[FRIAM] not enough of Robert Rosen

[Joost Rekveld]

On Jan 8, 2008, at 11:52 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:

> Joost Rekveld wrote:
>> This is certainly a good point, but from what I understand of Rosen's
>> theories another limitation of GP has to do with the fact that the
>> language in which the programming is done can not evolve.
> I don't see why this must be so.   One could imagine that a robot  
> had a
> field programmable gate array that could, in effect, burn an all new
> processor and bring it online.

sure, but can a robot develop representations for other operations  
than those already in its specifications ?
can it design a processor that has some novel feature that is not  
already possible in the robots current architecture ?

> But, usually when new computer
> architectures are being developed, the developers just write a  
> software
> simulator for it in initial stages (that mimics the intended  
> physics of
> the hardware design).
> Even the adiabatic quantum computer people at DWave are using existing
> silicon process technologies to design circuits..

I guess the main creative factor in these examples are the people  
involved in designing new specifications and defining symbols  
representing aspects of the new hardware they are developing...


>
>> The syntax
>> will always be circumscribed by a subset of the programming language
>> that is used to set up the GP, and the semantics of what the symbols
>> represent in terms of real-world measurements or actions will be
>> fixed by the robot's senses and actuators.
> Biotech, nanotech... ?

yes, I guess so.
In this Cariani thesis I mentioned he posits some kind of real-world  
assembly process enabling the construction of new senses and actuators.
( see "On the design of devices with emergent semantic functions",  
<http://homepage.mac.com/cariani/CarianiWebsite/Cariani89.pdf> )

I guess the crucial difference is that such a self-constructing robot  
would be grounded in the real world and not in a prespecified  
computed universe. It would be able to evolve its own computed universe.
I'm not sure what to think of all this, but I like Cariani's ideas a  
lot and so far I haven't found any basic flaw in them.
But, as said, being non-schooled in these matters that doesn't  
necessarily mean very much.



On Jan 8, 2008, at 11:56 PM, Marcus G. Daniels wrote:
> Joost Rekveld wrote:
>> This is certainly a good point, but from what I understand of Rosen's
>> theories another limitation of GP has to do with the fact that the
>> language in which the programming is done can not evolve.
> 20 amino acids seem to go a long way...  :-)
>

characters make no language...


cheers,

Joost.

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                        	      Joost Rekveld
-----------    http://www.lumen.nu/rekveld

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“This alone I ask you, O reader, that when you peruse the
account of these marvels that you do not set up for yourself
as a standard human intellectual pride, but rather the great
size and vastness of earth and sky; and, comparing with
that Infinity these slender shadows in which miserably and
anxiously we are enveloped, you will easily know that I have
related nothing which is beyond belief.”
(Girolamo Cardano)

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