1871 John Tenniel illustration for Alice Through the Looking Glass. Please come on the first day ready to work on the computer. You will need a Bruin account, a printer account, and floppy, ZIP and/or USB memory devices. Nick Gessler gessler@ucla.edu SSC ClassWeb Portal Registar				ALiCE: Artificial Life, Culture & Evolution Honors 69 - Fall 2005 Tu/Th 10:00 - 12:45 Powell 320B	A hands-on exploration of the virtual realities of artificial life, artificial culture and evolutionary computation that are changing what it means to describe, explain and understand the complex world we live in.  what participants have said... 1871 John Tenniel illustration for Alice Through the Looking Glass.
				Final Project Simulation Highlights
The Use of Complexity Science A Report of the U.S. Department of Education "The challenges of the 21st century will require new ways of thinking about and understanding the complex, interconnected and rapidly changing world in which we live and work. And the new field of complexity science is providing the insights we need to push our thinking in new directions."			"Science is what we understand well enough to teach to a computer. Art is everything else." Donald Knuth "Computer Science is not about computers. It is about the kind of complex systems that we are." Marvin Minsky
	Developed, in part, from the following previous courses: Spring 2003 – Design | Media Arts 189.  “Artificial Worlds: Life, Culture and Evolution.” Spring 2002 – Honors Collegium 69.  “Artificial Life, Artificial Culture and Evolutionary Design

On Thursday, we will jump right into programming in CLICC! Why not? Please come with at least 10 floppies, 1 ZIP disk or USB keychain, a BOL account and a printer account. We will try to finish this first "challenge" (assignment) in class. Be prepared for details, details, details... Also bring $20 for a course reader.

SYLLABUS

A combination lecture, discussion and laboratory course that will deal with the state-of-the-art in evolutionary computing and artificial worlds.  The emphasis will be upon the explication, explanation and critique of the philosophy, epistemology, theory, method and practice of simulated worlds informed largely by readings, films, hands-on simulations, guest lectures and laboratory visits.  The discussion (laboratory) sessions will be used to introduce participants to the basics of simulation programming from the bottom-up.  This course may be taken before, after or concurrently with HCS 110.  There are no prerequisites.

DESCRIPTION

A hands-on exploration of the virtual realities of artificial life, artificial culture and evolutionary computation that are changing what it means to describe, explain and understand the complex world we live in.  The computer on our desktops is emblematic of a much deeper intellectual discovery: the realization that the driving force in nature, from the origin of matter to great cultural accomplishments of science and art, is computational at its core.  According to this view the world evolved from the bottom-up through the process of emergence: the assembly of increasing dynamical hierarchies of self-organization from a multitude of agents adhering to local rules who interact in complex ways to form global patterns of behavior.  Physicist Edward Fredkin has developed digital mechanics as a substrate for quantum mechanics in a step towards a Digital Philosophy.  Mathematician Stephen Wolfram set forth the principle of computational equivalence that holds that we are no more than collections of simple programs in A New Kind of Science.  Programmer Karl Sims has shown that life-like forms with distinctive morphologies, behaviors and personalities may be evolved from scratch with his Evolved Virtual Creatures.  Systems dynamicist Jay Forrester asserted that “Evolutionary processes have not given us the mental skill needed to properly interpret the dynamic behavior of the systems of which we have now become a part” in his “Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems”.   Anthropologist Roger Keesing viewed cognition as an ecology of mind while computer scientist Marvin Minsky proposed a computationally rich multiagent society of mind.  In cinema, director Joseph Rusnak wove a tale of the search for reality among the inhabitants of a nested series of cultural simulations designed for entertainment (The Thirteenth Floor) while director Alex Proyas portrayed the search for “truth” by the subjects of a series of reality altering scientific experiments (Dark City).   In his novel Permutation City, Greg Egan investigates the interfaces between human consciousnesses resident in different computational media.  Science and art are intimately intertwined.

Simulation is the process of constructing artificial worlds.  We simulate in order to imagine how things could be and to reconsider how things really are.  Thus simulation can both entertain as fantasy and educate as fact.  We simulate in order to transcend our own individual limited perceptions of our social and physical environments.  We take a look at the epistemology behind the new sciences of complexity and its impact on culture, popular and academic, scientific, artistic and literary.  Our engagement with these ideas will come from lectures, discussions, readings, films, participant-led discussions and field trips (whenever possible) as well as the critically informed perspective of creating, writing and working with our own computational simulations of complexity and studying their entailments as virtual experiments with alternative “what-if” scenarios.  Although we will build one simulation from the bottom-up, our emphasis will be on experimenting with existing simulations in a variety of programming platforms.   No special mathematics or computing skills are required.

The essential elements, or primitives, of artificial worlds are objects (things) and processes (relationships) immersed in a spatial and temporal representation of their environment.  At some level, these objects and processes are encapsulated as agents: entities that sense, think and act.  Agents interact with one another in the world around them, changing one another and the world as it unfolds.  They literally create their own narrative histories, quite often with unexpected and surprising results.  These simulated artificial worlds can do what our individual minds alone, our collective minds together, our written and our spoken languages, and our mathematics cannot do:  accurately, precisely, and repeatedly predict the outcome of situations that are far too complex for us to grasp by any other means.  Our goal is to initiate participants into the roles of writer-director-editor-producer of their own would-be worlds.  In this role they become programmers of life and culture, rather than programmers of any one computing language. 

It is difficult to imagine a single facet of contemporary society that has not been impacted by the synergies of these new technologies of thought and the new challenges that they introduce.  This course provides a comprehensive introduction to these theories and practices, a grounding that will prepare participants for involvement at the cutting-edge of a variety of fields.

CALENDAR

As the course progresses, participants will be encouraged to take increasingly leading roles.  Although the two primary texts will provide the core of the readings, supplementary readings will be introduced from time to time.  Readings may be assigned to different teams.

Week 1

• Artificial Life, Artificial Culture and Evolutionary Computation as a philosophy.  Video clips Nightline, VPRO Amsterdam.   Temple of Alife website.  Cellular automata demo:  Scott Draves’ Bomb and Mirec’s Cellebration.
• Challenge #1:  Conway’s Game of Life.
• Readings and simulations from: Artificial Life: An Overview
• Artificial Life as a Tool for Biological Inquiry.  Charles Taylor and David Jefferson.  Pp. 1-14.
• Cooperation and Community Structure in Artificial Ecosystems.  Kristian Lindgren and Mats G. Nordahl.  Pp. 15-38.
• Extended Molecular Evolutionary Biology:  Artificial Life Bridging the Gap Between Chemistry and Biology.  P. Schuster.  Pp. 39-60.

Week 2

• Artificial Life.  Video clips from MS-NBC. 
• Challenge #2:  Diffusion Limited Aggregation (dendritic growth).
• Readings and simulations from: Artificial Life: An Overview
• Visual Models of Morphogenesis.  Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz.  Pp. 61-74.
• The Artificial Life Roots of Artificial Intelligence.  Luc Steels.  Pp. 75-110.
• Toward Synthesizing Artificial Neural Networks that Exhibit Cooperative Intelligent Behavior: Some Open Issues in Artificial Life.  Michael Dyer.  Pp. 111-134.

Week 3

• Artificial Culture.  Video clips from Dark City and The Thirteenth Floor.
• Challenge #3:  Informed critique of the computational ideas in The Thirteenth Floor.
• Supplementary readings: Stanislaw Lem (1971) - Non Serviam and Greg Egan (1994) - Permutation City
• Readings and simulations from: Artificial Life: An Overview
• Modeling Adaptive Autonomous Agents.  Pattie Maes.  Pp. 135-162.
• Chaos as a Source of Complexity and Diversity in Evolution.  Kunihiko Kaneko.  Pp. 163-178.

Week 4

• Computational Methods.  The aesthetics of effective visualizations.  How to represent time, space and parallel processes on a serial machine. 
• Challenge #4:  Ethology, deconstruction and reverse engineering of the simulation Planet Wator.
• Supplementary readings:  Edward Tufte’s trilogy on envisioning visual explanations.
• Readings and simulations from: Artificial Life: An Overview
• An Evolutionary Approach to Synthetic Biology: Zen and the Art of Creating Life.  Thomas S. Ray.  Pp. 179-210.
• Beyond Digital Naturalism.  Walter Fontana, Gunter Wagner, and Leo W. Buss.  Pp. 211-228.
• Learning About Life.  Mitchel Resnick.  Pp. 229-243.

Week 5

• Advanced Topics.  Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) Mission Rehearsal Exercise.  Air Traffic Control and the Los Angeles Automated Traffic Surveillance and Control Center.
• Video clips from Pushing Tin, the ICT and Santa Fe Institute.
• Challenge #5:  Project proposals. 
• Readings and simulations from: Artificial Life: An Overview
• Books on Artificial Life and Related Topics.  David G. Stork.  Pp. 243-248.
• Computer Viruses as Artificial Life.  Eugene H. Spafford.  Pp. 249-266.
• Genetic Algorithms and Artificial Life.  Melanie Mitchell and Stephanie Forrest.  Pp. 267-290.
• Artificial Life as Philosophy.  Daniel Dennett.  Pp. 291-292.
• Levels of Functional Equivalence in Reverse Bioengineering.  Steven Harnad.  Pp. 293-302.
• Why Do We Need Artificial Life?  Eric W. Bonabeau and Guy Theraulaz.  Pp. 303-326.

Week 6

• Art Through Evolutionary Design.
• Video clips from Karl Sims Compilation and Electronic Canvas; Craig Reynolds’ Collected Boids and  Demetri Terzopoulos’ (12) Go Fish.
• Challenge #6:  Schelling’s segregation model.
• Supplementary readings:  David Fogel’s Blondie24 and Greg Egans Permutation City.
• Readings and simulations from: Evolutionary Design by Computers
• An Introduction to Evolutionary Design by Computers.  Peter Bentley.  Pp. 1-74.
• Section I: Evolution and Design.  Pp. 75-76.
• The Interplay of Evolution and Insight in Design.  Michael French.  Pp. 77-90.
• The Memetics of Design.  Derek Gatherer.  Pp. 91-104.
• The Race, the Hurdle, and the Sweet Spot.  David Goldberg.  Pp. 105-118.
• Exploring the Design Potential of Evolutionary Search, Exploration and Optimisation.  Ian Parmee.  Pp. 119-144.

Week 7

• Evolutionary Computation:  Genetic algorithms, genetic programming, evolutionary strategies, genetic programming and evolvable hardware. 
• Challenge #7:  Evolutionary Concert Tour (a.k.a. Travelling Salesman’s Problem)
• Supplemental readings:
• Jordan Zlatev and Christian Balkenius: Epigenetic Robotics - Workshop Theme and Why Epigenetic Robotics?
• Jon Bird and Paul Layzell: The Evolved Radio and its Implications for Modeling the Evolution of Novel Sensors.
• Readings and simulations from: Design by Computers
• Section 2: Evolutionary Optimisation of Designs.
• Optimisation in Mechanical Design.  Gordon Robinson, Mohammed El-Beltagy and Andy Keane.  Pp. 147-166.
• The Optimisation of Flywheels using an Injection Island Genetic Algorithm.  David Eby, R.C. Averill, William F. Punch III, and Erik D. Goodman.  Pp. 167-190.
• A GA-based Approach to Reliability Design.  Mitsuo Gen and Jong Ryul Kim.  Pp. 191-218.

Week 8

• Advanced Topics. 
• Supplementary readings:
• "Counterintuitive Behavior of Social Systems," by Jay W. Forrester. SIMULATION, February 1971, pp. 61ff.
• "Prologue," from SOCIETY OF MIND by Marvin Minsky. Touchstone Books, Simon & Schuster, New York (1986)
• Challenge #8:  A simulation of your choice.
• Readings and simulations from: Design by Computers
• Section 3: Evolutionary Art.  Pp. 219.220.
• The Mutation and Growth of Art by Computers.  Stephen Todd and William Latham.  Pp. 221-250.
• Evolving Genetic Art.  Michael Witbrock and Scott Neil-Reilly.  Pp. 251-260.
• Evolutionary Art and Form.  Andrew Rowbottom.  PP. 261-278.

Week 9

• Advanced Topics.
• Supplementary readings:
• "The Thinking Machine - Mark III - Can Man Build a Superman?" TIME - THE WEEKLY MAGAZINE, February 23, 1950, pp. 54ff.
• "Edward Fredkin - A Finely Mottled Universe." Chapter 3 from THREE SCIENTISTS AND THEIR GODS - LOOKING FOR A MEANING IN THE INFORMATION AGE by Robert Wright. Harper & Row, New York (1989). Pages 21-27.
• Readings and simulations from: Design by Computers
• Section 4: Evolutionary Artificial Life Forms.  Pp. 279-280.
• Artificial Embryology and Cellular Differentiation.  Pp. 281-296.
• Evolving Three-Dimensional Morphology and Behavior.  Karl Sims.  Pp. 297-322.
• Exploring Three-Dimensional Design Worlds using Lindenmayer Systems and Genetic Programming.  Paul Coates, Terence Broughton and Helen Jackson.  Pp. 323-342.

Week 10

• Participant Presentations. 
• Readings and simulations from: Evolutionary Design by Computers
• Section 5: Creative Evolutionary Design.  Pp. 343-344.
• Evolving Designs by Generating Useful Complex Gene Structures.  Mike Rosenman and John Gero.  Pp. 345-364.
• The Design of Analogue Circuits by Means of Genetic Programming.  John Koza, Forrest H. Bennett III, David Andre and Martin A. Keane.  Pp. 365-386.
• Computer Evolution of Buildable Objects.  Pablo Funes and Jordan Pollack.  Pp. 387-404.
• From Coffee Tables to Hospitals: Genetic Evolutionary Design.  Peter Bentley.  Pp. 405-424.

READINGS

Readings for each week will be distributed among the participants, with different groups being responsible for different critical reviews.  Subject to availability, the two primary sources will be:

• Artificial Life: An Overview (Complex Adaptive Systems) edited by Christopher G. Langton.  Bradford Books, MIT Press, Cambridge, 1997.
• Evolutionary Design by Computers edited by Peter Bentley.  Morgan Kauffmann, Bath, 1999.

In addition to, or alternatively, readings will be assigned from journals and conference proceedings as well as chapters and articles from the following books:

• A New Kind of Science by Stephen Wolfram.  Stephen Wolfram, Champaign, 2002.
• Digital Philosophy by Edward Fredkin.  Edward Fredkin, WWW, 2001.
• The Emergence of Everything by Harold Morowitz.  Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2002.
• Handbook of Evolutionary Computation edited by Thomas Back, David Fogel and Zbigniew Michalewicz.  Oxford University Press, Oxford, 1997.
• Thinking in C++: Introduction to Standard C++, Volume One by Bruce Eckel.  Prentice-Hall, 2000. 
  
  

GRADING

Students will be graded on a balance of both performance and progress.  There will be no final exam. 

• 40% Eight weekly challenges and presentations @ 5% each.
• 30% Class participation (includes attendance, discussions and helping classmates).
• 30% Course project and presentation.

More information relevant to the course...
It is a seminar in the ground-breaking fields of artificial life, artificial culture, artificial intelligence, virtual environments, and evolutionary computation which have revolutionized our thinking about science and our place in the universe. We will take a critical look at these practices through writings, videos and movie clips on artificial worlds and practical hands-on engagement with multi-agent simulations and games. Field trips will be arranged whenever possible. Here are just a few of the issues we will discuss:

• SIMULATION and VISUALIZATION.
• ART and SCIENCE of synthetic worlds.
• Virtual environments and augmented reality.
• Fact and fantasy in STAR TREK, DARK CITY, THIRTEENTH FLOOR, MATRIX, AI.
• Can software programs, hardware computers and autonomous robots create, learn and evolve on their own?
• Can life & intelligence exist in silicon as it does in carbon?
• Are we "just" programs running on some "hidden" universal computer?
• Is consciousness an epiphenomenon? Does it make decisions or simply watch?
• Believe it or not, YOU can write your own Windows PC simulations! (optional)

Software to Enhance Your Creativity

You will have your own Web page up in the first week. You can use use some of this software in your presentations and in your project, or even as your project. I will go over all of it once lightly and will spend extra time with those who have a deeper interest.

• Photoshop
• Dreamweaver
• CuteFTP
• Powerpoint
• Synedit
• Lego Mindstorms RCX
• Borland C++

A Project to Match Your Interests

The course project is your opportunity to explore a domain of artificial worlds close to your own interests. It may include a search of library and web resources, field research, critiques of popular culture, and/or a simulation written by you. Your project should be presented as a paper, web, powerpoint document and/or a Windows application.

No Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites other than an interest in artificial (and natural) worlds. You will have an advantage if you are comfortable working with PCs, browsing the Web, computer games, and sending and receiving E-mail. We will spend some time on these skills and you will have your own website up and running by the end of the first week. Make sure to contact Bruin-On-Line to get your own identification, password, email and website. Please familiarize yourself with the services (including classes) that they offer. Programming is optional to succeed in this course. We will introduce you to new visual tools with drag-and-drop components. It is really not that difficult. Check out the participant reviews and the instructor's profile.

Please arrive on the first day of class with:

• A Bruin-On-Line ID, Password, E-mail account, and Website information.
• 20 Floppy Diskettes and one ZIP-250 Cartridge or UBS Keychain.
• $10.00 for your print account. Printouts cost $0.10 per page for black and white and $0.40 for color.
  

Recommended Readings:

	Current articles and handouts including Computer Models of Cultural Evolution, by Nick Gessler. These will be available on the Web or from the instructor.
	Evolutionary Design by Computers, by Peter Bentley (Editor) List Price: $62.95 amazon.com = $62.95 plus shipping and handling available from ASUCLA This book will also be available on reserve.
	Artificial Life, by Christopher G. Langton (Editor) List Price: $35.00 amazon.com = $35.00 plus shipping and handling available from ASUCLA This book will also be available on reserve.

	The Pattern on the Stone – The Simple Ideas that Make Computers Work, by Danny Hillis. Basic Books, New York (1998). An easy and enjoyable read. List price $13. available from instructor = $10.00
	C++ Guide. BarCharts, Quick Study - Computer. A six-page cheat sheet on the C++ programming language. List Price = 5.95 available from instructor = $4.00
	Growing Artificial Societies – Social Science from the Bottom Up, by Joshua Epstein and Robert Axtell. MIT Press, Cambridge (1996). A quick read for the overall strategy by week three. More in-depth reading will be assigned. List Price = out of print amazon.com = $24.00 plus shipping and handling available from instructor = $25.00
	ATLAS OF CYBERSPACE Martin Dodge & Rob Kitchin List Price = 39.99 amazon.com = $27.99 plus shipping and handling available from instructor = $30.00
	The Computational Beauty of Nature – Computer Exploration of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation, by Gary William Flake. MIT Press, Cambridge (1999). Readings will be assigned each week. amazon.com = 32.95 plus shipping and handling available from instructor = $30.00 MIT Press Website Java Applets and more...
	Blondie24, by David Fogel. Morgan Kauffman (2001). Tells the story of a computer that taught itself to play checkers far better than its creators ever could by emulating the principles of Darwinian evolution and discovering innovative ways to approach the game. amazon.com = 17.46 plus shipping and handling

Grading Formula: