Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!apple!amdahl!nsc!andrew
From: andrew@nsc.nsc.com (andrew)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.neural-nets
Subject: Re: NN Question
Summary: genes for the f-15
Keywords: natural selection
Message-ID: <10180@nsc.nsc.com>
Date: 11 Mar 89 10:27:13 GMT
References: <32125@gt-cmmsr.GATECH.EDU> <10624@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU> <971@afit-ab.arpa>
Distribution: usa
Organization: National Semiconductor, Santa Clara
Lines: 32

In article <971@afit-ab.arpa>, efrethei@afit-ab.arpa (Erik J. Fretheim) writes:
> 
> Agreed that natural selection would not trim extraneous processing, in fact
> as you mention it would tend to enhance it as redundant systems. 
> Take for example pilots, natural selection tends to enhance the numbers 
> who fly airplanes with redundant systems - especially when external stresses
> are induced.

You make a good point, but I think you've been in the Airforce too long !
You can't compare a man-made system with its concomitant catastrophic
failure modes (a la expert system) like an aircraft with a failure-tolerant,
gracefully-degrading, adaptive system like an organism. It is precisely these
features, born out of millenia of ad hoc adaption and evolution, which
reduces the need to kludge on "triply-redundant catastrophically-failing"
stuff like we do in our little designs in the year 1989.
From this perspective, I tend to not see a particularly strong selection
force in favour of redundancy in organisms.
I guess what tickled me was the image of a gene coding for "the ability
to fly a jet fighter"! The timescales of our tech revolutions compared
with that of genetic modification are so out of kilter that it seemed
sort of absurd to use the word "natural" in this context!
===========================================================================
USE EMAIL ADR BELOW ONLY...
	Andrew Palfreyman, MS D3969		PHONE:  408-721-4788 work
	National Semiconductor				408-247-0145 home
	2900 Semiconductor Dr.			there's many a slip
	P.O. Box 58090				'twixt cup and lip
	Santa Clara, CA  95052-8090

	DOMAIN: andrew@logic.sc.nsc.com  
	ARPA:   nsc!logic!andrew@sun.com
	USENET: ...{amdahl,decwrl,hplabs,pyramid,sun}!nsc!logic!andrew