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Recent studies of in vitro evolution of DNA via protein binding indicate that the evolution behavior is qualitatively different in different parameter regimes. I here present a general theory that is valid for a wide range of parameters,…
Most research on adaptive decision-making takes a strategy-first approach, proposing a method of solving a problem and then examining whether it can be implemented in the brain and in what environments it succeeds. We present a method for…
The oft-repeated claim that life is written into the laws of nature are examined and criticized. Arguments are given in favour of life spreading between near-neighbour planets in rocky impact ejecta (transpermia), but against panspermia,…
We analyse the unreduced, nonperturbative dynamics of an arbitrary many-body interaction process with the help of the generalised effective potential method and reveal the well-specified universal origin of change (emergence), time and…
Information Theory provides a fundamental basis for analysis, and for a variety of subsequent methodological approaches, in relation to uncertainty quantification. The transversal character of concepts and derived results justifies its…
Evolution in finite populations is often modelled using the classical Moran process. Over the last ten years this methodology has been extended to structured populations using evolutionary graph theory. An important question in any such…
The appeal of thermodynamics to problems outside physics is undeniable, as is the growing recognition of its apparent universality, yet in the absence of a rigorous formalism divorced from the peculiarities of molecular systems all attempts…
How do shared conventions emerge in complex decentralized social systems? This question engages fields as diverse as linguistics, sociology and cognitive science. Previous empirical attempts to solve this puzzle all presuppose that formal…
In an earlier paper [Rational choice and AGM belief revision, Artificial Intelligence, 2009] a correspondence was established between the choice structures of revealed-preference theory (developed in economics) and the syntactic belief…
The Price equation partitions total evolutionary change into two components. The first component provides an abstract expression of natural selection. The second component subsumes all other evolutionary processes, including changes during…
We study open-ended evolution by focusing on computational and information-processing dynamics underlying major evolutionary transitions. In doing so, we consider biological organisms as hierarchical dynamical systems that generate…
The origin of life must have been preceded by Darwin-like evolutionary dynamics that could propagate it. How did that adaptive dynamics arise? And from what prebiotic molecules? Using evolutionary invasion analysis, we develop a universal…
A critical issue in the evolution of software models is change propagation: given a primary change that is made to a model in order to meet a new or changed requirement, what additional secondary changes are needed to maintain consistency…
These lectures contain a brief description of evolutionary models inspired by the statistical mechanics of disordered systems. After an introduction describing the Darwinian paradigm of evolving populations, the deterministic quasispecies…
Social contagion is the process in which people adopt a belief, idea, or practice from a neighbor and pass it along to someone else. For over 100 years, scholars of social contagion have almost exclusively made the same implicit assumption:…
The theory of natural selection cannot describe how early life evolved, in part because acquired characteristics are passed on through horizontal exchange. It has been proposed that culture, like life, began with the emergence of…
A representative researcher has repeated opportunities for empirical research. To process findings, she must impose an "identifying assumption." She conducts research when the assumption is sufficiently plausible (taking into account both…
How can cognitive science build generalizable theories that span the full scope of natural situations and behaviors? We argue that progress in Artificial Intelligence (AI) offers timely opportunities for cognitive science to embrace…
We consider the concept of mutual information in ecological networks, and use this idea to analyse the Tangled Nature model of co-evolution. We show that this measure of correlation has two distinct behaviours depending on how we define the…
The recent interest in human dynamics has led researchers to investigate the stochastic processes that explain human behaviour in different contexts. Here we propose a generative model to capture the essential dynamics of survival analysis,…