Newsgroups: comp.ai.alife
Path: cantaloupe.srv.cs.cmu.edu!das-news2.harvard.edu!news2.near.net!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!uknet!bcc.ac.uk!uu-igor-mac.open.ac.uk!user
From: A.J.Hirst@uk.ac.open (Tony Hirst)
Subject: a theoretical biology for alife...
Sender: news@ucl.ac.uk (Usenet News System)
Message-ID: <A.J.Hirst-280395145129@uu-igor-mac.open.ac.uk>
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 1995 14:51:29 GMT
Organization: HCRL, The Open University, UK
Followup-To: comp.ai.alife
Lines: 44

(original mailing to cstb@biome.bio.dfo.ca)


On the question of Alife, I'd like to ask practising theoretical biologists
whether they/you see their/your role as investigating theories models that
produce results/predictions similar/applicable to 'natural life', or to
life /i as it could be /i. 

Alife provides us with a computational environment for studying all sorts
of processes and mechanisms never observed in carbon-biology/life, and
possibly contradictory to it, but which nevertheless do not contradict the
requirement for some sort of continuity of dynamic organisation down a
hereditary line, continuity which might happily support the inheritance of
acquired characteristics for example.

The question I'm trying to ask, then, is whether TB covers C-life alone, or
life as it could be in 'natural' or 'computational' environments (alife);
if the former, then there is growing need for a theoretical biology of
artificiAl life (eg one that resurrects alternatives to darwinian dogma,
models/implements them and uses them as a possibly more effective basis for
a compl alife); if the former, then in what capacity should alife play a
role  (eg should it be used solely for modelling population behaviour, say,
using tradl genetic operators cribbed from neo-darwinism?)

Comments appreciated, either to the list or to me personally, in which case
i can post a summary....

thanks, 

monty
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
 All opinions etc etc...
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
      | Tony Hirst ("Monty")          | e-mail:  A.J.Hirst@open.ac.uk
      |                               
      | http://kmi.open.ac.uk/~monty/homepage.html
      |On the question of Alife, I'd like to ask practising theoretical 
      | Human Cognition Research Lab. | phone:   +44 (908) 65-4404
      | The Open University           |                    65-4481
      | Milton Keynes   MK6 6AA       | 
      | BRITAIN                       | 
       -------------------------------------------------------------------
      | "There is no meaning..."         "Science is a subset of art..."
       -------------------------------------------------------------------
