Originally Posted by illidan
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.
They're indivisible units in his universe, so that's kind of a moot point.
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.
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?
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
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.
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.
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
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