Date: Sat, 2 Jan 93 12:24:00 PST From: John Koza To: alsyll@lotka.Stanford.EDU Subject: Stanford ALIFE course annncement NEW COURSE ANNOUNCEMENT... ... THE COURSE THAT'S BEEN MILLIONS OF YEARS IN THE MAKING ... ARTIFICIAL LIFE COMPUTER SCIENCE 425 WINTER QUARTER 1993 Existing carbon-based lifeforms exploit energy (primarily from the sun) available from the environment to organize matter available from the environment in order to survive, reproduce, and evolve. Artificial life is synthetic biology. The study of artificial life attempts to extrapolate the computational characteristics of the single instance of life observable on earth to the full range of possibilities that might arise using different materials, initial conditions, and evolutionary paths. Because of the extreme behavioral plasticity of computer programs, the emphasis is on implementations of artificial life via the medium of computer programs. Computational forms of artificial life exploit computer time to organize computer memory in order to survive, reproduce, and evolve. Artificial life will be presented from the perspective of both the major tools and the major issues of the field. The major issues include the following: Self-reproducing automata and computer programs Spontaneous emergence of self-replicating computer programs Emergence of diversity and complexity Dynamics of evolution Computational metabolisms and algorithmic chemistry Programmable matter Learning and development Emergent computation Universal computation at the edge of chaos Applications The following tools are currently employed in research in artificial life and will each be covered as needed: Cellular automata Dynamical systems ECHO system Genetic algorithms Genetic programming Lindenmayer systems Neural networks Redcode Turing gases Organic life and molecular biology will be briefly surveyed. Textbooks are Artificial Life II: Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity by Christopher Langton (Addison-Wesley 1992, HB or PB) and a course reader available at Stanford bookstore. Time: Monday and Wednesday 1:00-2:15 PM Place:.......................Building 420 - Room 041 Instructor: John R. Koza. 224 Margaret Jacks Hall. Koza@Sunburn.Stanford.Edu 415-941-0336 Credit: 3 units Prerequisites: Only carbon-based lifeforms may enroll. Date: Wed, 23 Dec 92 20:30:54 PST From: John Koza To: alsyll@lotka.Stanford.EDU Subject: Stanford ALIFE course reader This is first of several messages I intend to post in the next few weeks to this mailing list concerning my upcoming course, Computer Science 425, at Stanford on Artificial Life. The textbooks for the course consists of Chris Langton's ALIFE-2 books plus a course reader produced by the Stanford Bookstore containing a number of articles from other ALIFE sources. The course reader may be purchased from the Stanford Bookstore at 415-329-1217 or 800-533-2670 and they ship everywhere. It's $36. The contents of the course reader are shown below. the rationale for the selection of these items to accompany Chris's book will be covered when I send out the syllabus of reading assignment and course lecture schedule for the course. The course starts in early January 1993. Burks, Arthur W. Von Neumann's self-reproducing automata. In Aspray, William and Burks, Arthur (editors). Papers of John von Neumann on Computing and Computer Theory. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1987. Pages 491-552 (essay 1). 52 pages. Calladine, C. R. and Drew, Horace R. Understanding DNA. London: Academic Press 1992. Pages 1P40 (chapters 1 and 2). 40 pages. Colorni, Alberto, Dorigo, Marco, and Maniezzo, Vittorio. Distributed optimization by ant colonies. In Varela, Francisco J., and Bourgine, Paul (editors). Toward a Practice of Autonomous Systems: Proceedings of the first European Conference on Artificial Life. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1992. Pages 134-142. 9 pages. Deneubourg, J. L., Goss, S., Franks, N., Sendova-Franks, A., Detrain, C., and Chretien, L. The dynamics of collective sorting robot-like ants and ant-like robots. In Meyer, Jean-Arcady, and Wilson, Stewart W. (editors). From Animals to Animats: Proceedings of the First International Conference on Simulation of Adaptive Behavior. Paris. September 24-28, 1990. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1991. Pages 356-363. 8 pages. Dewdney, A. K. In a game called core war hostile programs engage in a battle of bits. Scientific American, 250 (May) 1984. Pages 14-22. Dewdney, A. K. A core war bestiary of viruses, worms and other threats to computer memories. Scientific American, 252 (March). 1985. Pages 14-23. Dewdney, A. K. A program called MICE nibbles its way to victory at the first core war tournament. Scientific American, 256 (January) 14P20. 1987. Pages 14-20. Holland, John H. Second edition of Adaptation in Natural and Artificial Systems. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1992. Pages 171-181 (part of chapter 10 on classifier systems). Pages 184-198 (part of chpater 10 on ECHO). Holland, John H. Genetic algorithms. Scientific American, 267(1) July 1992. Pages 66P71. Kemeny, John G. "Man viewed as a machine," Scientific American, 192(4), April 1955. Pages 58-67. Koza, John R. Genetic Programming: On the Programming of Computers by Means of Natural Selection. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1992. Pages 17-61 (chapter 3 - "Introduction to Genetic Algorithms"). 45 pages. Koza, John R. The genetic programming paradigm: Genetically breeding populations of computer programs to solve problems. In Soucek, Branko and the IRIS Group (editors). Dynamic, Genetic, and Chaotic Programming. New York: John Wiley 1992. Pages 203-282 and 318-321 (parts of chapter 10). 84 pages. Langton, Christopher G. Self-reproduction in cellular automata. In Farmer, Doyne, Toffoli, Tommaso, and Wolfram, Stephen (editors). Cellular Automata: Proceeding of an Interdisciplinary Workshop, Los Alamos, New Mexico, March 7-11, 1983. Amsterdam: North-Holland Physics Publishing, 1983. Pages 135-144. NOTE: Same article also in Physica D, volume 10, 1984. Pages 135-144. 10 pages. Langton, Christopher G. Artificial life. In Langton, Christopher G. (editor). Artificial Life, Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity. Volume VI. Redwood City, CA: Addison- Wesley. 1989. Pages 1-47 (chapter 1). 47 pages. Prusinkiewicz, Przemyslaw, and Lindenmayer, Aristid. 1990. The Algorithmic Beauty of Plants. New York: Springer-Verlag 1990. Pages 1-11. Sims, Karl. Interactive evolution of dynamical systems. In Varela, Francisco J., and Bourgine, Paul (editors). Toward a Practice of Autonomous Systems: Proceedings of the first European Conference on Artificial Life. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1992. Pages 171-178. 8 pages. Skipper, Jakob. The complete zoo evolution in a box. In Varela, Francisco J., and Bourgine, Paul (editors). Toward a Practice of Autonomous Systems: Proceedings of the first European Conference on Artificial Life. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press 1992. Pages 355-364. 10 pages. Stryer, Lubert. Molecular Design of Life. New York: W. H. Freeman. NOTE: These two chapters are identical to Stryer's Biochemistry , Third Edition 1988. Pages 15-40 (chapter 2). 26 pages. Pages 141 P 174 (chapter 7). 33 pages. Wuensche, Andrew and Lesser, Mike. The Global Dynamics of Cellular Automata. Santa Fe Institute Studies in the Sciences of Complexity. Reference Volume I. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley 1992. Pages xv and pages 5-14. 11 pages.