Questions on Kelly ch 17-18

 

1)     pp. 332-333 Bees again! Why does Kelly say the first life on earth “had not created the space in which to stage the show?” What does he mean by saying that life continues to “enlarge the space of its own being?”

2)     333 Why does he characterize Tom Ray’s system as “open evolution” and the initial systems of Dawkins, Sims and El-Fish as closed?

3)     334-5 What improvements did Sims make to achieve open evolution? What problem do humans have in looking at the programs that evolved?

4)     335-338 How did John Koza apply the open evolution approach to programming?

5)     338-9 Explain how the program at the top of pg 338 works. Why does Koza think that parsimony is highly overrated?

6)     340-1 What are examples of surprises in biological evolution? What is the significance for artificial evolution?

7)     344-5 How did Chris Langton come to study artificial life (AL)? What did his professors think of it?

8)     346-7 How did Langton come to see the “artificial” in AL as deceptive?

9)     350-1 What theological issues arise in AL?

10)352 What is wrong with defining evolution as “gradual change?” How does this aspect of evolution contrast with technology as we have known it up to now?

11)354-5 Contrast Lamarckian and Darwinian evolution. Why doesn’t nature use Lamarckian?

12)356-7 What is the Baldwin effect, and how does it route around the roadblock to Lamarckian evolution?

13)358 In what ways can organisms achieve the plasticity needed for the Baldwin effect?

14)362-363 What is the evolution of evolution?