Chapter 50 sunny moment

sunny moment On a Friday afternoon in May 1991, shortly after lunch, the New Mexico sun flooded the courtyard of the monastery where Santa Fe is located, and Dr. Langton sat at a blindingly white table, struggling to keep track of reporters. Unwilling question. Dr. Langton looks exceptionally relaxed and confident these days.He had successfully defended his doctoral dissertation on the edge of chaos six months earlier, in November 1990, finally clearing this dark cloud from his life.At the same time, he naturally obtained a membership card of the Basic Association of Scientists.The Santa Fe Institute immediately hired him as an "outside researcher."External researchers maintain a permanent cooperative relationship with the Santa Fe Institute and have a great say in the scientific research direction of the Santa Fe Institute.After the end of the Cold War, Los Alamos's finances became increasingly tight, barely enough to maintain daily operations.The Santa Fe Institute thus became a major supporter of artificial life research.Langton felt at the institute like he was at home, something he had never felt before.

Longton is clearly not the only one who calls the Institute home.The small courtyard full of sunshine in the afternoon was crowded with visiting scholars and resident scholars.At one table, Kaufman was gushing with Fontana and others about his recent thinking on autocatalysis and complex evolutionary problems, and next to him, David Lane and his graduate student Francesca Francesca Chiaromonte is sitting around a table discussing the latest developments in an economics project: one of their computer simulations is currently exploring the dynamics of multiple adaptations in firms engaged in technological invention; Farmer and a group of young Pi gathered around another table to discuss starting a forecasting company.Farmer had had enough of the financial constraints and bureaucracy at Los Alamos.He felt that the only sensible way to pursue his research interests was to take a break for a few years and make so much money using his predictive algorithms that he would never have to write research grant papers again.He felt so strongly that he had to do so that he had even cut off his ponytail to present himself in the business world with a better appearance.

Of course, on that Friday afternoon, there was a certain preoccupation with the end of an era.For more than four years the monastery had been a small, austere, crowded, but perfect place.The institute was growing, there was no room for any more desks in the corridors, and the monastery's lease was up and the Catholic Church was taking it back.The Institute will move to the rented office in "Land of Lawyers" within a month. It is a new comprehensive office building with larger office space. Everyone thinks that the new office building is very ideal.However, it is no longer possible to have dinner in such a sunny yard.

Langton continued to explain to reporters the nuances of the concept between artificial life and the edge of chaos.A few young postdoctoral fellows in the institute didn't know that this was an interview, so they pulled up chairs and gathered around.Artificial life is already well-known in academic circles, so a talk like this is always worth listening to.An interview quickly turned into a freewheeling discussion.How do you recognize emergence when you see it?What makes the synthesis of a group of entities into an individual?Everyone has an opinion, and no one seems to be shy about expressing an opinion.

Melanie Mitchell, a Ph.D. in computer science at the University of Michigan and the newest member of Butch's group, asks, "Are there differences of degree as individuals?" Langdon doesn't know.He said: "I can't imagine that evolution can act on individuals alone. Evolution always acts on ecosystems, populations, and always the results produced by this part will meet the needs of that part." This raises other questions: Is evolution survival of the fittest or survival of the survivors?What exactly is adaptation?According to Holland, Santa Fe's view is that adaptation requires changes in internal models, but is that the only way to look at adaptation?

When speaking of mutations, one asks, is there more than one mutation?If so, how many mutations exist?Langton was about to answer, then paused, and finally laughed. "I'm going to do research on this. I can't give you a satisfactory answer right now. All these terms, like mutation, life, adaptation, complexity, etc., are questions that we are still trying to understand."