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comp.ai.alife Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)@import 'http://faqs.org/abstracts/css/default.css';@import 'http://faqs.org/search.css';[ By Archive-name| By Author | By Category | By Newsgroup ] [ Home | Latest Updates | Archive Stats | Search |Usenet References | Help ] Search the FAQ Archives MultiPagecomp.ai.alife Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)There are reader questions on this topic!Helpothers by sharing your knowledgeFrom: brown@krl.caltech.eduNewsgroups: comp.ai.genetic, comp.ai.alifeSubject: comp.ai.alife Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)Date: 20 Dec 1995 12:34:47 GMTMessage-ID: <4b8vt7$cra@gap.cco.caltech.edu>Summary: This article is a collection of answers to frequently asked questions on the comp.ai.alife newsgroup. Please read this before posting to comp.ai.alife.Archive-name: ai-faq/alifePosting-Frequency: monthlyLast updated: Saturday, November 18th, 1995. Frequently Asked Questions for comp.ai.alife --------------------------------------------Contact the author, Titus Brown (brown@krl.caltech.edu) before redistributingthis FAQ commercially. Also, please read the legal disclaimers at the bottom.Subject: 1. IntroductionThis document is intended to serve as an immediate resource for the readersof the newsgroup comp.ai.alife. It is intended to be lightweight; for moredetailed information, follow the references. The only abbreviation usedis AL, which stands for "Artificial Life".If you would like to make an addition to the FAQ, contact the author atbrown@krl.caltech.edu.Subject: 2. Table of ContentsThe only complete part of this FAQ is the introductory section, which containsanswers to some commonly asked questions. General pointers to electronicresources are available on the FAQ-associated Web site, at: http://www.krl.caltech.edu/~brown/alife/In addition, the FAQs of the following newsgroups contain quite a bit ofrelevant information: sci.bio.evolution comp.ai.genetic comp.theory.cell-automata alt.memeticsThese are available on the FTP server rtfm.mit.edu, as well as many otherFTP servers. Contact brown@krl.caltech.edu for more details, or go tothose newsgroups.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Part 1: Introductions and General Questions* Q1: What is Artificial Life, and where is some introductory material?* Q2: What is the purpose and charter of comp.ai.alife?* Q3: How do I find/compile a particular AL program/demo? - General info on finding and compiling AL programs. - Tom Ray's Tierra. - Karl Sim's movie from SIGGRAPH/ALIFE IV. - Craig Reynolds' boids simulation.* Q4: How are Artificial Life and Artificial Intelligence related?* Q5: Where is this newsgroup archived?* Q6: Where can I get a doctorate in Artificial Life or related areas?* Q7: Where can I find information on simulating or developing the mechanics of locomotion?* Q8: I'm interested in reading up on evolutionary biology. Where do I start?* Q9: I'm looking for a particular mailing list. Does it exist, and if so, how do I find it?------------------------------Q1: What is Artificial Life, and where is some introductory material?What is Artificial Life?------------------------Biology is the scientific study of life - in principle, anyway. Inpractice, biology is the scientific study of life on Earth based oncarbon-chain chemistry. There is nothing in its charter that restrictsbiology to carbon-based life; it is simply that this is the only kindof life that has been available to study. Thus, theoretical biologyhas long faced the fundamental obstacle that it is impossible toderive general principles from single examples.Without other examples, it is difficult to distinguish essentialproperties of life - properties that would be shared by any livingsystem - from properties that may be incidental to life in principle,but which happen to be universal to life on Earth due solely to acombination of local historical accident and common genetic descent.In order to derive general theories about life, we need an ensembleof instances to generalize over. Since it is quite unlikely that alienlifeforms will present themselves to us for study in the near future,our only option is to try to create alternative life-forms ourselves -Artificial Life - literally ``life made by Man rather than byNature.''Artificial Life (``AL'' or ``Alife'') is the name given to a newdiscipline that studies "natural" life by attempting to recreatebiological phenomena from scratch within computers and other"artificial" media. Alife complements the traditional analyticapproach of traditional biology with a synthetic approach in which,rather than studying biological phenomena by taking apart livingorganisms to see how they work, one attempts to put together systemsthat behave like living organisms.The process of synthesis has been an extremely important tool in manydisciplines. Synthetic chemistry - the ability to put together newchemical compounds not found in nature - has not only contributedenormously to our theoretical understanding of chemical phenomena, buthas also allowed us to fabricate new materials and chemicals that areof great practical use for industry and technology.Artificial life amounts to the practice of ``synthetic biology'' and,by analogy with synthetic chemistry, the attempt to recreatebiological phenomena in alternative media will result in not onlybetter theoretical understanding of the phenomena under study, butalso in practical applications of biological principles in thetechnology of computer hardware and software, mobile robots,spacecraft, medicine, nanotechnology, industrial fabrication andassembly, and other vital engineering projects.By extending the horizons of empirical research in biology beyond theterritory currently circumscribed by life-as-we-know-it, the study ofArtificial Life gives us access to the domain of life-as-it- could-be,and it is within this vastly larger domain that we must ground generaltheories of biology and in which we will discover practical and usefulapplications of biology in our engineering endeavors. -- Chris G. LangtonWhere can I find some good introductory material?-------------------------------------------------There are several "popular science" books out there. _Artificial Life:the Quest for a New Creation_, by Steven Levy, was one of the first;Levy presents a large amount of material detailing the genesis of thefield, including a description of many still-active projects. Thiswould be my first recommendation for a newcomer.There is a World-Wide-Web page for this book at the URLhttp://mosaic.echonyc.com/~steven/ArtificialLife.html.M. Mitchell Waldrop's _Complexity: The Emerging Science at the Edge ofOrder and Chaos_ (ISBN 0-671-76789-5) discusses the history of complexsystems study. In specific, it details the founding of the Santa FeInstitute, which is actively researching most aspects of complex systems,including Artificial Life.Rudy Rucker's _Artificial Life Lab_ has been recommended as a good way toget involved; a short review (by Wally Raisanen) is available on theFAQ-resources Web page, http://www.krl.caltech.edu/~brown/alife/.Finally, the book _Out of Control_ by Kevin Kelly is an *excellent*1994 overview of technology, with an emphasis on emergent behavior andmodelling life in a computer environment. A must-read for thoseinterested in the social impact of our work, as well as those interestedin a general cross-section of the entire field and related areas.------------------------------Q2: What is the purpose and charter of the comp.ai.alife newsgroup?The purpose of comp.ai.alife is to provide an unmoderated forum in whichto discuss topics related to the field of Artificial Life, as well asproviding a centralized resource base for queries regarding AL research.* Topics for discussion in the newsgroup can include, but not be limited to: -- optimization techniques (such as genetic algorithms) and modelling algorithms -- the definition of a living system and "Life" -- self-organizing systems -- the origin of life -- evolutionary learning -- the development of ecosystems -- complex system dynamics (with specific relation to living systems) -- book and software reviews (non-commercial advertisements, as well)Contact brown@krl.caltech.edu for the Request-For-Discussions posted tonews.announce.newgroups.------------------------------Q3: How do I find/compile a particular AL program/demo?There are three good ways to find a particular AL program or demo: 1) Look at the list below, which contains references to some frequently requested programs and demos. 2) The World Wide Web resource of 'ZOOland', available at the WWW URL http://research.germany.eu.net:8080/public/zooland/ or off of the Artificial Life Resources WWW page mentioned above. 3) Asking on the newsgroup. Even if the people from the particular project don't actually read the newsgroup, someone who knows them probably does...Send questions about compilation (e.g. how do I compile tierra on XXX) tothe author of the package, not to the newsgroup. The author's address shouldbe included with the package; if it's not, then it's likely an unsupportedpackage. In addition, there are quite a few topical newsgroups for specificplatform; e.g. comp.unix.osf.osf1 for DEC OSF/1 questions. These are likelymore helpful places to ask specific questions about platforms.How do I find...----------------1. Tierra The complete source code and documentation (NOT the executables)for Tom Ray's tierra program are available via anonymous FTP at ftp://alife.santafe.edu [ 192.12.12.130 ] ftp://tierra.slhs.udel.edu [ 128.175.41.34 ] and ftp://life.slhs.udel.edu [ 128.185.41.33 ] in the directory /SOFTWARE/Tierra, file tierra.tar.Z. Tom Ray doesnot permit the executables to any version of tierra to be freely distributed;contact him at the e-mail address ray@santafe.edu for more information.2. Karl Sim's movie (from the ALIFE IV conference) Karl Sim's movie, presented at the ALIFE IV conference, is apparentlynot available. However, the SIGGRAPH movie, which shows some of the samework, is available via FTP at: ftp://ftp.think.com/users/karl/3. More information on Craig Reynold's "boids" simulation? Craig Reynold's "boids" simulation, presented at the ARTIFICIAL LIFEconference in 1987, has a page at the WWW address: http://reality.sgi.com/employees/craig/boids.html------------------------------Q4: How are Artificial Life and Artificial Intelligence related?There is a connection between the two fields in both methodology andresearch. AI is much older, with conceptual work dating to 1950 andearlier, while AL coagulated in the late 1980s, when people recognizedsimilarities in the work they were doing. AI methodologies play alarge part in AL work, partly because of the recognizable similaritiesin the two disciplines: AI studying intelligence, AL studying life,both with an eye to usefulness and reproducibility. And, in recent years,"traditional" AI researchers have focussed on AL techniques forautonomous learning, among other things.In spite of these similarities, there are several dissimilarities.AL is grounded in biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics,while AI is pursued mainly by computer scientists, engineers, andpsychologists. Also, the general philosophy of researchers in the fieldsseems to approach similar problems from different sides; AL from theground up, in an attempt to study synthesis, AI from the top down,focussing on results and not implementation.[ The text above is my opinion; I welcome alternative viewpoints on the subject, of course. --Titus ]------------------------------Q5: Where is this newsgroup archived?comp.ai.alife is archived weekly at the CMU CS archive site; ftp://ftp.cs.cmu.edu/user/ai/pub/news/comp.ai.alife/Contact ai+news-archives@cs.cmu.edu for more information.In addition, an HTMLized archive of the newsgroup (and several otherrelated newsgroups) is available: http://www.krl.caltech.edu/~brown/alife/news/------------------------------Q6: Where can I get a doctorate in Artificial Life or related areas?Ben Marcotte (ben@chinook.uoregon.edu) has made a guide available via the WWW: http://chinook.uoregon.edu/~ben/ga-grad.html------------------------------Q7: Where can I find information on simulating or developing the mechanics of locomotion?Here are some places to start: Karl Sims' work with evolving novel "virtual creatures" for tasks including walking, swimming, jumping and more: ftp://think.com/users/karl/Welcome.html The work of Jessica Hodgins et al. building controllers for balanced locomotion (and other athletic tasks) for "human" characters: http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/animation/Animation.html-- Craig Reynolds (craig@studio.sgi.com)------------------------------Q8: I'm interested in reading up on some evolutionary biology. Where do I start?Charles Taylor (of UCLA) recommends the following books for people interestedin evolutionary theory: Evolutionary Biology, by Douglas J. Futuyma. Evolutionary Genetics, by John Maynard Smith.From the perspective of mathematical modelling: Theory of population genetics and evolutionary ecology : an introduction, by Jonathan Roughgarden. ('bit old, but good') Principles of population genetics, by Daniel L. Hartl and Andrew G. Clark. ('a class of its own; contains ref. list')------------------------------Q9: I'm looking for a particular mailing list. Does it exist, and if so, how do I find it?1. Autopoiesis: there is an autopoiesis mailing list. To subscribe, e-mail a message with "subscribe autopoiesis" in the text body to listserv@think.com, or send "help" for more information.2. Genetic Programming: there's a GP mailing list. To subscribe, e-mail genetic-programming-REQUEST@cs.stanford.edu with your name and the e-mail address with which you'd like to subscribe.If you're interested in finding other mailing lists, take a look at theFTP directory ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet-by-group/news.lists/. There'san exhaustive list of mailing lists there.--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Before you sue my pants off for information I've misrepresented in thisfile, read the...Legal Necessities: This article is provided as is without any express or implied warranties. While every effort has been taken to ensure the accuracy of the information contained in this article, the author/maintainer/contributors (take your pick) assume(s) no responsibility for errors or omissions, or for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein. The contents of this article reflect my opinions only and not necessarily those of my employer.And, finally, copied right off of the FAQs-about-FAQs guide, by Russ Hersch:Copyright (c) 1995 by C. Titus Brown, all rights reserved.This FAQ may be posted to any USENET newsgroup, on-line service, or BBS as long as it is posted in its entirety and includes this copyright statement.This FAQ may not be distributed for financial gain.This FAQ may not be included in commercial collections or compilations without express permission from the author.----- Titus Brown, brown@krl.caltech.edu.MultiPage
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