Re: OOL I - Manifesto and metatheory

> From: Tim Tyler <tim@xxxxxxxxxxx>
> > I'm not sure what kind of thinking you're referring to.
> > Do you know of an online summary of Stuart Kauffman's idea? [...]
> The best place I've seen them explained is in his books - but
> there's some info about them at:
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autocatalytic_set

Hmm, I looked there, and found a link to a fine online/chat interview
with Stuart Kauffman: http://www.iscid.org/stuartkauffman-chat.php
Below I've quoted a few key passages from that interview, most but not
all passages by Stuart, with some of my comments on some:

It has to do with supracritical
chemical behavior. If a system has too great a diversity of chemicals,
it should cause novel reactions with new molecules that enter,
wreaking havoc.
Is that what happens in the Miller-Urey "Beilstein", i.e. once the
variety passes this threshold, the number of different reactant
combinations generates runaway creation of variety? This may be exactly
what is needed to "magically" create the first replicator via
random-number generation.

In Investigations, I
propose a tentative definition of an autonomous agent. Such an agent
is self reproducing and does a thermodynamic work cycle. It may be
that I've found a definition of life, and they should be
constructable.
Yes. More to the point: It runs a thermodynamic work cycle whose
product includes replication (and anything else is "waste" product).
This is a good definition of what I call "just barely life", assuming
fecundity is greater than one ("capable") and there are enough copies
already replicated at some point that it's immune from statistical
fluctuation to zero population ("successful").

There are examples of bootstrap thresholds. ...
... the possible origin of self
reproducing molecular systems where a critical diversity of molecular
species was necessary for a phase transition to form a collectively
autocatalytic set.
Beilstein spontaneously transforms like this?

Handicap theory is a theory of biological communication in which
information sent by a cell, organism, etc., must be costly to the
sender in order to be reliable to the recipient.
(Which would usually require group selection within an enclosed
micro-ecosystem in order for natural selection to result in such
willingness of sender to pay that cost.)

Q: if one were interested in learning more about your ideas on the
web, is there a link (or two) that you would point us to?
A: The easiest ways include the BiosGroup web site, ...
After composing the rest of this message, I did a Google search to try
to find a link to that web site. See bottom part of this article.

John Maynard Smith and Eors Strathmary, in their book on the
major transitions in life, point to many examples where a mutualism
becomes a symbiotic new entity upon which selection can act.
(Same as my idea of co-evolving replicators in enclosed micro-ecosystem.)

Peter Schuster, in Vienna, U vienna, has done wonderful work on this
subject. He made models of RNA sequences that folded, categorized each
RNA by the kind of fold it made and showed 1) a power law distribution
of the number of sequences that fold into each shape, 2) that
thecommon shapes each form a percolating connected web across sequence
space all of whose members are neutral mutants of one another such
that one can traverse the entire space stepping only on the same
shape. Further he and his colleagues showed that all the common shapes
formed such webs, and came very near one another.
(If true, this totally kills the alleged barriers to evolution. Let's
say one particular folding shape is optimal for the present
environment, and that shape has been found previously by evolution. Let
S represent the set of genomes that code for that optimal folding
shape. In large enough population of a species, neutral drift in
specific genomes via mutations would randomize occupancy of the S,
faster than neutral drift in populations would randomly eliminate
specific genomes, so occupancy of S would be "thermalized", i.e. all
neighborhoods of S would be appx. equally occupied. If the environment
then changes so that S is no longer optimal, rather T is now optimal,
there would surely be some neighborhood of S which is immediately
adjacent to some neighborhood of T, so that a single mutation could
switch some individual from S to T, at which point natural selection
would fill up T at the expense of S.)

Another good link from the same starting place:
http://arxiv.org/abs/adap-org/9809003
(Simulated mutation experiment in which autocatalytic set appears
spontaneously and then grows exponentially to fill all available space.)


** Results from Google search to try to find BiosGroup web site:

http://www.biosgroup.com/
(Something commercial in Charlotte, not Santa Fe.)

http://www.taborcommunications.com/dsstar/01/0619/103169.html
BiosGroup is a consulting and software group that
uses complexity science and agent-based concepts ...

http://forum.java.sun.com/profile.jspa?userID=79269
(Discussion about BIOS i.e. part of kernel of operating system?)

http://www.redfish.com/research/sphere2dCA.htm
two-dimensional cellular automata simulation on the surface
of a sphere. ...
http://www.redfish.com/research/shapeGA.htm
Shapes are randomly generated and "child" shapes are created using a
genetic algorithm with crossover and mutation. ...

Not sure of any of those are what I'm seeking. Since it was mentionned
in the interview that his company solves "business management"
problems, I added that phase to the Google search:

http://ccfi.educ.ubc.ca/publication/insights/v09n01/articles/laidlaw.html
The principle is very simple: small modifications of the local rules
can lead to large impacts at the global level. (Both quotations from
the BiosGroup website, a business consulting organization founded by
complexity theorist Stuart Kauffman. Retrieved from
http://eurobios.com/flash/eurobios.html, June 20, 2002)
(Well, that's definitely the right topic, but still no link to his
WebSite.)

http://www.managementconsultancy.co.uk/news/it/1123416
SAP is building intelligent agent technology into its supply chain
management software which it claims will make logistics and
procurement chains more efficient by automating decisions.
The company is working with software firm BiosGroup to build the
technology into mySAP Supply Chain Management (SCM), for release
during the second quarter of 2002.
(Again, correct topic but no link to his WebSite.)

http://www.lib.uwo.ca/business/newbooksbusoct9-03.html
The Info Mesa: Science, Business, and New Age Alchemy on the Stanta Fe
Plateau (HC 110.T4 R43 2003)
"From Publishers Weekly
Regis (Who Got Einstein's Office?) here explores the desert community
of scientist-cum-entrepreneurs besotted with "intellectual excitement
and chaos and seriousness and joy." Unlike Silicon Valley, Santa Fe's
Info Mesa consists largely of academics channeling pure scientific
ideas to business ends. Computer simulations and ever-increasing
amounts of processing power help them tackle questions on an
unprecedented scale. Take, for example, Stu Kauffman's BiosGroup,
which used "fitness landscapes" to contemplate thousands of potential
variations on an airline baggage-handling system in just a few days.
(More on correct topic, but still no link.)

http://www.managementconsultancy.co.uk/news/it/1123416
Intelligent agents can cut out-of-stock and excess inventory by up to
75 per cent, according to Stuart Kauffman, chief scientific officer at
BiosGroup.
(Correct person and company, but his main work doesn't seem to be
directed toward abiogenesis speculations.)

I give up trying to find the WebSite.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Can a hacker do this??
    ... >I operate a small business in which I sell a software product on my ... >It seems this person is hell bent on destroying my business. ... >website loads in someone's browser, or can he ... The other thing he can do is mount a DoS attack against the web site. ...
    (comp.security.misc)
  • football picks
    ... Your website and business has been selected to appear on the nationally ... Along with national television exposure and possible inclusion of your ... web site link on our web site, FootballForecast.com, which receives ...
    (rec.sport.football.pro)
  • football picks
    ... Your website and business has been selected to appear on the nationally ... Along with national television exposure and possible inclusion of your ... web site link on our web site, FootballForecast.com, which receives ...
    (rec.sport.football.pro)
  • Re: Football Forecast Weekly
    ... > Your website and business has been selected to appear on the nationally ... > syndicated television show "Football Forecast Weekly." ... > web site link on our web site, FootballForecast.com, which receives ...
    (alt.sports.football.pro.phila-eagles)