Author |
Topic: Artificial Life (Read 1351 times) |
|
JonR
New Member
member is offline
Posts: 24
|
 |
Re: Artificial Life
« Reply #4 on: Jun 6th, 2010, 2:48pm » |
|
Have you read Artificial Life by Steven Levy a fascinating and informative look at the field of artificial life?
This looks like an interesting project but the download link you provided no longer works. Where is this available from now?
Jon
|
| « Last Edit: Jun 6th, 2010, 2:49pm by JonR » |
 Logged
|
|
|
|
admin
Administrator
member is offline
Posts: 1145
|
|
Re: Artificial Life
« Reply #5 on: Jun 6th, 2010, 3:40pm » |
|
on Jun 6th, 2010, 2:48pm, JonR wrote:| This looks like an interesting project but the download link you provided no longer works. |
|
The whole of www.bb4w-games.com seems to be offline at the moment; I can't even get a DNS resolution of the name.
I know David had a problem once before with the site disappearing, and for a while there was some concern about the hosting company (Powersoft Hosting). As a backup he registered www.bb4wgames.com (no hyphen) as well; that's still up but appears to be redirected to the dead URL!
According to this, Powersoft Hosting have been offline since sometime in May:
http://www.webhostingstuff.com/uptime/PowersoftHosting.html
I do hope this gets fixed soon. BB4W-games contains (or contained) the most amazing collection of programs and I often refer people to it for examples of just what can be achieved.
Richard.
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
David Williams
Developer
member is offline
meh
Gender: 
Posts: 452
|
|
Re: Artificial Life
« Reply #6 on: Jun 11th, 2010, 12:08am » |
|
on Jun 6th, 2010, 2:48pm, JonR wrote:
No, I'm afraid I haven't.
I don't remember even reading a Wikipedia article on the subject!
on Jun 6th, 2010, 2:48pm, JonR wrote:| This looks like an interesting project but the download link you provided no longer works. Where is this available from now? |
|
http://www.bezu.co.uk/filesdump/temp/progs/artificialbugs.zip
Unfortunately, what with the excessively simple behaviour of the bugs, the small gene set, and the overall non-tweakability of the program, the experience this simulation offers is rather akin to watching paint dry.
David Marples produced a simulation (which I don't think he's publicly released) which simulates more complex behaviour (giving his artificial creatures a better food-finding strategy).
I was planning to embark on something much more ambitious (although possibly not feasible): giving the lifeforms more complex gene sets and complex behaviours; sexual reproduction, simulation of stereoscopic vision, olfaction and hearing, slowly evolving 3D environments (with the occasional random catastrophe/natural disaster), enclosures, predators, cannibalism, etc. Then, I seem to have lost interest! Probably because I knew that implementing such a computationally-intensive project would involve either writing a lot of assembly language, or having to learn C.
Regards,
David.
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
David Williams
Developer
member is offline
meh
Gender:
Posts: 452
|
|
Re: Artificial Life
« Reply #7 on: Jun 11th, 2010, 12:25am » |
|
on Jun 6th, 2010, 3:40pm, Richard Russell wrote:| The whole of www.bb4w-games.com seems to be offline at the moment; I can't even get a DNS resolution of the name. |
|
The 'new-look' website is currently under construction:
http://www.bb4wgames.com
I hope to include most games that have been created with BB4W, including such gems as Citaquexyle and Quirk (but only after receiving the express permission of the authors, of course!).
Regards,
David.
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
admin
Administrator
member is offline
Posts: 1145
|
|
Re: Artificial Life
« Reply #8 on: Jun 11th, 2010, 08:28am » |
|
on Jun 11th, 2010, 12:25am, David Williams wrote:
I've updated the link on the BB4W site and its mirrors, e.g.:
http://www.bb4w.com/links.html
Quote:| Then, I seem to have lost interest! Probably because I knew that implementing such a computationally-intensive project would involve either writing a lot of assembly language, or having to learn C. |
|
If you really want to go out on a limb you could code parts of it in Forth using FORTHLIB! Or maybe OWL Basic will actually work, in which case you could eventually use compiled BBC BASIC!
Richard.
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
DDRM
Administrator
member is offline
Gender:
Posts: 321
|
|
Re: Artificial Life
« Reply #9 on: Jun 11th, 2010, 09:08am » |
|
Greetings all,
It's not a secret - I have posted a copy as DDRM bugs_framed in the temp folder of the yahoo site, if you are interested, but it is still at a fairly early stage. I too have had little chance to play with it recently - too much marking!
As David says, I have given a slightly more complex gene set to control movement: bugs can have different speeds when just searching and when "homing", and can do a little dance in one area and then set off for distant lands if they don't find food locally.
I am more interested in the evolutionary trade-offs between speed and special senses and energy requirements, so my bugs have to "pay" energetically for a longer visual range and faster movement.
They can also adapt in terms of how much energy they need to accumulate before they divide, and how much they pass to their offspring. Thus they can either adapt to produce lots of small offspring, which will die if they don't find food soon, or produce few, more robust offspring. Changing conditions may alter what is the best compromise!
My objectives are more modest than David's, and perhaps more achievable in BB4W! My next steps will be to try to implement different regions with limited connectivity (so there can be local famines and extinctions, and different evolutionary driving forces in different regions, and to have different food pools, with the option to specialise in one food source or (less efficiently) to be a generalist. I would also like to introduce a carnivore population, but my past attempts at this kind of thing suggest this is very difficult to keep balanced - so the regions need to come first!
Best wishes,
D
|
|
Logged
|
|
|
|
|
