Artificial Life

Thomas S. Ray
ATR Human Information Processing Research Laboratories
2-2 Hikaridai, Seika-cho, Soraku-gun, Kyoto, 619-02, Japan
Tel: 81-774-95-1063
Fax: 81-774-95-1008
E-mail: ray@isd.atr.co.jp, ray@santafe.edu, ray@udel.edu
http://www.isd.atr.co.jp/~ray/

Running head: The Artificial Life

Abstract:

Artificial Life (AL) extends the field of biology by allowing us to study living forms other than those occurring naturally on Earth. In this way, AL bears the same relationship to biology that synthetic chemistry does to chemistry. Some of the most significant advances in AL have been in the area of synthetic evolutions within computers. One of the major currents in this work has been to move towards systems which evolve freely within the digital medium, like the evolution by natural selection in the carbon medium that generated life on Earth. The primary objective of this work is to provoke digital evolution to generate complexity within the digital medium, comparable in magnitude to the complexity of organic life.

Thomas S.Ray
Mon Jul 15 15:51:28 JST 1996