tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6305030.post111135879264635325..comments2024-03-15T10:20:34.198-07:00Comments on Rhosgobel: Radagast's home: Spore - a biological perspectiveRadagasthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01419540565463343922noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6305030.post-29358284927410316592010-05-15T15:30:41.631-07:002010-05-15T15:30:41.631-07:00Steve
The SIMS programs are commercial games that...Steve <br />The SIMS programs are commercial games that intentionally place the human user at the center as the intelligent decision maker and (in Spore) designer. Even though they use the terms of evolution, they do NOT pretend to simulate Darwinian evolution. At best, they show how one or two sub-processes of evolution might work. A true evolution simulation must create a starting set of living organisms, let it 'simmer' for (say) 500,000 years, then see what has 'evolved'. <br /> <br />The comment that "free evolution without external interference is next to impossible" is a tautology (and hence correct but trivial). Darwinian evolution means adaptation of life in its various forms to its immediate environment. Therefore, a correct simulation of evolution will always end up adapting the species to its environment, and so the environment ALWAYS INTERFERES.<br />May 7, 2005, 7:48:35 AM PDT – Like – Reply<br /><br />PZ Myers <br />I'm also pessimistic. They've been down this road before, with Sim Earth and Sim Life, which were just awful. Whoever they've got writing these things doesn't know much biology, and hammering them into their misconceptions made them failures as games, as well. <br /> <br />Sim Ant was entertaining for a little while, but ultimately was so limited in what you could do with it that it palled.<br />May 3, 2005, 8:39:23 AM PDT – Like – Reply<br /><br />lambic <br />The game sounds fascinating, and I completely agree that it has huge potential to expand down the avenues you've outlined. <br /> <br />I have a problem with using "evolution" to describe what the game is doing though. Even if the game were modified to cover all the possibilities you suggest, the creatures' development would still be under the control of an "intelligent designer", so it's more like breeding than evolution. <br /> <br />Many years ago I tinkered with artificial life programming and read up on what AL researchers were doing. Producing an algorithm which allows free evolution without external interference is next to impossible. <br /> <br />I developed a program which had critters, as we called them, exploring a landscape, competing for food and resources, and breeding. It was an elegant program, and a lot of fun to watch, but the critters were heavily constrained by the data structures we gave them.<br />May 3, 2005, 6:13:55 AM PDTRadagasthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01419540565463343922noreply@blogger.com