Abstract
Since early cybernetics studies by Wiener, Pask, and Ashby, the properties of living systems are subject to deep investigations. The goals of this endeavour are both understanding and building: abstract models and general principles are sought for describing organisms, their dynamics and their ability to produce adaptive behavior. This research has achieved prominent results in fields such as artificial intelligence and artificial life. For example, today we have robots capable of exploring hostile environments with high level of self-sufficiency, planning capabilities and able to learn. Nevertheless, the discrepancy between the emergence and evolution of life and artificial systems is still huge. In this paper, we identify the fundamental elements that characterize the evolution of the biosphere and open-ended evolution, and we illustrate their implications for the evolution of artificial systems. Subsequently, we discuss the most relevant issues and questions that this viewpoint poses both for biological and artificial systems.
Highlights
IntroductionCan one formulate broad principles for evolving proto-cells, single cell organisms, perhaps multi-celled organisms and even robots, which live in their complex worlds, adapt, and survive, can grow more complex and diverse in an abiotic or biotic environment co-evolving with one another?
Can one formulate broad principles for evolving proto-cells, single cell organisms, perhaps multi-celled organisms and even robots, which live in their complex worlds, adapt, and survive, can grow more complex and diverse in an abiotic or biotic environment co-evolving with one another?Building on Ashby’s ideas presented in Design for a brain [1], we address these questions trying to identify a minimal set of necessary and sufficient properties that are likely to characterize living organisms—and artificial systems—that evolve in open environments.A first property is the ability of discriminating what is beneficial or disadvantageous for the organism, “what’s good or bad”, in Ashby’s terms
The detection of relevant information is a way of meaning creation: what is important for the survival of the organism in its environmental niche shapes the evolution of specialized sensors, so the patterns and the correlations they capture come to exist and get a name
Summary
Can one formulate broad principles for evolving proto-cells, single cell organisms, perhaps multi-celled organisms and even robots, which live in their complex worlds, adapt, and survive, can grow more complex and diverse in an abiotic or biotic environment co-evolving with one another?. We may speak of actuators and effectors [2], but we include here the ability of taking decisions and act, i.e., having a control policy—that should be adapted and changed The presence of these properties in an evolutionary setting that is characterized by heritable variations and selection, along with individual adapting and learning mechanisms, is the basis for Entropy 2020, 22, 1163; doi:10.3390/e22101163 www.mdpi.com/journal/entropy.
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