Summary: 1
EMERGENT PHENOMENA IN GENETIC PROGRAMMING 1
LEE ALTENBERG
Institute of Statistics and Decision Sciences
Duke University, Durham, NC 27708­0251 USA
ABSTRACT
Evolutionary computation systems exhibit various emergent phenomena, pri­
mary of which is adaptation. In genetic programming, because of the inde­
terminate nature of the representation, the evolution of both recombination
distributions and representations can emerge from the population dynamics.
A review of ideas on these phenomena is presented, including theory on the
evolution of evolvability through differential proliferation of subexpressions
within programs. An analysis is given of a model of genetic programming dy­
namics that is supportive of the ``Soft Brood Selection'' conjecture, which was
proposed as a means to counteract the emergence of highly conservative code,
and instead favor highly evolvable code.
1. Introduction
The ability of complex systems to exhibit emergent properties is one of their main attractions
as subjects of study. By ``emergent'' I here mean behaviors that are not described in the spec­
ification of the system, but which become evident in its dynamics. In conventional computer

Source: Altenberg, Lee - Department of Information and Computer Science, University of Hawai'i at Manoa

Collections: Computer Technologies and Information Sciences