Register | Sign In


Understanding through Discussion


EvC Forum active members: 65 (9162 total)
3 online now:
Newest Member: popoi
Post Volume: Total: 915,818 Year: 3,075/9,624 Month: 920/1,588 Week: 103/223 Day: 1/13 Hour: 0/1


Thread  Details

Email This Thread
Newer Topic | Older Topic
  
Author Topic:   The Minkowski's challenge
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 75 of 120 (357035)
10-17-2006 11:39 AM
Reply to: Message 31 by Dr Jack
09-29-2006 5:45 AM


Do you have any idea how radically irresponsible that would be?
Computer programs that self-replicate already exist, going under the name Computer Viruses - writing them is illegal.
Just to try to keep the quality of the opposition up, that is a HIGHLY ignorant statement Mr Jack.
First of all, it is most certainly not impossible. Like Percy said, it might be very difficult in that identifying the selector or selectors to get your desired result is a matter of some discovery and fine tuning. Also, evolving RSA encryption for example would be VASTLY more difficult than evolving ROT13.
Second, there are examples of programs that self-replicate for fun and profit that are NOT viruses or worms. There are even programs that evolve that are an interesting area of research in computer science.
IT seems as though this response from you was very knee jerk as well as being uninformed.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 31 by Dr Jack, posted 09-29-2006 5:45 AM Dr Jack has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 76 by Dr Jack, posted 10-17-2006 12:23 PM Jazzns has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 77 of 120 (357057)
10-17-2006 12:48 PM
Reply to: Message 76 by Dr Jack
10-17-2006 12:23 PM


It is; they all without exception run in virtual machines.
That is in particular demonstrably false. It is unbelievable that anyone with even moderate understanding of code or programming culture to make such a statement as 'all without exception'.
There is an entire class of codes called Quines that are standalone self-replicating programs. There are even contests to create new an interesting Quines in various languages.
It is also NOT illegal to simply make self-replicating programs. Your previous suggestion that it was is unfounded at the very least.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 76 by Dr Jack, posted 10-17-2006 12:23 PM Dr Jack has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 78 by Dr Jack, posted 10-17-2006 1:13 PM Jazzns has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 79 of 120 (357070)
10-17-2006 1:31 PM
Reply to: Message 78 by Dr Jack
10-17-2006 1:13 PM


In non-compiled languages, there is no distinction. Execution of the child code is one thing that COULD be included as part of the original source but just so happen to not be the case for Quines. They are also only one example of possible self-replicating code that is both not a virus, does not run on a virtual machine, and is not illegal.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 78 by Dr Jack, posted 10-17-2006 1:13 PM Dr Jack has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 81 by Dr Jack, posted 10-18-2006 7:53 AM Jazzns has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 82 of 120 (357289)
10-18-2006 3:36 PM
Reply to: Message 81 by Dr Jack
10-18-2006 7:53 AM


Firstly, an interpretter is a virtual machine.
Unfortunatly Mr Jack an interpreter is not a virtual machine. The biggest difference being that an interpreter contains a parser and grammar definition while a virtual machine does not. A virtual machine is specifically a virtualization of a computer architecture on hardware that is not native to the architecture. Most interpreters are VASTLY more complicated than most virtual machines. That you are incorrect about this is beside the point though.
Overall you are equivocating on the definition of 'code' in ways that have no meaning in response to the criticism I originally raised. It is not required that a virus be written in a machine language and the fact that the SINGULAR example I gave of self replicating code, a Quine, does not execute the produced code is a mere formality of the paradigm of a Quine. It is certainly feasable to write a Quine that includes a call to exec. Hence you next statment:
Secondly, the code is not self-replicating because it requires human intervention to reproduce itself.
is a moot point.
But lets remember your original statement:
Do you have any idea how radically irresponsible that would be?
Computer programs that self-replicate already exist, going under the name Computer Viruses - writing them is illegal.
In no way are all programs that self replicate, including ones that actuall execute their child code, to all be considered viruses. Beyond that it is not even true that all viruses are illegal. There are many instances of virus or worm style codes that are done for research purposes for a myriad of reasons including of course security as well as distributed updates, or distributed computing in general.
Edited by Jazzns, : No reason given.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 81 by Dr Jack, posted 10-18-2006 7:53 AM Dr Jack has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 84 of 120 (357446)
10-19-2006 11:25 AM
Reply to: Message 83 by Percy
10-18-2006 7:39 PM


I think it would be really cool to do something like this in a more abstract language although I think it might be much harder. Your mutation mechanism would have to at least have knowledge of the grammar and it seems that providing good mutations would be non-trivial.
In an assembly language, like I assume Barbarian is going to use, mutating an insertion for example just means I have to drop in a word of 32 random 1's and 0's weeding out the instructions that are invalid for user code.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 83 by Percy, posted 10-18-2006 7:39 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 85 by Percy, posted 10-19-2006 12:20 PM Jazzns has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 86 of 120 (357468)
10-19-2006 1:50 PM
Reply to: Message 85 by Percy
10-19-2006 12:20 PM


Yes I also assumed the instruction is the unit of mutation. An insertion like I described above would be the whole 'word'. The word itself would be a random one. The only thing you MIGHT want to do at that point is filter out any words that are not valid instruction. In Barbarian's case though he might leave it if it is in his 'encrypted' section of the program.
Deleting would be the removal of a word.
A point mutation though may be a single bit change in a single word. I imagine the real world being a 2 bit version of what Barbarian is trying to do with A,C,T,G capable of being represented by 0,1,10,11.
What might make Barbarian's job a little harder is there are many more viable instructions than that depending on the virtual architecture he is working on. Point mutation may be the equivalent of a deleting and insertion at the same location.
The more I think about this the more I think that Barbarian's job may be harder than I originally though. The different selectors are the key and it may take some art to get things to come out how he wants.
It seems like the first selection pressure should be the functionality of reading the encrypted code. This could be a one word read.
Then the selection pressure might be to alter the word that had been read. The problem I see with this is that this selection pressure may need to have knowledge about how the fitness under the first selection pressure was obtained. The pressure here is, 'alter the thing you just read'. But information needed by this second selection pressure may be the location of the data.
I suppose you could alter the first selection pressure to read the encrypted data into a known place but it looks like this might get very hairy with respect to the sequence and details of the selection pressure. My worry is that they would get to be too guiding. If the selection pressure start to get so detailed that they are at the point of specificing a particular instruction, then I don't know if that means anything with respect to evolution since the range of fitness would be very narrow.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 85 by Percy, posted 10-19-2006 12:20 PM Percy has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 88 of 120 (357523)
10-19-2006 4:53 PM
Reply to: Message 87 by Barbarian
10-19-2006 4:23 PM


Facinating. I love the simplicity. Picking a stack machine makes sense.
Did you design this architecture?
Are you going to put in an instruction execution limit to avoid infinite looping?

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 87 by Barbarian, posted 10-19-2006 4:23 PM Barbarian has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 89 by Barbarian, posted 10-19-2006 5:10 PM Jazzns has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 91 of 120 (357737)
10-20-2006 12:47 PM
Reply to: Message 90 by Barbarian
10-20-2006 5:36 AM


Re: Populations and selectors
As a note, you may be able to use some of us who are savvy enough to get your code running on our machines to help with replication of the process. I for one volunteer as I find all of this very facinating. I took a healthy interest in architecture and designed a theoretical architecture similar to the ARM during the last semester of my undergrad work.
In addition, if you have enough time to make us familiar with your implementation we may be able to contribute improvements.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 90 by Barbarian, posted 10-20-2006 5:36 AM Barbarian has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 92 by jar, posted 10-20-2006 12:57 PM Jazzns has replied
 Message 95 by Barbarian, posted 10-21-2006 2:35 PM Jazzns has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 93 of 120 (357785)
10-20-2006 3:24 PM
Reply to: Message 92 by jar
10-20-2006 12:57 PM


Re: Offtopic
I don't see why not. I have thought about it before but it was during the time that my wife was pregnant. Now that my son is 8 months old I am starting to get back some semblance of free time.
It wouldn't hurt to mention it to Percy to see if he could use my services. At the very least I could take a look at the TODO list and see if I have any relevant expertise such that I even COULD contribute in a meaningful way. A lot of what I do is more inline with what Barbarian is working on than the Web 2.0 sort of skills necessary to run a message board.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 92 by jar, posted 10-20-2006 12:57 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 94 by jar, posted 10-20-2006 3:29 PM Jazzns has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 96 of 120 (357966)
10-21-2006 3:21 PM
Reply to: Message 95 by Barbarian
10-21-2006 2:35 PM


Re: About helping the project
so whoever volunteers to find proper evolutionary pathways will either have to write OCaml code
Taking a quick peek it doesn't look too bad. It has been awhile but I am familiar with LISP/Scheme and ML. I may be a little rusty in a functional language but it would be fun to dive in.
As a preparatory measure, I think you could try to download and install the OCaml distribution.
My Gentoo machine just lost its motherboard (I think) but I would be suprised if OCaml was not in the portage tree. If I don't get that machine working by this weekend I'll try to install it in cygwin on my gaming rig.
I plan to simply release the source code into public domain, and I welcome any ideas about how to physically do this, given that I do not have a website on which to post it.
Lets ask Percy if he would be so kind as to host it here. If not I volunteer to host it. I need to check but I may even be able to set you up with a shell account via my hosting service.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 95 by Barbarian, posted 10-21-2006 2:35 PM Barbarian has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 98 by Percy, posted 10-21-2006 5:25 PM Jazzns has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 101 of 120 (362396)
11-07-2006 10:24 AM
Reply to: Message 100 by Barbarian
11-07-2006 3:50 AM


Re: Status
earlier saved states can be reloaded into the framework after such a recompilation, unless some already used selector was changed - then the results are unpredictable.
Why is this? Is is just that previously conserved elements will no longer be conserved or is there some mechanical reason things will become unpredictable? One of the things that may be necessary to get the desired result it to change a selector. Is that possible or are you concieving that a change in a selection behavior can always be achieved by the creation of a new selector.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 100 by Barbarian, posted 11-07-2006 3:50 AM Barbarian has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 102 by Barbarian, posted 11-07-2006 12:40 PM Jazzns has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 111 of 120 (369285)
12-12-2006 12:26 PM
Reply to: Message 110 by Barbarian
12-12-2006 6:50 AM


Re: The tool is ready for production
How many generations did it take from the proglet to the simple replicator?
Hopefully Percy can take some time off his busy schedule to talk about hosting. If not then I can arange something either temporarily while we wait for Percy or permanently if he is unable.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 110 by Barbarian, posted 12-12-2006 6:50 AM Barbarian has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 112 of 120 (369286)
12-12-2006 12:29 PM
Reply to: Message 108 by Percy
12-05-2006 2:58 PM


Email Exchange
I am always leery of posting my email in a public forum. I noticed that Barbarian also does not have his email in his profile. Wish his permission, could you send us eachothers email?
At the very least, could you send him mine so I can get a copy of his code to start playing with. I have ocaml installed and everything!

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 108 by Percy, posted 12-05-2006 2:58 PM Percy has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 113 by Barbarian, posted 12-12-2006 1:35 PM Jazzns has replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 114 of 120 (369301)
12-12-2006 1:46 PM
Reply to: Message 113 by Barbarian
12-12-2006 1:35 PM


Re: Email Exchange
It would be nice to be able to handpick the random seed so you could reproduce the exact evolution if you wanted to.

Of course, biblical creationists are committed to belief in God's written Word, the Bible, which forbids bearing false witness; --AIG (lest they forget)

This message is a reply to:
 Message 113 by Barbarian, posted 12-12-2006 1:35 PM Barbarian has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 115 by Barbarian, posted 12-12-2006 2:20 PM Jazzns has not replied

  
Jazzns
Member (Idle past 3912 days)
Posts: 2657
From: A Better America
Joined: 07-23-2004


Message 119 of 120 (370862)
12-19-2006 11:41 AM
Reply to: Message 118 by Barbarian
12-19-2006 11:29 AM


Bootstrapping the communication
I just created a yahoo account. Go ahead and email me there. My yahoo username is 'jazzns'. I'll reply to you after that form my real account.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 118 by Barbarian, posted 12-19-2006 11:29 AM Barbarian has not replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 120 by Percy, posted 12-19-2006 1:25 PM Jazzns has not replied

  
Newer Topic | Older Topic
Jump to:


Copyright 2001-2023 by EvC Forum, All Rights Reserved

™ Version 4.2
Innovative software from Qwixotic © 2024