You seem to assume that the system will evolve on its own, without any external influence. I think that the evolution can (and should) be guided in order to obtain what you want.
True - My work with top-down vs. bottom-up has been with AL, so i do have a tendancy to want things to evolve without external influence. However, I do still see a problem with the guiding of evolution.
If the evolutionary process is emergent, then it is not possible to predict the results of low level complexity and thus impossible to calculate which low level changes will have the desired effect.
In other words - You can't guide if you can't see where you are going.
I agree. Bottom-up is the way to go - Problem is, that the higher level results of a lower level start configuration are emergent, which is why nanotechies keep talking about evolutionary systems.
How do you design a starting configuration that will evolve into the desired high level result?
Slashdot Mirror
You seem to assume that the system will evolve on its own, without any external influence. I think that the evolution can (and should) be guided in order to obtain what you want.
True - My work with top-down vs. bottom-up has been with AL, so i do have a tendancy to want things to evolve without external influence. However, I do still see a problem with the guiding of evolution.
If the evolutionary process is emergent, then it is not possible to predict the results of low level complexity and thus impossible to calculate which low level changes will have the desired effect.
In other words - You can't guide if you can't see where you are going.
/haslam
I agree. Bottom-up is the way to go - Problem is, that the higher level results of a lower level start configuration are emergent, which is why nanotechies keep talking about evolutionary systems.
How do you design a starting configuration that will evolve into the desired high level result?
In other words - how do you plan evolution?
/haslam