[HN Gopher] A Minimal Model for Biological Evolution and Other A...
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       A Minimal Model for Biological Evolution and Other Adaptive
       Processes
        
       Author : simonpure
       Score  : 42 points
       Date   : 2024-05-03 09:29 UTC (13 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (writings.stephenwolfram.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (writings.stephenwolfram.com)
        
       | andoando wrote:
       | I love this stuff but Im not understanding the diagrams here at
       | all from the very beginning.
        
         | tedmw wrote:
         | Yeah, it's not explained very well. If you click the "Cellular
         | automata" link [1], that paper explains it in more detail. A
         | cell's next state is determined by its color and its neighbors'
         | colors.
         | 
         | For example, the top left corner of the key shows that if a
         | cell is blue and its neighbors are blue, it will remain blue.
         | The one to the right shows that if a cell is blue and has a
         | blue cell on the left and a red cell on the right, it will
         | switch to white.
         | 
         | [1] https://www.wolframscience.com/nks/p24--how-do-simple-
         | progra...
        
           | andoando wrote:
           | Ah ok, thanks. It was confusing me saying "it starts with a
           | single cell". Really it starts with the whole line of white
           | cells with the red cell in the middle, and the rules are
           | applied to every continuous 3 cells at each iteration.
        
       | breck wrote:
       | This is one of my favorite SW essays. A tour de force in terms of
       | using CA to show evolution, mutation, and natural selection.
       | 
       | Don't miss the "Personal Notes" section at the bottom. Neat
       | history and insight into the process and life of a scientist.
       | 
       | > In a biological analogy we might have a genome that seems to
       | lead to unbounded perhaps-tumor-like growth--but where actually
       | the growth in the end "unexpectedly" stops.
       | 
       | I liked this aside. Early "cancer" detection can often lead to
       | harm, mistaking benign for malicious growths.
       | 
       | > somehow follow from natural selection a general law...that
       | would lead to the evolution of progressively more complex
       | organisms, culminating in the "higher animals". But absent the
       | kind of model I'm discussing here, nothing in the later
       | development of traditional evolutionary theory really
       | successfully supported this--or was able to give much analysis of
       | it.
       | 
       | A thing that comes to mind is Assembly Theory by Leroy Cronin and
       | Sara Walker.
        
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       (page generated 2024-05-03 23:01 UTC)