发展一个综合框架的进化过程，包括文化进化和自然选择，以及早期和微生物生命。拟议中的研究是必要的，以实现社会和行为科学的统一，可与达尔文的生命科学的统一相媲美。预计它将促进对当前文化变革步伐加快及其对人类和地球的变革影响的科学理解，并帮助我们找到解决我们目前面临的复杂危机的办法。