Artificial Life Models in Software

Transcription

1 Artificial Life Models in Software

2 Andrew Adamatzky and Maciej Komosinski (Eds) Artificial Life Models in Software With 189 Figures

3 Andrew Adamatzky, DSc, MSc Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Maths Sciences University of the West of England Bristol, UK Maciej Komosinski, PhD Institute of Computing Science Poznan University of Technology Poznan, Poland British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Control Number: ISBN-10: ISBN-13: Printed on acid-free paper. Springer-Verlag London Limited 2005 Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988, this publication may only be reproduced, stored or transmitted, in any form or by any means, with the prior permission in writing of the publishers, or in the case of reprographic reproduction in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency. Enquiries concerning reproduction outside those terms should be sent to the publishers. The use of registered names, trademarks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher makes no representation, express or implied, with regard to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and cannot accept any legal responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions that may be made. Printed in the United States of America. (EB) Springer Science+Business Media springeronline.com

4 Preface Artificial life is an interdisciplinary field of science, hosting experts from computer science, biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics, as well as philosophers and artists. It focuses on studying the phenomena of life on all levels of complexity and organization molecular, cellular, organismic, and population. These studies not only employ conventional computers (using both software and hardware), but also take place in wetware, using techniques of biochemical laboratory. Artificial life research is not limited to life forms existing on the Earth. It rather attempts to study the general principles of life which are common to all instances of life, both already recognized and yet unknown. This book is dedicated to the software medium, the most popular and widely employed in the artificial life research. The software medium offers almost unlimited abilities for experiments, which are cheap, easily arranged, and modified. Additionally, such experiments can be repeated under the same conditions, and large amounts of data (unavailable in biological studies) can be collected for analysis. To begin experimentation, a model of life is required. Such models are built in software for all organizational levels of life. Most of the models described in this book are very general and therefore allow for a wide range of experiments. Researchers, academicians and students in artificial life use specialized software to verify their ideas related to evolution dynamics, self-organization, origins of life, multicellular development, natural and artificial morphogenesis, intelligent autonomous robotics, evolutionary robotics, evolvable hardware, emergent collective behaviors, swarm intelligence, evolution of communication and evolution of social behaviors. Artificial life software systems are also essential tools in practical demonstrations in undergraduate and postgraduate courses in adaptive systems, evolutionary biology, collective robotics, and nature-inspired computing. This monograph provides an introduction and guidance in modern, attractive software tools for modeling and simulation of life-like phenomena. Software projects covered here are still actively developed and supported by

5 VI the developers, who create their programs with both professional and amateur users in mind. In most cases, the simulators are employed in research, and results are published. Each chapter describes a single usually freeto-use software model, but references to other similar software packages and related scientific works are included as well. The origins of software packages, milestones in their development, and the most important or interesting experiments are also reported. Every chapter is self-consistent and can be read independently. The compendium of chapters is split into four parts. The first part Virtual Living Worlds, focuses on individual creatures and their populations. It includes discussions of Avida: a digital laboratory for studying populations of evolving programs; Framsticks: a model of three-dimensional creatures, their simulation, evolution, and experimentation with would-be animals and prototypes of bio-inspired robots; Nerve Garden: an Internet-based virtual terrarium reminiscent of a simple ecosystem; GenePool: an interactive software for experimenting with aesthetics-based sexual selection and evolution of swimming organisms; and Sodarace: an online-based interface, learning support and environment for construction, experimenting and competition between virtual two-dimensional mobile robots. Dynamics of collectives of simple locally interacting entities is dealt with in the second part Collective Artificial Life. There, we find discussion of several unique software (and also hardware) platforms Repast: an advanced agent-based simulation toolkit for studying development of natural and artificial social structures; EINSTein: a multiagent-based simulator of land combat modeling individual behaviors and personalities of combatants; StarLogo: an educational programming language for simulation of life-like phenomena from population dynamics to emergent behavior of complex systems; and Eden: an interactive artwork, including hardware implementation of cellular automata and agents, allowing observers to interact with the installation and influence the development of the artificial ecosystem. Already mentioned in previous chapters, cellular automata arrays of locally interacting finite automata, which update their states depending on the states of their neighbors, get a proper treatment in the third part Magic of Discrete Worlds. Two remarkable software tools for studies of discrete universes are introduced here. MCell is a powerful explorer of cellular automata, which supports almost all known nontrivial cellular automaton rules and has a regularly updated database of old and newly discovered patterns. Discrete Dynamics Lab (DDLab) is an interactive tool for designing and investigating dynamics of discrete dynamical networks, including simulation of decision networks, generating attraction basins, and searching for mobile patterns. The book completes the fourth part Artificial Life Arts, with two chapters raising aesthetical issues of would-be worlds. The first chapter of this part reveals ways to breed images and sounds using SBEAT (for graphics) and SBART (for music). These computer programs are designed to select and breed genotypes that represent graphical and musical pieces. The last

6 VII chapter of the book searches for a phenomenological understanding of what makes artificial life appealing to scientists, artists and laymen, and why people become attracted to certain forms of creative computer art. The Appendix contains a table that summarizes software systems described in this book. For each program, the table includes a short description, information about availability on various platforms and operating systems, software requirements, license type, and the Internet web site address. The book covers hot topics related to computer science, evolutionary and computational biology, simulation, robotics, cognitive science, cybernetics, artificial intelligence, multiagent societies, virtual worlds, computer graphics and animation, neuroscience, and philosophy. We hope that academics, researchers, graduate students, and amateurs interested in these fields will find this monograph a valuable guide to artificial life and an excellent supplementary reading. April 2005 Andrew Adamatzky Maciej Komosinski

7 Contents Part I Virtual Living Worlds 1 Avida: Evolution Experiments with Self-Replicating Computer Programs Charles Ofria, Claus O. Wilke Framsticks: A Platform for Modeling, Simulating, and Evolving 3D Creatures Maciej Komosinski Nerve Garden: Germinating Biological Metaphors in Net-based Virtual Worlds Bruce Damer, Karen Marcelo, Frank Revi, Todd Furmanski, Chris Laurel 67 4 GenePool: Exploring the Interaction Between Natural Selection and Sexual Selection Jeffrey Ventrella Sodarace: Adventures in Artificial Life Peter W. McOwan, Edward J. Burton Part II Collective Artificial Life 6 Escaping the Accidents of History: An Overview of Artificial Life Modeling with Repast Michael J. North, Charles M. Macal EINSTein: A Multiagent-based Model of Combat Andrew Ilachinski...143

8 X Contents 8 StarLogo: A Programmable Complex Systems Modeling Environment for Students and Teachers Andrew Begel, Eric Klopfer On the Evolution of Sonic Ecosystems Jon McCormack Part III Magic of Discrete Worlds 10 Exploring Cellular Automata with MCell Mirek Wojtowicz Discrete Dynamics Lab: Tools for Investigating Cellular Automata and Discrete Dynamical Networks Andrew Wuensche Part IV Artificial Life Arts 12 Simulated Breeding A Framework of Breeding Artifacts on the Computer Tatsuo Unemi Enriching Aesthetics with Artificial Life Alan Dorin A Appendix: Artificial Life Software Index...343

9 List of Contributors Andrew Adamatzky Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences University of the West of England Bristol BS16 1QY UK Andrew Begel University of California Berkeley, CA USA Edward J. Burton Soda Creative Ltd. London E2 8HD UK Bruce Damer Biota.org Special Interest Group P.O. Box 66866, Scotts Valley, CA USA Alan Dorin Center for Electronic Media Art, School of Computer Science and Software Engineering Monash University 3800 Australia Todd Furmanski School of Cinema-Television University of Southern California LUC-310B Los Angeles, CA USA Andrew Ilachinski The Center for Naval Analyses Corporation, Virginia, USA Eric Klopfer Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA Maciej Komosinski Institute of Computing Science Poznan University of Technology Piotrowo 3A, Poznan, Poland Chris Laurel Contact Consortium, P.O. Box Scotts Valley, CA USA Charles Macal Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL, USA

10 XII List of Contributors Karen Marcelo Biota.org Special Interest Group P.O. Box 66866, Scotts Valley, CA USA Jon McCormack Centre for Electronic Media Art, School of Computer Science and Software Engineering Monash University, Victoria, 3800 Australia Peter W. McOwan Computer Science, Queen Mary, University of London, E1 4NS UK Michael J. North Argonne National Laboratory, 9700 S. Cass Avenue, Argonne, IL, USA Charles Ofria Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Michigan State University, East Lansing MI USA Frank Revi Biota.org Special Interest Group P.O. Box 66866, Scotts Valley, CA USA Tatsuo Unemi Department of Information Systems Science, Soka University Tangi-machi, Hachiōji, Tokyo, Japan Jeffrey Ventrella Adobe Systems Incorporated 345 Park Avenue San Jose, CA, USA Claus O. Wilke Keck Graduate Institute, 535 Watson Drive, Claremont, CA USA Mirek Wojtowicz wellcam CCS s.c. ul.b.smialego Lublin Poland Andrew Wuensche Faculty of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences University of the West of England Bristol BS16 1QY UK

11 Part I Virtual Living Worlds