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Artificial
Life: An Overview
Langton, Christopher G.
Artificial life, a field that seeks to increase the role of
synthesis in the study of biological phenomena, raises scientific
and technical as well as philosophical and ethical issues.
This book brings together overview articles that appeared
in the first three issues of "Artificial Life".
Table of Contents
Artificial life as a tool for biological inquiry, Charles
Taylor and David Jefferson
Cooperation and community structure in artificial ecosystems,
Kristian Lindgren and Mats G. Nordahl
Extended molecular evolutionary biology - artificial life
bridging the gap between chemistry and biology, P. Schuster
Visual models of morphogenesis, Przemyslaw Prusinkiewicz
The artificial life roots of artificial intelligence, Luc
Steels
Toward synthesizing artificial neural netwroks that exhibit
cooperative intelligent behaviour - some open issues in artificial
Llife, Michael G. Dyer
Modelling adaptive autonomous agents, Pattie Maes
Chaos as a source of complexity and diversity in evolution,
Kunihiko Kaneko
An evolutionary approach to synthetic biology - Zen and the
art of creating life, Thomas S. Ray
Beyond digital naturalism, Walter Fontana et al
Llearning about life, Mitchel Resnick
Books on artificial life and related topics, David G. Stork
Computer viruses as artificial life, Eugene H. Spafford
Genetic algorithms and artificial life, Melanie Mitchell and
Stephanie Forrest
Artificial life as philosophy, Daniel Dennett
Llevels of functional equivalence in reverse bioengineering,
Stevan Harnad
Why do we need artificial life?, Eric W. Bonabeau and Guy
Theraulaz.
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Creation:
Life and How to Make It
Steve Grand
Steve Grand OBE is not a man bereft of ambition. His goal
in this smart, wide-ranging and intellectually effervescent
book is to describe, from the perspective of the computer
boffin and Artificial Life expert, what constitutes the conscious
essence of existence, what is intelligence, even "how
we can make a soul". As Grand himself is responsible
for one of the closest available approximations to Artificial
Life, the cyberspatial entities called Norns who star
in Creatures (the wildly popular computer game he programmed),
it is hard to imagine someone better equipped to lead the
layman through this challenging philosophical landscape.
The subjects covered are sometimes bewilderingly diverse.
From cloud formation to neurochemistry to Heisenberg's Uncertainty
Principle, Grand devours, digests and regurgitates facts and
concepts that help build towards his central premise, that
Artificial Intelligence is not just a computer geek's
wet-dream-it is with us already, and about to change the way
we live. If the material seems occasionally a bit thrown together,
and the ideas and notions almost too profuse, the author's
animated, chatty, button-holing style ensures the reader never
entirely loses the plot. Creation is arguably one of the most
important science books of the year; it is certainly one of
the most stimulating
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