Theo Jansen
Binary brains of plastic tubes
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Theo Jansen
Binary brains of plastic tubes
This is hillarious and awesome. I wonder if there are more practical appliances to it, like moving stuff.
Science wins!
I wish I had a clearer idea about what was going on here though. Is it just the brains that 'evolve'? Or were the structures themselves evolved in silico?
I can't actually figure out if there are any electronics in there. Looks like mechanics purely.
I like the idea of machines operating on their own in the wild.
...This actually freaks me out quite a bit. I can't get the animatrix out of my head >.<
Doesn't seem to be any electronics whatsoever...Just gravity/wind/cause and effect 'reasoning'. I'd be fairly surprised if, without electronics introduced, they coul every truly 'survive' on their own. Remarkable idea though...could be pretty useful.
These creations are not evolving on their own. First he has to get them to survive, then, reproduce, then they can evolve. The brains are mechanical.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
It is purely mechanical. That's what so amazing about these creations.Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvo
The most basic language that computers speak in is binary, zeroes and ones, or off and on. In electronics these are open and closed circuits. Logic brains using binary can be created mechanically by having one position of a joint be on, and another one be off. It's basically an "if then, then that." In other words, if the machine touches water, it is going to move away from it. To imagine it in an even more simple scenario:
You place a bucket of water over a slightly open door. If someone opens the door, then the bucket of water will fall. They have turned the logic circuit on, producing the desired result.
I don't really get why he keeps calling them beasts and animals.
They are pretty friggen awesome though.
I have to agree, he is a little kooky, and most of that doesn't seem at all practical. It is still pretty cool though.
I'm not sure if he's kooky. He's an artist and so is inclined towards speaking quite metaphorically... people from places like The Netherlands can also speak like this habitually.
I remember trying to find this guy for quite a while after having first seen a video of the more bulky walker he shows at 4:45. Very impressive to see some of the larger models here. o_O
The brains are needed, he explains, as a means of keeping track of where the machine is in relation to the water and the dunes. I think then that his changes are being made more to the layout of the structures. Not sure if he'd need to make different kinds of brains for the different forms of walkers though.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
Mechanical binary. <3
It's a little misleading to say they evolve, because they cannot reproduce on their own and it's not really natural selection but HIS selection that determines which species gets to live on. Then again, I guess you could argue, that humans are part of nature, so the selection is indeed natural and they reproduce via symbiosis with a human artist.
I'm not sure how the brain works; it sounds interesting, though. He said it was a binary counter and that it keeps track of where the creature is on the beach. So I guess zero means all the way in the water and 2^n-1 means all the way up the dunes (or the other way around). I might be totally off here, though. I also can't explain, how the creature might know that it's just a little farther up the beach.
I'm wondering, don't the creatures somehow loose the orientation after a while, as in not walking perpendicular to the shoreline anymore? They cannot "steer", can they?
The walking mechanism looks quite intriguing, too.
That's an awesome way of putting it! Can any species today be what it is without the involvement of another species?Quote:
Originally Posted by illidan
He's a crazy genius artist, and as a creature creator (purely fantastical paintings) I understand him!
It would be better if you relate these mechanical wonders to the real living binary creatures of the world - single celled organisms making simple decisions like, go left or go right! Whether or not we could ever consider his works of art as life, I think they can still teach us much about life and evolution. Because really, everything we make is an expression of our own humanity.
Erm, the 'beasts' that 'survive' are candidate for reproduction. He does not arbitrarily designate which are continued. Thus they evolve.Quote:
Originally Posted by illidan
He never really explains anything...about anything. As far as I can tell, the brain isn't hooked up to control anything, which would make it a glorified pedometer... Then again, he never explained what released the gas in the bottles, or whether it was simply a fill-up and go scenario where the things are constantly moving when they have built up energy as opposed to an actual mechanical decision engine controlling the behavior.Quote:
I'm not sure how the brain works; it sounds interesting, though. He said it was a binary counter and that it keeps track of where the creature is on the beach. So I guess zero means all the way in the water and 2^n-1 means all the way up the dunes (or the other way around). I might be totally off here, though. I also can't explain, how the creature might know that it's just a little farther up the beach.
I'm wondering, don't the creatures somehow loose the orientation after a while, as in not walking perpendicular to the shoreline anymore? They cannot "steer", can they?
The walking mechanism looks quite intriguing, too.
But he is the one who makes changes to the design. It's certainly not random mutation. However, as we haven't agreed on a clear definition of evolution, this is all debatable. Must the vector of change be natural for it to be called evolution? And what does 'natural' mean anyway? These are the kind of questions one would have to answer first.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
He clearly states that the 'brain' is a binary counter. A 'binary step counter' he calls it. But you are right about him not saying anything about whether or not the 'brain' controls something; not that I recall, anyway. I just assumed it would control something, otherwise 'brain' would really be an overstatement.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
No, he doesn't change the design. The design is altered through evolution by representing it as a genetic code of sorts, which is subject to mutation upon reproduction.Quote:
Originally Posted by illidan
Actually, I retract that. I re-watched the video and it seems the water sensor resets the brain. It's still not quite clear what the implications of the number the counter represents are, which is what I meant when I said it wasn't hooked up to anything.Quote:
He clearly states that the 'brain' is a binary counter. A 'binary step counter' he calls it. But you are right about him not saying anything about whether or not the 'brain' controls something; not that I recall, anyway. I just assumed it would control something, otherwise 'brain' would really be an overstatement.
He reproduces them, so 'mutation upon reproduction' means changes by him.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
He used some kind of genetic algorithm to arrive at his 'eleven holy numbers', but apart from that pretty much the entire design seems to have come about through human choice: the plastic bottles, the sails, the concept of the leg system, the hammers, the compressed air, etc.. These things did not evolve.
He talks about a 'genetical code', but I suspect that even if there is a literal 'code', it probably influences only one or a few aspects of the design.
He's pretty vague about a lot of things. Deliberately so, I suspect; he probably doesn't want to destroy the arcane aura that surrounds him.
Of course, he could make up a code and use randomness for producing variants. Let me illustrate this with an example. Say we have a code of 3 Bits: Bit 1 means sail or no sail, bit 2 means long legs or short legs, and bit 3 means big or small. An extremely simple code. He could then flip a coin for each of the bits to determine the design for a new beast. This would be a 'genetic code' of sorts, but there are a few things that clearly distinguish it from a genetic code in biology:
- the code only affects a few aspects of the design, the rest is done by the designer
- the code does not directly cause the new design, except through the interpretation of the designer and he defined the semantics of it
- the code is not directly passed on to the offspring, but indirectly through the designer
- the code cannot become larger, unless the designer makes it larger and defines semantics for the new bits
If you actually know how he does it, please enlighten me, but this is the only way I can imagine him working with any kind of 'genetic code'.
I think that a much or important objection to calling this evolution, however, is the following: the 'beasts' don't reproduce until they become extinct. I'm pretty sure he decides to discontinue a particlar design based on rules he made up or maybe even at whim.
And also – I've said it before, but I'm saying it again, because I think it is important – the 'beasts' cannot reproduce without him.
They're indivisible units in his universe, so that's kind of a moot point.Quote:
Originally Posted by illidan
Probably. But he did evolve the walking mechanism, so why would it be such a stretch to assume he has a similar program for 'breeding' the animals by using their genetic codes in a deterministic algorithm of some sort?Quote:
He talks about a 'genetical code', but I suspect that even if there is a literal 'code', it probably influences only one or a few aspects of the design.
He's pretty vague about a lot of things. Deliberately so, I suspect; he probably doesn't want to destroy the arcane aura that surrounds him.
That would be true if the code was that simple. Given how he never explains it, I can't make any comment on that. But I don't think it is that simple.Quote:
Of course, he could make up a code and use randomness for producing variants. Let me illustrate this with an example. Say we have a code of 3 Bits: Bit 1 means sail or no sail, bit 2 means long legs or short legs, and bit 3 means big or small. An extremely simple code. He could then flip a coin for each of the bits to determine the design for a new beast. This would be a 'genetic code' of sorts, but there are a few things that clearly distinguish it from a genetic code in biology:
- the code only affects a few aspects of the design, the rest is done by the designer
- the code does not directly cause the new design, except through the interpretation of the designer and he defined the semantics of it
- the code is not directly passed on to the offspring, but indirectly through the designer
- the code cannot become larger, unless the designer makes it larger and defines semantics for the new bits
Sure, they cannot reproduce without him; he is their reproduction mechanism. But- he clearly stated that the beach is a 'test' and that animalws which survive are 'bred'. Assuming he doesn't want to go through the enormously tedious process of testing each individual offspring on the beach, he has likely devised a shortcut where his genetic algorithm goes through several generations before giving him the most fit offspring as a result, which he then builds and tests. That would explain why each species is represented by only a few models. He is speeding up the process artificially to make it feasible. The things still 'evolve', just not in the traditional sense of evolving through population pressures slowly over time. I actually don't know what he does, but I am working on an artificial life simulator, so I'm biased with my own techniques :PQuote:
If you actually know how he does it, please enlighten me, but this is the only way I can imagine him working with any kind of 'genetic code'.
I think that a much or important objection to calling this evolution, however, is the following: the 'beasts' don't reproduce until they become extinct. I'm pretty sure he decides to discontinue a particlar design based on rules he made up or maybe even at whim.
And also – I've said it before, but I'm saying it again, because I think it is important – the 'beasts' cannot reproduce without him.
Yeah, I suppose that's true.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
Not a stretch, but he never mentions anything like it in the talk and I don't think there's anything about it on his website. That's why I doubt that he's doing it that way. Of course I don't really know. Maybe he even just used the term 'genetical code' as a buzzword.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
Also, he didn't evolve the walking mechanism as a whole. In fact, he designed most of it first, but wasn't sure about some of the proportions of the tubes. So he used a computer algorithm to figure out optimal proportions (his eleven holy numbers).
How can you be so sure that it's not that simple? You must have some idea of your own about how he does it or at least a good reason to believe that there is more to it. Personally, I imagine it to be extremely difficult to create an 'artifical genetic code' for these beasts that does not have the problems in point two and three.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
If one drops the distinction between 'natural' and 'human', I am much more inclined to regard this as an instance of evolution, like I have mentioned in one of my earlier posts. However, I was under the impression that you were making this distinction, because you objected to my saying that "it's not really natural selection but HIS selection".Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
He only used a genetic algorithm – that's what it sounds like from the description anyway – to arrive at his eleven holy numbers. There's no mention that he uses the same technique for any other part of his project.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
But I think that is an important part of the very concept. Just recursively improving the best variants of something is not evolution.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
You're making a lot of assumptions and guesses. Why are you so insistent that it is evolution, even though you have little idea about how he actually works? To me it seems unlikely that there is anything sophisticated going on, nothing like evolution, since I cannot find anything suggesting the contrary, not in his talk nor on his websites.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
Awesome. I want one to ride around on.
Uhh...Quote:
Originally Posted by illidan
- He said he used a genetic algorithm to generate the holy numbers
- He mentions that each beast has a genetic code
Why wouldn't he use a genetic algorithm on the genetic codes?
Because it is extremely difficult (virtually impossible I suspect) to define a fitness function for this problem.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
Also, genetic algorithms are inspired by evolution, but they are different from natural evolution. They don't incorporate effects like population pressure, which, as I've stated earlier, is an important part of evolution.
Population pressure would be simulated by the beasts themselves when they are on the beach. Why do you think it's impossible for him to have an algorithm for reproduction, exactly?
This is pretty cool stuff. :>
That's exactly what I got out of it.Quote:
Originally Posted by Xei
I was thinking the same thing. :rallysmile:Quote:
Originally Posted by Aquanina
Yes, but I'm not sure it would be very much like in real evolution, because the beasts cannot initiate reproduction on their own nor can they influence how much and how often they reproduce. So the genetic code would maybe determine the survival of an individual, but not the survival of a race.Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
I'm not quite sure what you mean by "an algorithm for reproduction". I was merely saying that I think that he is not using a genetic algorithm for evolving his codes (for the reason stated in my last post). It is certainly possible to write an algorithm that mutates a given code (it won't be random, though, at least not on a classical computer).Quote:
Originally Posted by A Roxxor
You are dragging this discussion away from "what he does" towards "what he could do". There is a lot he could do to approximate natural evolution. He would have to surrender every single aspect that involves a decision on his part to some sort of rule or law. It might be possible, but the evolution would be constrained by the universe he designed (which includes the rules and laws). But nothing you suggested so far sounds very realistic to me. You will have to show that no decision on his part is involved in his process and, as I've stated earlier, I don't think that's the case.