Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!samsung!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!mips!prls!pyramid!ctnews!unix386!cliff
From: cliff@unix386.Convergent.COM (Cliff Neighbors ext 3216)
Newsgroups: comp.ai
Subject: Re: "Sensor Evolution"
Keywords: and your dog
Message-ID: <946@unix386.Convergent.COM>
Date: 22 Mar 90 00:50:00 GMT
References: <782@berlioz.nsc.com>
Organization: Unisys/Convergent, San Jose, CA
Lines: 23

In article <782@berlioz.nsc.com>, andrew@dtg.nsc.com (Lord Snooty @ The Giant Poisoned Electric Head       ) writes:
> Perhaps the most radical proposal (by Cariani of Eaton-Peabody Labs, Boston)
> is for a system which "evolves its own special sensors" in response to
> the dynamic environment.
...
> Despite my incredulity at the proposal, automatic sensor (and indeed
> effector) generation is part of what evolution is all about; the wing, the
> eye, etc. So the existence proof is to be found in Nature.
> 

it seems backwards to me to think of the natural organism (system) to
"evolve its own special sensors", etc. as if the process is something
that it performs or controls.  I thought evolution was something that
happens to the system, where the environment beats the shit out of it
("selection") and the only way it survives is by replication, mutation
and luck -- not by "responding" to the conditions.  It seems to be a process
of destruction more than responsiveness, the zero degree of learning.

	-cn-

----
cliff neighbors: uunet!pyramid!ctnews!zardoz!cliff, cliff@zardoz.Convergent.COM
----