Category: Uncategorized

DIGITAL AVATAR. "Suppose a sufficiently intelligent agent possesses a goal (or a preference ordering over outcomes, or a utility function over probabilistic outcomes). One possible means for the agent to achieve its goal is to construct another agent that shares the same goal." https://lnkd.in/d37SFab View in LinkedIn

PERFECT PROTECTION. "While hiding the internals of a program can be used to protect the intellectual property contained within or protected by software, it can be applied for less righteous causes as well. Viruses, for example, try to hide their malicious intent through the use of self-modifying code." https://lnkd.in/dzxTmXb View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this Fragment on symmetry breaking in animals. In many systems in nature, one encounters what at first sight seems like Byzantine complexity on steroids. Whether it is the double fertilization of plants, or animal polarity regulation, it seems to make little sense, and seems duplicative and inefficient. But when you consider that they were designed by chance, often due to the collision of gene systems, scrunched together, asking for elegance is simply the wrong question. View in LinkedIn

CONVERGENCE EXPLANATION. "Given the discovery of β-catenin-mediated binary specification systems in two distantly related animal phyla, one wonders whether binary specification might have an ancient evolutionary origin, or instead be an example of evolutionary convergence. A new report favors the latter possibility." https://lnkd.in/dAxynvD View in LinkedIn

VIRAL EVOLUTION. "Viruses often rely on subtle facets of machine architectures and operating systems. The march of progress in computer technology may literally overnight obliterate entire viral species, as the computational environment in which a virus thrives is either junked or changed to the point where the virus is dysfunctional." https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

ANALOGOUS SYSTEM. "The answer to this evolutionary puzzle may reside within the recent discovery of a remarkably similar β-catenin mediated binary specification mechanism in another animal phylum. During the asymmetric, spirally patterned embryonic cell divisions of the polychaete annelid Platynereis dumerilii, a well conserved β-catenin accumulates to high levels in all vegetal pole daughter nuclei, and to low levels in all animal pole daughter nuclei." https://lnkd.in/dAxynvD View in LinkedIn

COMPUTER VIRUS GROWTH. "The move towards interconnection and compatibility provides a vast and rich ecosystem for the development of new species. Reason and experience with computer ecologies tells us that the smaller the instruction set of a program, the more likely a perturbation will result in a functional program. It follows therefore that the recent popularity of RISC (reduced instruction set) computers may lead to an upsurge in virus development." https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

WHY SO OVER-COMPLEX? "Thus multiple inputs can influence binary specification. The evolutionary advantage of this complicated regulatory process is not obvious: Why establish a single regulatory module, with multiple upstream inputs and a presumably extensive promoter response network, to influence nearly every cell fate decision made during development?" https://lnkd.in/dAxynvD View in LinkedIn

GROWING DIGITAL GENE POOL. "Autonomously replicating entities have been considered as useful tools for information gathering, anti-virus software and distributed computing. Widespread use of such agents may provide a "gene-pool" of sophisticated code for mutation amid evolution. It has already been mentioned how the increase in computing activity will lead to more opportunity for mutation." https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

FURTHER COMPLEXIFICATION. "Adding another input to an already complex process, a nuclear hormone receptor was recently shown to influence binary specification." https://lnkd.in/dAxynvD View in LinkedIn