Bruce Edmonds, Centre for Policy Modelling

1
Evolutionary Units and Adaptive Intelligence

• Bruce EdmondsCentre for Policy
  ModellingManchester Metropolitan
  Universityhttp//www.cpm.mmu.ac.uk/bruce

2
Different Evolutionary Processes

• Evolution of organisms (with brains)
• Evolutionary processes within brains (neural
  Darwinism, multiple drafts, neural networks etc.)
• Memetic evolution between brains
• Evolution of cultures and societies

3
Some Confusions

• A brain is not a computer and a computer is not a
  brain
• External evolutionary processes are the builder -
  this is different from internal processes which
  may be the blocks
• Internal self-organisation and externally
  driven evolution are very different

4
Change due to Internal Interaction

• Social embedding
• Recursive internal grounding of interaction
• Meaning of interactions comes from emergent
  culture
• Individuals increase personal advantage/computatio
  nal load
• Whole system can drop in global fitness

5
Change due to External Evolution

• Division of labour and competition
• External grounding of interactions
• Meaning of interactions comes from external
  adaptivity
• Individuals may have lower personal advantage and
  higher computational loads
• Whole system seeks maximal fitness

6
What size might be necessary to support global
brains?

• 1,000,000,000,000 cells in a human of which about
  1 in 1,000 is a neurone
• Each cell is complex with 20,000 genes
• 1,000s of cultures composed of 1,000s of members
• In environment of 1,000,000,000 species
• Necessary environment 1 (planet earth) out of ???
  candidate planets

7
Different Analogies

• Hyperlink
• Web Page
• Website
• Collection of Websites
• Method of Organising Interactions (e.g. P2P
  systems)
• Whole Internet
• Person

• Atom
• Molecule
• Gene
• Organelle
• Cell
• Organism
• Society
• Collection of Societies

8
Facilitating the Emergence of a Global Brain

• Reliable replication of large units
• Replication of instructions for processes
• Exterior selective forces
• Population of these units
• Embedding in a real and complex environment
• Autopoesis of large units