The no free lunch and realistic search algorithms

The No-Free-Lunch theorems (NFLTs) are criticized for being too general to be of any relevance to the real world scenario. This paper investigates, both formally and empirically, the implications of the NFLTs for realistic search algorithms. In the first part of the paper, by restricting ourselves to a specific performance measure, we derive a new NFL result for a class of problems which is not closed under permutations. In the second part, we discuss properties of this set which are likely to be true for realistic search algorithms. We provide empirical support for this in [1]. Categories and Subject Descriptors F.2 [Theory of Computation]: ANALYSIS OF ALGORITHMS AND PROBLEM COMPLEXITY General Terms Algorithms,Theory Keywords No Free Lunch, Genetic algorithms, Heuristics, Theory

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2006
• Where: GECCO
• Authors: Yossi Borenstein, Riccardo Poli
• Keywords: ALGORITHMS AND PROBLEM, GECCO 2006, Optimization, Real World Scenario, Realistic Search Algorithms