Return-Path: Received: from GLINDA.OZ.CS.CMU.EDU by A.GP.CS.CMU.EDU id aa11017; 2 Dec 93 2:30:47 EST Received: from genie.slhs.udel.edu by GLINDA.OZ.CS.CMU.EDU id aa00353; 2 Dec 93 2:30:24 EST Received: from genie.slhs.udel.edu by genie.genie.slhs.udel.edu id aa19479; 2 Dec 93 6:28 GMT Return-Path: From: "Thomas S.Ray" To: tierra-announce@life.slhs.udel.edu Subject: Tierra Update Date: Thu, 2 Dec 93 6:17:01 GMT Sender: mmdf@genie.slhs.udel.edu Message-ID: <9312020617.aa19471@genie.genie.slhs.udel.edu> TIERRA UPDATE December 1993: This message contains: 1) Tierra moves to ATR in Japan 2) New manuscripts available 3) Upcoming Tierra lectures 4) Change of address for Virtual Life 5) Tierra video animation 6) Tierra publications 7) Tierra in the news 1993 8) Tierra ftp access 9) Mailing lists 10) What Tierra Is 1) Tierra moves to ATR in Japan The Tierra project has emerged from a one year period of dormancy, and has moved to the new Evolutionary Systems Department headed by Katsunori Shimohara, in the Human Information Processing Research Laboratories of ATR (Advanced Telecommunications Research Institute International). ATR is located in the new Kansai Science City, near Nara and Kyoto. Tom Ray came to ATR as an invited researcher on August 8, 1993, and is on a two year leave of absence from the University of Delaware. Current email is ray@hip.atr.co.jp, ray@udel.edu is forwarded. Kurt Thearling joined ATR as a research affiliate on November 1, 1993. Kurt remains an employee of Thinking Machines, but will be working on the Tierra project at ATR until April 1994. Email is kurt@hip.atr.co.jp, kurt@think.com is forwarded. The primary objective of the Tierra project for the coming months will be to experiment with the evolution of multi-cellular digital organisms, which are parallel processes. Several other evolutionary projects are also underway in the Evolutionary Systems Department at ATR as follows: - CAM-Brain project aiming at growing/evolving an artificial brain, which contain thousands of interconnected artificial neural network modules, inside special hardware called Cellular Automata Machines. Hugo de Garis, degaris@hip.atr.co.jp - Emergent Intelligence project modeling intelligence as a non-linear developmental process from genotype to phenotype, under the influence of the environment. Jari Vaario, jari@hip.atr.co.jp - EgoWare (Evolutionary Generator of Genome in Hardware) project aiming at self-producing hardware-description programs by evolving HDL (Hardware Description Language) production rules and derivation trees. Hitoshi Hemmi, hemmi@hip.atr.co.jp and Junichi Mizoguchi, mizo@hip.atr.co.jp - Learning methods for modularized neural networks with evolvability aiming at developing an autonomous system consisting of heterogeneous neural network modules. Sung-Bae Cho, sbcho@hip.atr.co.jp - Computational evolutionary biology, Kennosuke Wada, kwada@hip.atr.co.jp - Chaotic information processing, Yukio Hayashi, yhayashi@hip.atr.co.jp and Masaaki Sato, masaaki@hip.atr.co.jp - Alife and music, Seiji Adachi, adachi@hip.atr.co.jp and Hiroyuki Ohtsuki ohtsuki@hip.atr.co.jp Additional foreign researchers will be joining the department next year to extend these projects to evolutionary robotics and molecular computers. 2) New manuscripts available Several new manuscripts have been written, and are listed with the Tierra publications below. The most important two manuscripts have also been placed in the Tierra ftp site (see section 7 below). These two manuscripts are in the /doc directory of the ftp site. The one in press at the journal Artificial Life is available as the file Zen.tex. The one submitted to Physica D is available as the file PhysicaD.tex. Unfortunately this second manuscript includes a lot of figures which are not available electronically. 3) Upcoming Tierra lectures Japan Management Association, Tokyo, Japan, December 7, 1993 Caltech, Electrical Engineering, January 4, 1994 contact: Demetri Psaltis psaltis@sunoptics.caltech.edu Symbus Technology, Self-Determination of Developing and Evolving Systems, Cambridge, MA, January 6--9, 1994 contact: Michael Kuperstein kuperstn@world.std.com Ministry of Science and Technology, Japan, January 19--21, 1994 contact: fax 81-52-741-1459 Society of Instrument and Control Engineers, Osaka, Japan, January 27, 1994 contact: Kennosuke Wada kwada@hip.atr.co.jp Santa Fe Institute, Artificial Life Approaches to Evolutionary Biology, February 18--20, 1994 contact: Chris Langton cgl@santafe.edu Information Processing Society of Japan, Committee on Artificial Intelligence, Kogakuin University, Tokyo, Japan, March 8, 1994 contact: Jun-ichi Akahani akahani@cslab.kecl.ntt.jp Institute for Advanced Study, Around the Dyson Sphere, Princeton, NJ, April 8--9, 1994 contact: Frank Wilczek WILCZEK@sns.ias.edu NEC Symposium on Natural and Artificial Parallel Computation, Princeton, NJ, May 3--4, 1994 contact: David Waltz waltz@research.nj.nec.com 4) Change of address for Virtual Life The mailing address of Virtual Life has been changed to: Virtual Life 25631 Jorgensen Rd. Newman, CA 95360 USA Virtual Life provides the Tierra software on disk for those who can not get it by ftp. In December, Virtual Life will also be offering a PC version of Karl Sims' evolutionary art system, called Darwinin Art. 5) Tierra video animation The Santa Fe Institute has produced a thirteen minute promotional video, which includes a roughly five minute segment discussing the Tierra research project. The Tierra segment is illustrated with a very high quality animation produced by the Anti Gravity Workshop in Santa Monica, CA. The video was produced and directed by Linda Feferman. To obtain the video, contact the Santa Fe Institute: Santa Fe Institute 1660 Old Pecos Trail, Suite A Santa Fe, New Mexico 87501 phone: 505-984-8800 fax: 505-982-0565 email: email@santafe.edu or contact Linda Feferman: fef@santafe.edu or 0005851689@mcimail.com 6) Tierra Publications Ray, T. S. 1991. Is it alive, or is it GA? {\it In} : Belew, R. K., and L. B. Booker [eds.], Proceedings of the 1991 International Conference on Genetic Algorithms, 527--534. San Mateo, CA: Morgan Kaufmann. Ray, T. S. 1991. An approach to the synthesis of life. {\it In} : Langton, C., C. Taylor, J. D. Farmer, \& S. Rasmussen [eds], Artificial Life II, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity, vol. XI, 371--408. Redwood City, CA: Addison-Wesley. Ray, T. S. 1991. Population dynamics of digital organisms. {\it In} : Langton, C. G. [ed.], Artificial Life II Video Proceedings. Redwood City, CA: Addison Wesley. Ray, T. S. 1991. Evolution and optimization of digital organisms. {\it In} : Billingsley K. R., E. Derohanes, H. Brown, III [eds.], Scientific Excellence in Supercomputing: The IBM 1990 Contest Prize Papers, Athens, GA, 30602: The Baldwin Press, The University of Georgia. Publication date: December 1991. Ray, T. S. 1992. Evolution, ecology and optimization of digital organisms. Santa Fe Institute working paper 92-08-042. Ray, T. S. 1992. J'ai jou\'{e} \`{a} Dieu et cr\'{e}\'{e} la vie dans mon ordinateur. Le Temps strat\'{e}gique 47: 68--81. Ray, T. S. In press. Evolution and complexity. {\it In}: Cowan, George A., David Pines and David Metzger [eds.], Complexity: Metaphor and Reality. Addison-Wesley Publishing Co. Ray, T. S. In press. An evolutionary approach to synthetic biology, Zen and the art of creating life. Artificial Life 1(1): xx--xx. Ray, T. S. In press. Jugu\'{e} a ser Dios y cre\'{e} la vida en mi computadora. {\it In}: Claudio Guti\'{e}rrez [ed], Epistemolog\'{i}a e Inform\'{a}tica. San Jos\'{e}, Costa Rica: UNED, 1993. Ray, T. S. In press. Title unknown. Virtual (Italian magazine), December 1993. Ray, T. S. Submitted. Evolution, complexity, entropy, and artificial reality. Physica D. Ray, T. S. Submitted. How I created life in a virtual universe. Natural History Magazine, American Museum of Natural History. 7) Tierra in the News 1993 The Tierra Simulator continues to be widely reported in the media. Below is a list of most of the national or international reports that I am aware of for the 1993 calendar year. If you know of some news report not on this list, please send me a hard copy. The Daily Telegraph (Roger Highfield, UK) June 14, 1993: ``Life, but not as we know it. An American academic has developed a computer program that successfully simulates Darwinian evolution, natural selection and all.'' New Scientist (Roger Lewin, Melanie Mitchell, Jacqueline McGlade, UK) February 13, 1993: ``Complexity, New Scientist Supplement. Order for free (Standing at the edge of chaos). Alternate ecologies. Imitation of life.'' U.S. News \& World Report (Karen F. Schmidt, US) May 3, 1993: ``Computing the primordial ooze. Scientists are modeling the origins of life.'' Maclean's (Mark Nichols, Canada) June 7, 1993: ``Compelling signs of artificial life. Digital `creatures' that clone themselves may really be alive.'' Computer Graphics World (Diana Phillips Mahoney, US) July 1993: ``That's Life.'' Computer Graphics World (Diana Phillips Mahoney, US) February 1993: ``Artificial Life, organisms and systems created in the computer exhibit behaviors characteristic of natural evoltuion.'' PC Magazine (Michael J. Miller, US) May 25, 1993: ``It's Alive! Lots of computer users give funny names to their computers. But did you ever stop to think that your computer programs might actually be alive?'' Focus (John Browning, UK) March 1993: ``It's life, but not as we know it... How close is technology to creating artificial life.'' Scientific American - Japanese edition (Katsunori Shimohara, Japan) October 1993: ``Ultimate autonomy, artificial life.'' Monthly Journal of Science, Kagaku Asahi (Tatsuo Unemi, Japan), November 1993: ``Reproduction logic of computer viruses.'' Semanario Universidad (Eduardo Ramirez F., Costa Rica) June 16, 1993: ``Un creador de vida en computadoras.'' Esta Semana (G. Aburto and J. C. Cruz, Costa Rica) May 18--24, 1993: ``Un programa de computadora devela los misterios del origen de la vida y la evoluci\'on.'' Courrier International (Der Spiegel, France) August 19, 1993: ``La vie artificielle, ou les `adventistes du Huiti\`{e}me Jour'.'' Helsingin Sanomat (Timo Paukku, Finland) March 27, 1993: ``Tekoel\"{a}m\"{a}n evoluutio etenee sekunneissa. Voidaanko uusia lajeja tuotta my\"{o}s s\"{a}hk\"{o}ll\"{a} ja piisiruilla? Pikaevoluutio synnytti tuhansia lajeja, loisia ja seksin.'' 8) Tierra ftp access The Tierra V4.0 source code; and the source code, and DOS executables of all tools; and documentation and manuscripts is available. Please note that the source code in the ftp site and the source code provided on disk will each compile and run on either DOS or UNIX platforms. It is exactly the same source code in either case. The DOS executables are available only on disk (available from Virtual Life), and can not be freely distributed. The complete source code and documentation (but not executables) is available by anonymous ftp at: tierra.slhs.udel.edu [128.175.41.34] and life.slhs.udel.edu [128.175.41.33] in the directories: almond/, beagle/, doc/, and tierra/. To get it, ftp to tierra or life, log in as user "anonymous" and give your email address (eg. tom@udel.edu) as a password. Be sure to transfer binaries in binary mode (it is safe to transfer everything in binary mode). Each directory contains a compressed tar file (filename.tar.Z) and a SRC directory that contains all the files in raw ascii format. You can just pick up the .tar.Z files, and they will expand into the complete directory structure with the following commands (Unix only): uncompress tierra.tar.Z tar oxvf tierra.tar 9) Mailing Lists There are two mailing lists for Tierra users. The first list is for people who only want to get the official announcements, updates and bug-fixes. The other will carry the official postings, and are intended for discussion of Tierra by users. This one is distributed in digest form, when there is enough material. The lists are: tierra-announce official updates, patches and announcements only tierra-digest discussion, updates, etc. (digest form) The addresses are: tierra-request@life.slhs.udel.edu the list administrator (Tom Uffner). to be added, removed, or complain about problems with any of these lists. tierra-digest@life.slhs.udel.edu to post to the list. tierra-bug@life.slhs.udel.edu for bug-reports or questions about the code or installation. You may also be interested in the Artificial Life mailing list. Subscribe to the list by sending a message to: alife-request@cognet.ucla.edu Post to the list by sending a message to: alife@cognet.ucla.edu 10) What Tierra Is The C source code creates a virtual computer and its operating system, whose architecture has been designed in such a way that the executable machine codes are evolvable. This means that the machine code can be mutated (by flipping bits at random) or recombined (by swapping segments of code between algorithms), and the resulting code remains functional enough of the time for natural (or presumably artificial) selection to be able to improve the code over time. Along with the C source code which generates the virtual computer, we provide several programs written in the assembler code of the virtual computer. Some of these were written by a human and do nothing more than make copies of themselves in the RAM of the virtual computer. The others evolved from the first, and are included to illustrate the power of natural selection. The operating system of the virtual computer provides memory management and timesharing services. It also provides control for a variety of factors that affect the course of evolution: three kinds of mutation rates, disturbances, the allocation of CPU time to each creature, the size of the soup, etc. In addition, the operating system provides a very elaborate observational system that keeps a record of births and deaths, sequences the code of every creature, and maintains a genebank of successful genomes. The operating system also provides facilities for automating the ecological analysis, that is, for recording the kinds of interactions taking place between creatures. This system results in the production of synthetic organisms based on a computer metaphor of organic life in which CPU time is the ``energy'' resource and memory is the ``material'' resource. Memory is organized into informational patterns that exploit CPU time for self-replication. Mutation generates new forms, and evolution proceeds by natural selection as different genotypes compete for CPU time and memory space. Diverse ecological communities have emerged. These digital communities have been used to experimentally examine ecological and evolutionary processes: e.g., competitive exclusion and coexistence, host/parasite density dependent population regulation, the effect of parasites in enhancing community diversity, evolutionary arms race, punctuated equilibrium, and the role of chance and historical factors in evolution. This evolution in a bottle may prove to be a valuable tool for the study of evolution and ecology. Tom Ray