Material Representations: From the Genetic Code to the Evolution of Cellular Automata

We present a new definition of the concept of representation for cognitive science that is based on a study of the origin of structures that are used to store memory in evolving systems. This study consists of novel computer experiments in the evolution of cellular automata to perform nontrivial tasks as well as evidence from biology concerning genetic memory. Our key observation is that representations require inert structures to encode information used to construct appropriate dynamic configurations for the evolving system. We propose criteria to decide if a given structure is a representation by unpacking the idea of inert structures that can be used as memory for arbitrary dynamic configurations. Using a genetic algorithm, we evolved cellular automata rules that can perform nontrivial tasks related to the density task (or majority classification problem) commonly used in the literature. We present the particle catalogs of the new rules following the computational mechanics framewor...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2005
• Where: ALIFE
• Authors: Luis Mateus Rocha, Wim Hordijk
• Keywords: ALIFE 2005, ALIFE 2007, Cellular Automata, Cognitive Science, Nontrivial Tasks