Related papers: Cells Solved the Gibbs Paradox by Learning to Cont…
The ``Gibbs Paradox'' refers to several related questions concerning entropy in thermodynamics and statistical mechanics: whether it is an extensive quantity or not, how it changes when identical particles are mixed, and the proper way to…
Evolution and learning are two of the fundamental mechanisms by which life adapts in order to survive and to transcend limitations. These biological phenomena inspired successful computational methods such as evolutionary algorithms and…
It has been hypothesized that one of the main reasons evolution has been able to produce such impressive adaptations is because it has improved its own ability to evolve -- "the evolution of evolvability". Rupert Riedl, for example, an…
Neural codes appear efficient. Naturally, neuroscientists contend that an efficient process is responsible for generating efficient codes. They argue that natural selection is the efficient process that generates those codes. Although…
Many mechanisms, functions and structures of life have been unraveled. However, the fundamental driving force that propelled chemical evolution and led to life has remained obscure. The 2nd law of thermodynamics, written as an equation of…
Enzymes are on the front lines of evolution. All living organisms rely on highly efficient, specific enzymes for growth, sustenance, and reproduction; and many diseases are a consequence of a mutation on an enzyme that affects its catalytic…
The Gibbs Mixing Paradox is a conceptual touchstone for understanding mixtures in statistical mechanics. While debates over the theoretical subtleties of particle distinguishability continue to this day, we seek to extend the discussion in…
We review the behaviour of the Gibbs' and conditional entropies in deterministic and stochastic systems and continue to a formulation appropriate for a stochastically perturbed system with delayed dynamics. The underlying question driving…
On the basis of the general form for the energy needed to adapt the connection strengths of a network in which learning takes place, a local learning rule is found for the changes of the weights. This biologically realizable learning rule…
Life occurs in concentrated `Ringer Solutions' derived from seawater that Lesser Blum studied for most of his life. As we worked together, Lesser and I realized that the questions asked of those solutions were quite different in biology…
A central biological question is how natural organisms are so evolvable (capable of quickly adapting to new environments). A key driver of evolvability is the widespread modularity of biological networks--their organization as functional,…
The Gibbs paradox is a conventional paradox in classical statistical mechanics, typically resolved by invoking quantum indistinguishability through the 1/N! correction. In this letter, we present a resolution within classical ensemble…
The quest to comprehend the origins of intelligence raises intriguing questions about the evolution of learning abilities in natural systems. Why do living organisms possess an inherent drive to acquire knowledge of the unknown? Is this…
Living beings are able to solve a wide variety of problems that they encounter rarely or only once. Without the benefit of extensive and repeated experience with these problems, they can solve them in an ad-hoc manner. We call this capacity…
The Turing machine, as it was presented by Turing himself, models the calculations done by a person. This means that we can compute whatever any Turing machine can compute, and therefore we are Turing complete. The question addressed here…
`Entropy' appears as driving force in many different evolution equations, both deterministic and stochastic, and in these equations this `entropy' also takes different forms. We show how all these examples can be understood as different…
As Evolutionary Dynamics moves from the realm of theory into application, algorithms are needed to move beyond simple models. Yet few such methods exist in the literature. Ecological and physiological factors are known to be central to…
Learning and the ability to learn are important factors in development and evolutionary processes [1]. Depending on the level, the complexity of learning can strongly vary. While associative learning can explain simple learning behaviour…
Gibbs paradox in the context of statistical mechanics addresses the issue of additivity of entropy of mixing gases. The usual discussion attributes the paradoxical situation to classical distinguishability of identical particles and credits…
Since the time of Darwin, scientists have struggled to reconcile the evolution of biological forms in a universe determined by fixed laws. These laws underpin the origin of life, evolution, human culture and technology, as set by the…