Re: how would we define "kin"?

[Bert . Baker]

Mark P. Line wrote:

>Jae Chan Oh wrote:
>>
>> For instance, what behaviors would make us be able to say that one of or
>> any of our SWARM applications exhibits kinship behavior?
>
>I guess the agent in question would have to
>
>(a) know that another agent is related by kinship,
>(b) know _how_ the other agent is related by kinship, and
>(c) behave differently towards different agents as a function of
>different
>    kin relationships.
>
>So I guess the really important question has to do with how kinship is
>defined (which was your question, duh). In human populations, kinship is
>not always defined by common ancestry and marriage alone -- sometimes,
>as in Scots clans (in earlier days), kinship can be a matter of choice
>for certain (usually marginalized) individuals.
>
>But I think you'd have a clear case of kinship behavior if the three
>criteria (a) - (c) above were fulfilled and you could demonstrate that
>kinship was being determined on the basis of common ancestry and perhaps
>mating relations.



I would think kinship would be a more meaningful concept if it meant
genetic similarity (your later comments) instead of knowledge of kinship
(your earlier comments).  Because, I assume we are interested in kinship
because of the behavior that an agent displays and the closeness of that
behavior to the behavior of another agent.  The issue of whether the agents
have knowledge of each other does not seem especially important to me.

If we are using genetic algorithms to generate new agents and two agents
are closely related genetically, might we get retarded agents from
incestuous mating?  Obviously not, but why not?  What does biological
mating do that genetic algorithms do not?  Might we gain something by being
more closely aligned to biology in our mating paradigms?

        -Bert Baker


____________________________________________________________________
Albert D. Baker, Director
Agent-Based Manufacturing Laboratory
Elec & Comp Eng and Comp Sci Dept    e-mail:address@hidden
834A Rhodes Hall - ML 30             http://www.ececs.uc.edu/~abaker
University of Cincinnati             voice:(513) 556-4782
Cincinnati, OH  45221-0030           fax:(513) 556-7326
____________________________________________________________________




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