Related papers: Directed aging, memory and Nature's greed
The evolution of preferences that account for other agents' fitness, or other-regarding preferences, has been modeled with the "indirect approach" to evolutionary game theory. Under the indirect evolutionary approach, agents make decisions…
As we enter the age of designer matter - where objects can morph and change shape on command - what tools do we need to create shape-shifting structures? At the heart of an elastic deformation is the combination of dilation and distortion,…
The interplay between active matter and its environment is central to understanding emergent behavior in biological and synthetic systems. Here, we show that coupling active nematic flows to small-amplitude deformations of a compliant…
In this paper we investigate networks whose evolution is governed by the interaction of a random assembly process and an optimization process. In the first process, new nodes are added one at a time and form connections to randomly selected…
The process of training an artificial neural network involves iteratively adapting its parameters so as to minimize the error of the network's prediction, when confronted with a learning task. This iterative change can be naturally…
Rigidity is an emergent property of materials - it is not a feature of individual components that comprise the structure, but instead arises from interactions between many constituent parts. Recently, it has been recognized that…
Typically, AI researchers and roboticists try to realize intelligent behavior in machines by tuning parameters of a predefined structure (body plan and/or neural network architecture) using evolutionary or learning algorithms. Another but…
It is now increasingly realized that the underlying mechanism which governs aging (ageing) is a complex interplay of genetic regulation and damage-accumulation. "Aging as a result of accumulation of 'faults' on cellular and molecular…
Animals behave adaptively in the environment with multiply competing goals. Understanding of the mechanisms underlying such goal-directed behavior remains a challenge for neuroscience as well for adaptive system research. To address this…
The evolution of occupied volume under progressive fragmentation of granular matter is studied using a purely geometric model. Rather than modelling disorder directly, properties are investigated by analysing highly ordered reference…
In a co-evolutionary context, the survive probability of individual elements of a system depends on their relation with their neighbors. The natural selection process depends on the whole population, which is determined by local events…
Recent experiments exhibit a rate-dependence for granular shear such that the stress grows linearly in the logarithm of the shear rate, \dot{\gamma}. Assuming a generalized activated process mechanism, we show that these observations are…
Death has long been overlooked in evolutionary algorithms. Recent research has shown that death (when applied properly) can benefit the overall fitness of a population and can outperform sub-sections of a population that are "immortal" when…
Many life-history traits, like the age at maturity or adult longevity, are important determinants of the generation time. For instance, semelparous species whose adults reproduce once and die have shorter generation times than iteroparous…
The innumerable shapes of plant leaves present a challenge to the explanatory power of biophysical theory. A model is needed that can produce these shapes with a small set of parameters. This paper presents a simple model of leaf shape…
Well protected human and laboratory animal populations with abundant resources are evolutionary unprecedented. Physical approach, which takes advantage of their extensively quantified mortality, establishes that its dominant fraction yields…
A common assumption in evolutionary thought is that adaptation drives an increase in biological complexity. However, the rules governing evolution of complexity appear more nuanced. Evolution is deeply connected to learning, where…
We consider the dynamics of a simple one dimensional model and we discuss the phenomenon of aging (i.e., the strong dependence of the dynamical correlation functions over the waiting time). Our model is the so-called random random walk, the…
We are living in an uncertain and dynamically changing world, where optimal decision-making under uncertainty is directly linked to the survival of species. However, evolutionary selection pressures that shape value-based decision-making…
The question of why we age is a fundamental one. It is about who we are, and it also might have critical practical aspects as we try to find ways to age slower. Or to not age at all. Different reasons point at distinct strategies for the…