
Maverick forerunner of artificial life and animation remains largely unknown - ayberkt
http://m.nautil.us/issue/14/mutation/meet-the-father-of-digital-life
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matt1
If you're interested in emergence and artificial life, I've been working on
creating in JavaScript a lot of the work that has been done by others in the
past as well as some original projects:

[http://www.emergentmind.com/](http://www.emergentmind.com/)

The last project (The Evolution of Color) has similarities to the color
visualizations described in this post: it uses genetic algorithms to evolve a
population of colors towards a fittest color as determined by the closeness of
the bits that comprise the colors.

I have a few other projects planned so if you're into this stuff you're
welcome to sign up for the mailing list to get notified when they are
launched:

[http://www.emergentmind.com/newsletter](http://www.emergentmind.com/newsletter)

I'm always open to ideas for new projects so if you have anything you'd like
to see implemented or want to work on something together feel free to shoot me
a note.

~~~
jal278
Something like evolving virtual creatures would be a fun (although pretty
ambitious) addition [1].

There's a processing 2D virutal creatures model called sticky feet [2] (source
available) that perhaps could be ported to js pretty quickly.

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBgG_VSP7f8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JBgG_VSP7f8)

[2]
[http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~turk/stickyfeet/](http://www.cc.gatech.edu/~turk/stickyfeet/)

~~~
matt1
For sure -- that is one of the medium term projects I want to work on. We'll
see how it goes in the browser though...

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fophillips
Link to Alexander Galloway's Processing implementation
[http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/Barricelli/](http://cultureandcommunication.org/galloway/Barricelli/)

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pradocchia
_Barricelli presented a bold challenge to the standard Darwinian model of
evolution by competition by demonstrating that organisms evolved by symbiosis
and cooperation._

Somehow I thought symbiosis and cooperation was the accepted model, and
competition was just a cultural projection. No?

~~~
jal278
While the mainstream view is evolving (ha..), the selectionist (competition-
centric) view has been largely dominant in biological thinking (e.g. Richard
Dawkins). It is giving way to a more balanced view of how natural evolution
produces innovation.

For example, researchers like Gould stress non-competitive forces like the
role of historical contingency, and exaptation [0]. Margulis, who was
mentioned in the article, had a theory that much complexity in cells was
accumulated through symbiosis -- a theory that was radical when first
introduced but was later validated [1]. In effect, one cell would engulf
another, but instead of eating the other cell, they would co-evolve together;
for example, the mitochondria (cellular power plant) is thought to have arisen
from such an event (it has its own DNA).

[0]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exaptation](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exaptation)

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Margulis#Endosymbiosis_the...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynn_Margulis#Endosymbiosis_theory)

~~~
trendoid
You are probably not seeing this but your point needs refutation.

Dawkins model(not his actually but he presented to general public) was not
competition-centric. Main idea was gene centric view of life. Competition,
cooperation, symbiosis etc all were explained from the genes point of view.
The thing to note is, even when we see apparent 'cooperation' between species,
at the genes level there is a competition with other gene pools. So the non-
competitive forces look so on the surface, but the only thing genes care about
is moving on to the next generations and spreading as much copies as possible
even if that happens with symbiosis.

Gould on the other hand, was not happy with this selfish view of life(everyone
says he had Marxist ideologies which made him a bit bias). He thought of
selection as happening at multiple levels, not just limited at genes but also
species and individual. This was the main controversy between him and dawkins.

So, to reply to GPs query, yes that quote is sort of incorrect since everyone
agreed that cooperation and symbiosis(Darwin too) are very much part of
evolution.

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mindcrime
Damn, and I thought I knew a little bit about the ALife field. But I have to
admit, I had also never heard of Nils Barricelli until now.

This is the kind of content I love HN for. _This_ is good stuff. I'm looking
forward to looking up some of Barricelli's work and reading up on it.

Thank you, ayberkt, for submitting this.

Also, from the "scientists a lot of people have not heard of, but probably
should have" department, I offer Ilya Prigogine. Probably not as obscure as
Barricelli, but I haven't found a lot of people know much about Prigogine.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Prigogine](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ilya_Prigogine)

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gamegoblin
Non-mobile link: [http://nautil.us/issue/14/mutation/meet-the-father-of-
digita...](http://nautil.us/issue/14/mutation/meet-the-father-of-digital-life)

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carlob
I ran into Nils Barricelli while reading _Turing 's Cathedral_, which is a
book I enjoyed throughly.

~~~
devindotcom
I need to jump back into that. I'm not a big nonfiction guy so I put it down
to start something else and never picked it back up. Thanks for reminding me.

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JackFr
Sounds charming and brilliant enough to be considered a proto-Wolfram.

