| Description |
xiv, 199 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm |
| Contents |
Ch. 1. The Game of Life -- Ch. 2. What Is Life? --Ch. 3. The Logic of Self-Reproduction -- Ch. 4. Artificial Growth and Evolution -- Ch. 5. The Ecology of Computation -- Ch. 6. The Biology of the Impossible -- Ch. 7. Simulating Life: Postmodern Science |
| Summary |
Many artificial-life researchers believe that they can create new life in the computer by simulating the processes observed in traditional, biological life-forms. The flight of a flock of birds, for example, can be reproduced faithfully and in all its complexity by a relatively simple computer program that is designed to generate electronic "boids." Are these "boids" then alive? The central problem, Emmeche notes, lies in defining the salient differences between biological life and computer simulations of its processes |
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The Garden in the Machine touches on every aspect of this complex and rapidly developing discipline, including its connections to artificial intelligence, chaos theory, computational theory, and studies of emergence. Drawing on the most current work in the field, this book is the definitive overview of artificial life |
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In this easily accessible and wide-ranging survey, Claus Emmeche outlines many of the challenges and controversies involved in the dynamic and curious science of artificial life. Emmeche describes the work being done by an international network of biologists, computer scientists, and physicists who are using computers to study life as it could be, or as it might evolve under conditions different from those on earth |
| Notes |
Translation of: Det Levende Spil |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages [167]-188) and index |
| Subject |
Biological systems -- Computer simulation.
|
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Biology -- Philosophy.
|
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Life.
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| Author |
Sampson, Steven.
|
| LC no. |
93039101 |
| ISBN |
0691033307 |
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