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AI via Genetic Algorithms, or is it Artificial Life that I’m Interested in?

I’m interested in a genetic algorithmic approach as a way to facilitate an artificial intelligence.  Stupid AI is to me great, as long as it’s alive.  I’m not sure if that is the extent of my interest in this realm, however.  Artificial life holds my interest too.  Which of the above is the most interesting or best describes my interest is not yet clear to me.

I see opportunistic evolution all around me: in our behavior, in other creations of nature, in successful products encouraged by markets.

I imagine the components that commonly comprise life and excitedly compare them to what is possible to construct inside a computer realizing the feasibility of building an entity that can fit the definition of life.  A machine can therefore support life, teeming with interactive non-organic living entities.  To be generic, it’s fascinating!

One thing I must struggle with is that I have a tendency to reinvent the wheel, being blocked from building on top of other people’s efforts.  I become irritated reading others’ work.  I experience a complex critical reaction which dissuades me from proceeding beyond the most mild exposure to their work.

To overcome this block just for now in a minute way, and since it’s the weekend, I’ll reference another’s definition of life:

The property or quality that distinguishes living organisms from dead organisms and inanimate matter, manifested in functions such as metabolism, growth, reproduction, and response to stimuli or adaptation to the environment originating from within the organism.

-American Heritage Dictionary

By this definition a lot of things can be considered to have life; it’s sort of self-referential, “[life] distinguishes living organisms from dead”, which always makes matching examples to definitions easier. Also it’s general, “functions such as…” instead of e.g. “functions consisting entirely of the following…”

To break it down, it’s:

  • a property – like a tangible aspect
  • a quality – like maybe an intangible aspect
  • a distinguishing aspect – just something that makes it different, cool
  • not dead, not inanimate – so whatever their definition of dead is, it is not, plus it is animate, like roger rabbit while the movie is still playing … hrm better lookup animate: “able to move voluntarily”.  That is the best choice definition since American Heritage also had definitions that were equivalent to being alive … so some circular definitions be here.
  • manifested – okay it exists in reality
  • it has functions
  • metabolism – um A.H. is telling me that means organic, and creates its own components – ummm non-organic life is going to have to be defined differently.  Perhaps non-organic life deserves its own study?  e.g. viruses and those deep-sea or deep-space weird sulfer bacteria and other gizmos?  Non-organic life can create its own components through internal or external mechanisms – I doubt it should be a hard requirement that its own components should always be internal since what’s inside and what’s outside is unimportant, skin is merely a protective covering for our goodies, the organs that are engines and major components of our body-factories.  A non-organic thing that creates its own parts through collection and combination of external materials, performed externally should in my opinion qualify as metabolic for this subject.
  • growth – starting from a nut and growing to a tree? Even though that’s a requirement it seems a bit non-essential.  Things are constructed and typically don’t emerge whole instantaneously from component materials; I suppose diamond might poof emerge from some compressed rock as a total final structure, but as long as the process of construction is too strictly defined to be inside a womb, or as the eat, construct cycle [could use a definition here!] then I think I’ll have enough conceptual room to allow non-organic growth – perhaps the definition of growth could encompass a mechanism that increases the number of instructions or rules it follows over the course of time.
  • reproduction – i think that’s a mechanical feature, a trick.  Genetics and mutation is a complex trick.  “Hey look at this, I peeled off some of my skin and it kept growing!”
  • response to stimuli or adaptation initiated by the organism – well that sets the bar low.  a mollusk could retract to impacts on its shell and that’s response.  adaptation to me seems more sophisticated version of response, incorporating memory of some form: genetic or learned.

Whew, I think what I imagine as an artificial lifeform can fit the American Heritage Dictionary’s definition of life.

This exploration helps – looking back to my first paragraph and thinking about how the definition added to my understanding of life, I see that inately animated things generally qualify as life.  Bummer!  Machines are life; stuff some gasoline in a car and it moves animatedly – certainly it doesn’t reproduce but hey self reproducing machines do already exist in research labs.

My quest to create artificial life is thus both doused with water and excited with the more readily attainable possibility of participation in creation.

t r u t h o u t – Michael Schwartz | The Top Ten Reasons for Staying in (Leaving) Iraq

t r u t h o u t – Michael Schwartz | The Top Ten Reasons for Staying in (Leaving) Iraq

Awesome.

We need more bullet-point rebuttals. Works great, easy to read and work with.

t r u t h o u t – Michael Massing | The End of News?

Another good article summarizing distortion.

I believe this is the real outrage. People misleading other people. They define the world in such a way as to preclude responses or interpretations that are non-profitable to them.

t r u t h o u t – Michael Massing | The End of News?

t r u t h o u t – David Corn | Bush Rewrites History to Criticize His Anti-War Critics

t r u t h o u t – David Corn | Bush Rewrites History to Criticize His Anti-War Critics

Provides an excellent retelling of the claims Bush has made and how they’re distortions. Sadly we cannot trust what the leadership says.

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Cheney Joins GOP Criticism of Democrats

The republican repetition repetition machine strikes again.

I bet they think that by coordinating their messages, repeating them even after they’ve been rebuked, that the Dems and all sensible people will consider this old news, but the people who the Republicans influence will think they are winning the argument because the message still “lives”.

Trying to overwhelm the segment of non-argumentative types on the left.

There are some psychological issues to it. I think it’s mean.

Here Dick Cheney repeats the claim.

Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Cheney Joins GOP Criticism of Democrats: “WASHINGTON (AP) – Vice President Dick Cheney added his voice on Wednesday to the chorus of Republican criticism of Democrats who have accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence on Iraq, calling it “one of the most dishonest and reprehensible charges ever aired in this city.”

“Some of the most irresponsible comments have, of course, come from politicians who actually voted in favor of authorizing force against Saddam Hussein,” Cheney told the Frontiers of Freedom Institute, a conservative policy group.”

Dick

Purchases

It is becoming clear to me that I will want to select an HDTV and a Cingular cellphone.

For the HDTV, the more fun but much more expensive purchase, I’ve got to consider why I’m purchasing it: to have a larger screen in general and to enjoy HD video games.

I know there’s CRT, slim CRT, plasma, DLP rear projection, LCD, other kinds of rear projection, and front projection. All can do HD.

I don’t know what kind of specs to really look for and use to compare one against the other. There’s a lot to be done there.

The cellphone purchase is so I can help my gfriend upgrade her cellphone with “the right one”. She has an old Motorola which chews through battery life. Also it has poor coverage as it’s TDMA. Also it doesn’t register that it has been called, that voicemails have been left, etc. It is generally irritating.

Motorola recently has made a splash with some nifty designs, but my experience with them has led me to believe they’re crap. Motorola’s software to me is very buggy. Their USB to computer connections are flaky for the V710. Their software looks the same, which is good in a way, and bad in that they need some change. It is ugly.

Samsung has some solid feeling phones, and Nokia has some great phones. LG and all the rest are okay, but Nokia seems to come out a leader on raw cellphone performance: call quality and battery life. It seems like they have more power devoted to the in-call radio transmission, and when not in a call there’s less power used. Looking at the internals of the phone the hardware layout is much prettier than that of other phones. See page 6 for this Nokia 6102’s internals. Compare against the Samsung P270‘s [pdf korean font warning]. Nokia’s got fewer chips, less to fail.

Woot : One Day, One Deal

Woot is always a good time. One item. 24 hours. Inventory clearance.

The Media Are Minimizing US and British War Crimes in Iraq

It is so frustrating to see how the US is still involved with the murders of 10,000+ people. And we don’t talk about it. We moan about our losses, our big building and our dead 3,000+ from 9/11. Oddly we don’t moan about the 2,000+ we’ve lost since then.

It’s also amazing to hear how the righteous right are inappropriately positive despite all this human death; it’s as if they, like the brainwashed 9/11 hijackers, believe everyone who’s dead is drinking milk and honey in the afterlife.


t r u t h o u t – George Monbiot | The Media Are Minimizing US and British War Crimes in Iraq: “Iraq Body Count, whose tally has reached 26,000-30,000, measures only civilian deaths which can be unambiguously attributed to the invasion and which have been reported by two independent news agencies. As the compilers point out, ‘it is likely that many if not most civilian casualties will go unreported by the media … our own total is certain to be an underestimate of the true position, because of gaps in reporting or recording’.”

Bush’s Tortured Logic

The choices a president must make. It does sound a lot like Clinton’s Monica Lewinski lie, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman…”.

Bush’s Tortured Logic


“‘Q Mr. President, there has been a bit of an international outcry over reports of secret U.S. prisons in Europe for terrorism suspects. Will you let the Red Cross have access to them? And do you agree with Vice President Cheney that the CIA should be exempt from legislation to ban torture?

‘PRESIDENT BUSH: Our country is at war, and our government has the obligation to protect the American people. The executive branch has the obligation to protect the American people; the legislative branch has the obligation to protect the American people. And we are aggressively doing that. We are finding terrorists and bringing them to justice. We are gathering information about where the terrorists may be hiding. We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do to that effort, to that end, in this effort, any activity we conduct, is within the law. We do not torture.

‘And, therefore, we’re working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible — more possible to do our job. There’s an enemy that lurks and plots and plans, and wants to hurt America again. And so, you bet, we’ll aggressively pursue them. But we will do so under the law. And that’s why you’re seeing members of my administration go and brief the Congress. We want to work together in this matter. We — all of us have an obligation, and it’s a solemn obligation and a solemn responsibility. And I’m confident that when people see the facts, that they’ll recognize that we’ve — they’ve got more work to do, and that we must protect ourselves in a way that is lawful.'”

Okay. “[should we ban torture]” to which he says “[the government is obliged to protect the American people]” and “We are trying to disrupt their plots and plans. Anything we do to that effort, [is lawful]”. Lying about Abu Gharib being lawful.

“…we’re working with Congress to make sure that as we go forward, we make it possible — more possible to do our job.” Cheney is trying to change law to make torture legal to help them get the job done.

Weak! These morons should find a better way than torturing people. No imagination, resorting to torture. Disappointing my taxes pay these moron’s paychecks. Makes me want to vomit.

Gentoo Wireless NIC

Trying my darndest to get this wifi USB adapter to work in my Gentoo box using ndiswrapper.

I bought a wireless mouse and keyboard, and once the wifi adapter is running I can put this little machine into my living room with the TV and watch movies from the internet and easily listen to internet radio over the stereo.

It’s hard though, the drivers aren’t written for linux, and I have no clue what I’m doing really.