RE: [Swarm-Modelling] Crichton's "Prey"

[North, Michael]

Steve:

I'd argue that collections of independent agents, interacting locally
with a changing set of neighbors, can learn without evolution, although
this depends on what you identify as the "agents."  If you define agents
as people, then human social systems learn this way.  However, if you
define agent as memes or ideas then the learning requires birth and
death.

Mike

-----Original Message-----
From: address@hidden [mailto:address@hidden
On Behalf Of Steve Railsback
Sent: Friday, June 03, 2005 10:32 AM
To: Swarm Modelling
Subject: [Swarm-Modelling] Crichton's "Prey"


Someone just gave me Michael Crichton's 2002 book "Prey". (I would bet a

lot of money that he wanted to name it "Swarm" but his lawyers told him 
not to...too bad, could have been a nice fund-raiser for us.)

Am I nuts, or is a central assumption of the book nonsense? He has a 
swarm of independent, persistent, artificial organisms; and the swarm 
could learn very rapidly. Our brains can learn rapidly, but the 
connections are all hardwired; a population of simple organisms can 
"learn" but only  via evolution, which requires birth and death and 
selection... Is there any way a collection of independent agents, 
interacting locally with a changing set of neighbors, can "learn" 
without evolution?

Steve

-- 
Lang Railsback & Assoc.
250 California Ave.
Arcata, California 95521
707 822 0453
_______________________________________________
Modelling mailing list
address@hidden
http://www.swarm.org/mailman/listinfo/modelling