Slashdot Mirror
The Game Theory of Life
An anonymous reader writes In what appears to be the first study of its kind, computer scientists report that an algorithm discovered more than 50 years ago in game theory and now widely used in machine learning is mathematically identical to the equations used to describe the distribution of genes within a population of organisms. Researchers may be able to use the algorithm, which is surprisingly simple and powerful, to better understand how natural selection works and how populations maintain their genetic diversity.
1. If the machine learning algorithm has been found to be mathematically identical to the genetic spread algorithm, how would biologists be able to use it to better understand natural selection and genetic diversity? What can they learn from the first algorithm that they couldn't learn from the one they already had? If the two algorithms are mathematically identical, aren't they both just different names for the same mathematical structure? Learning a cat is called neko in Japanese doesn't tell you anything about cats you didn't already know -- it just tells you something about the Japanese language.
2. Are algorithms discovered, or created? If anything is discovered, the underlying mathematical structure more than one algorithm can point to seems to be a better candidate than the algorithms themselves. Fossils are discovered; algorithms are made up.
...has the "simulated universe" hypotesis just got a slight boost from this finding?
Knowledge is power; knowledge shared is power lost.
Only having read the abstract, and the linked article, I don't really see how this is different from the "2 Armed Bandit" theory which John Holland Laid out 40 years ago in "Evolution in Natural and Artificial Systems". Holland laid out how the combination of sexual reproduction with mutation within a population otpimises search across the space by combining exploitation of good areas of the search space with exploration to find better areas.
Can someone more up to date enlighten me?
kind regards
tree frog
It has been known for years, probably decades, that gene frequencies follow this mathematical rule, and that it has been mathematically proven optimal for solving Multi-armed bandit type problems. Each generation genes are tested by natural selection, and increase or decrease in frequency according to multiplicative increase or decrease. This is a mathematically optimal strategy for exploring and optimizing payoff in a complex unknown environment. Mutation creates random stuff to try, and this mathematically selection algorithm optimally crafts it into useful new information.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
Why does Slashdot seem to buy in so often to spinning the recurrence of mathematical tools across various fields as some kind of scientific breakthrough? Correlation is not causation, not all structural similarities imply some kind of necessary physical theoretical account. We as empirical agents use logical tools for the formation, quantification and application of theories - so of course some functions will occur in several different settings, because we're bringing the same resources to the table each time.
Myu:
You do realize that these two things are not nearly equivalent, yes?
Finding if a combination of words satisfies all semantical and grammatical requirements is not the same as verifying if some combination of symbols has been published before, no matter which language you talk about.
Math certainly is a very special language in that it strictly obeys the rules of logic, and thus can be used to derive and formulate proofs in such a clear and unambigious way that computers can be used for the purpose. I would certainly not say it's a language like English or Spanish.
If you need help to bridge the gap, think about computer and other functional languages. They inhabit the space between mathematics and human languages and have elements of both.
So maths is more like the world, a country (proof) exists whether you have discovered it yet or not.
You make the exact category mistake that I wrote about in my original post. You confuse the word "Russia" with the physical area on the planet that we describe with that word. Of course the land area with all its rivers and lakes and mountains exists independently. But it is not "Russia" until someone creates the English language and invents this word to describe it (or, if you want, until someone invents Russian and invents the word ÐоÑÑÐÑ).
Likewise, the fact that you have 2 stones in your hand if you have 1 stone in it and then put another stone into it as well is an objective fact. 1+1=2 is mathematics and was invented. Other ways of describing the same fact are imagineable, just like names for countries are pretty much arbitrary combinations of sounds.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
until someone invents Russian and invents the word ÃþÃ'Ã'ÃÃ').
seriously, slashdot ?
It's 2014, not 1994. Fucking get some Unicode support.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
... I imagined that someone discovered a mechanism in genes that favored survival if there were exactly two or three neighboring genes, and non-survival if there were fewer or greater numbers. Oh, and something about a new gene being 'created' when there are exactly 3 neighboring ones.
- Mike
Drifting off topic, but did the infamous Beta in fact get Unicode support?
I mean, look at this tortuous new Beta, did they even bother to put in the Unicode support that people have been screaming for for ten+ years?
Damn we need a mole at Dice. What do they even do at management meetings?
"Let's make a whole new design with 55 changes."
"What about Unicode Support?"
"That's a big word. That's too hard for me. Let's put more videos up instead."
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
John Maynard Smith introduced the game theory to evolutionary biology in the early 70's. It was a breakthrough at that time, however today it is scarcely news. Evolutionary biology, and in especially population genetics has been a highly mathematized discipline ever since before WWII, when it was developed by Fisher, Wright and Haldane. Later you had Hamilton and Maynard Smith. It is nice that computer scientists noticed that something exciting is going on here, but don't fall for press releases and insubstantiated claims.