Alt-BEAM Archive
Message #05275
To: beam@sgiblab.sgi.com
From: Sharon Williams swilliam@cadvision.com
Date: Tue, 13 Jul 1999 02:28:27 -0600
Subject: [alt-beam] Re: Chaotic controllers (was Something funny with the 1382)
this seems pretty cool, I wonder if you took a colony of anys, and put
them in a very basic RJP and put a food trough at one and and a shelter at
the other, taking away most of the work the ants need to do to survive, if
the ants would start to evolve over a couple years. i wonder what it would
turn out like. say maybe if thier brains got bored so they started to
invent thier own entertainment? or if you put more than one colony you
could get trade agreements, then currency, then government to take it away
again =3D^) that would be cool. especially if you could survive long enough
too see it evolve.
OK, thats just a little too wierd, maybe cause it's 2:30 AM.
good night,
-Jeremy Williams
PS. at the bottom of the page I have included a little humor to lighten up
this flame war. hope you dont mind.
>> > There is a strong and deterministic connection between the
>> > environment and behavior of animals and even humans. The usual
>> > example is the ant - a relatively simple piece of biological
>> > machinery, which follows something like a dozen fixed rules. Put it
>> > in a simple environment - like a Robot Jurassic Parc - and what it
>> > does looks no more intelligent, capable or complex than the
>> > behaviour of today's robots.
>>=20
>> I disagree.
>>=20
>> The obstacle aviodance of an ant are vastly bettern than any BEAM
>> robot. Its ability to handel terrain is also vastly better, as
>> its control system and drive system are well matched in ability,
>> this is not true for beam at all.
>> Your underestimating the ant here, bigtime. The ants sensors and
>> processing power are far beyond any BEAM design.
>In the mean time, if you want current robot technology to do
>something interesting, you will usually have to engineer the
>environment to match the present sensor limitations - like was
>done with the Egg Hunt Playground. Which as a contest puts a high
>value on long range Egg sensors. An idea for a simple scanning
>laser device is shown on
>
> http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbolt/Other/e-EggHuntDiscussion_090799.htm
>=20
>> After all, what do you think its doing with thousands of times
>> more (real) neurons than any BEAM design will ever have?
>
>Imho it's a matter of connectivity to the environment, of sensors
>rather than brains. And before we revisit a previous discussion,
>yes, those sensors do considerable but entirely automatic
>processing. Our vision system presents us with a threedimensional,
>color-corrected image of the world; we don't even have to
>consciously recognize tables, chairs and faces in a crowd. To me,=20
>the thinking brain is a layer on top of that.
>
>And plenty of BEAMish thinking power can be done by the
>tenthousands of transistors in a modern uC, right?
>There seems to be a pretty wide consensus about the complexity of
>ant behaviour being caused by the interaction with its environment.
>Simple environments reduce the ant's behaviour. When ants colonize
>environments in which the majority wouldn't fare to well, natural
>variation comes into play. The ants which accidentally fit the new
>environment well enough move in. If the circumstances are right,
>speciation may follow, and after a relatively short while, you have
>a new species of ant.=20
>
>I looked at the individual ant to evaluate its behaviour in the
>complex real world as opposed to simplified RJP environments. But
>the argument doesn't change when you look at an ant colony as a
>single, multibodied creature. That creature also needs its complex
>environment to give its behaviour meaning. In an RJP, it would
>merely die.
>
-------------------------------HEHEHEHEHEHE---------------------------------
-----
> Stranded
> An ambitious young man finally decided to take a vacation. He booked
> himself
> on a Caribbean cruise and proceeded to have the time of his life ... until
> the boat sank!
>=A0=20
> The man found himself swept up on the shore of an island with no other
> people, no supplies... Nothing!=A0 Only bananas and coconuts.=A0 After=
about
> four months, he is lying on the beach one day when the most gorgeous woman
> he has ever seen rows up to him.=A0 In disbelief he asks her: "Where did=
you
> come from? How did you get here?"
>=A0=20
> "I rowed from the other side of the island," she says.=A0 "I landed here
> when my cruise ship sank."=A0 "Amazing," he says.=A0 "You were really=
lucky to
> have a rowboat wash up with you."
>=A0=20
> "Oh, this?" replies the woman.=A0 "I made the rowboat out of raw material
> that I found on the island; the oars were whittled from gum tree branches;
> I
> wove the bottom from palm branches; and the sides and stern came from a
> Eucalyptus tree."
>=A0=20
> "But-but, that's impossible," stutters the man.=A0 "You had no tools or
> hardware.=A0 How did you manage?"
>=A0=20
> "Oh, that was no problem," replies the woman.=A0 "On the South side of the
> island, there is a very unusual strata of alluvial rock exposed.=A0 I=
found
> that if I fired it to a certain temperature in my kiln, it melted into
> forgeable ductile iron.=A0 I used that for tools and used the tools to=
make
> the hardware. The guy is stunned.
>=A0=20
> "Let's row over to my place, " she says.=A0 After a few minutes of rowing,
> she
> docks the boat at a small wharf.=A0 As the man looks onto shore, he nearly
> falls out of the boat.=A0 Before him is a stone walk leading to an=
exquisite
> bungalow painted in blue and white.
>=A0=20
> While the woman ties up the rowboat with an expertly woven hemp rope, the
> man can only stare ahead, dumbstruck.=A0 As they walk into the house, she
> says casually, "It's not
> much, but I call it home.=A0 Sit down please; would you like to have a
> drink?"
>=A0=20
> "No thank you," he says, still dazed. "Can't take any more coconut
> juice."=A0 "It's not coconut juice," the woman replies. "I have a still.
> How about a Pina Colada?"
>=A0=20
> Trying to hide his continued amazement, the man accepts, and they sit
> down on her couch to talk.=A0 After they have exchanged their stories, the
> woman announces, "I'm going to slip into something more comfortable. Would
> you like to take a shower and shave?
>=A0=20
> There is a razor upstairs in the cabinet in the bathroom." No longer
> questioning anything, the man goes into the bathroom.=A0 There, in the
> cabin et, is a razor made from a bone handle.=A0 Two shells honed to a
> hollow ground edge are fastened onto its end, inside of a swivel
> mechanism.
> "This woman is amazing," he muses. "What"s next?"
>=A0=20
> When he returns, she greets him wearing nothing but vines and a shell
> necklace -- strategically positioned -- and smelling faintly of gardenias.
> She beckons for him to sit down next to her.=A0 "Tell me," she begins
> suggestively, slithering closer to him, "we've been out here for a very
> long
> time.=A0 You've been lonely.=A0 I've been lonely.=A0 There's something I'm=
sure
> you
> really feel like doing right about now, something you've been longing for
> all these months?=A0 You know... " She stares into his eyes.
>=A0=20
> He can't believe what he's hearing.=A0 His heart begins to pound.=A0 He's
> truly in luck: "You mean...", he gasps, "...I can actually check my e-mail
> from here??"
----------------------------HEHEHEHEHEHEHE----------------------------------
------------------------
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