BIC: EMT: Reimagining Evolutionary Computation

进化具有非凡的能力，可以设计出具有新特征的有机体，使它们能够在具有挑战性的环境中生存，甚至茁壮成长。对于人类观察者来说，生物有机体的生物化学和生理复杂性令人惊叹，这让一些人不相信这样的生物设计可以单靠进化来完成。考虑到自然界中生物复杂性的水平--从单细胞发育出胚胎；雨林生态系统的微妙平衡；一直到人脑的推理能力，复杂而优雅的适应性设计比比皆是。随着我们慢慢了解进化如何产生如此复杂的特征的更多细节，我们变得明显的是，这是一种强大的建设性力量，我们需要充分了解它，以便利用它在解决复杂计算问题方面的潜力。这个项目的双重目标是更多地了解进化产生创新复杂特征的机制，然后应用这种新发现的理解来开发新一代基于进化的算法来解决计算问题。在这个过程中，我们将使用一个数学框架来研究生物系统的复杂性，以更好地理解自然设计过程。我们将从回答进化生物学和生态学中的基本问题开始这项工作，这些问题包括：为什么复杂的设计在多物种生态系统中出现得更快？如果有机体有能力改变它们的环境并相互交流，这是否会刺激无限制的复杂性增长？我们如何利用这些力量来解决设计问题？我们在这项研究中使用的进化系统是一个人工系统，基于自我复制的计算机程序，但它仍然展示了自然进化系统的关键特征--最显著的能力是产生新颖的复杂特征和创新的问题解决方案。这些数字有机体存在于用户定义的计算环境中，它们的基因组组成理论上可以执行任何可计算的数学函数。事实上，我们见证了阿维达通过进化而产生的各种各样意想不到的创新适应。这个系统允许我们以任何自然系统都不可能实现的速度、细节和精确度来探索进化生物学中的基本问题。理想情况下，这是一种工具，它将使我们能够充分了解生物复杂性的起源，并建设性地利用这些能够在自然界产生人类智能的相同力量。

Evolution has a remarkable ability to design organisms possessing novel features that enable them to survive, and even thrive, in challenging environments. To a human observer, the biochemical and physiological complexity of living organisms is amazing, leading some to disbelieve that such biological designs could have been accomplished by evolution alone. Considering the levels of biocomplexity found throughout nature - the development of an embryo from a single-cell; the delicate balance of an ecosystem in a rainforest; all the way to the reasoning power of the human brain, complex and elegant adaptive designs abound. As we slowly understand more details about how evolution produces such complex traits, it becomes clear that this is a powerful constructive force that we need to fully understand in order to harness its potential in solving difficult computational design problems.The twin goals of this project are to learn more about the mechanisms by which evolution produces innovative complex features, and then to apply this newfound understanding to develop a new generation of evolution-based algorithms for solving computational problems. In the process, we will use a mathematical framework for the study of complexity in biological systems to better understand the natural design process. We will start this work by answering fundamental questions in evolutionary biology and ecology including: Why do complex designs arise faster in multi-species ecosystems? If organisms have the capacity to modify their environment and communicate with one another, will this spur open-ended complexity growth? and How can we harness these forces to solve design problems?The evolving system that we use in this study is an artificial one, based on self-replicating computer programs, that nonetheless exhibit the key characteristics of natural evolving systems - most notably the ability to produce novel complex traits and innovative solutions to problems. These "digital organisms" exist in a user-defined computational environment, and their genomes are composed can theoretically perform any computable mathematical function. Indeed, we have witnessed a wide variety of unexpected and innovative adaptations arise through evolution in Avida. This system allows us to explore fundamental questions in evolutionary biology with speed, detail and precision that would not be possible in any natural system. Ideally it is a tool that will allow us to fully understand the origins of biocomplexity, and constructively make use of these same forces that were able to produce human intelligence in the natural world.