Wesley R. Elsberry
Posts: 4991
Joined: May 2002
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The "linear" vs. "non-linear" issue... It's been raised before, and stomped flat before, though Cryptoguru seems to have missed it, like most indications that he is talking nonsense.
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[Cryptoguru:]
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2) It is not just multiple reading frames that introduce polymorphism into the genome, but regulatory genes can effect the expression of an entire coding gene. This non-linearity is not modelled in AVIDA, which is a linear sequential code (like assembler). That is, the Genome executes a higher-level language than a sequential instruction set.
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Again, this concern is nowhere to be seen in the original challenge, and is thus irrelevant to the original challenge. Plus, the Avida documentation notes:
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One major concept that differentiates this virtual assembly language from its real-world counterparts is in the additional uses of nop instructions (no-operation commands). These have no direct effect on the virtual CPU when executed, but often modify the effect of any instruction that precedes them. In a sense, you can think of them as purely regulatory genes. The default instruction set has three such nop instructions: nop-A, nop-B, and nop-C.
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But like I said, that's all irrelevant to the original challenge.
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The regulatory effects are non-linear, which qualitatively puts paid to Cryptoguru's ignorant prattle. But wait, there's more... Avida genomes are programs in a Turing-complete instruction set, including the full panoply of branching instructions needed to make that happen. The Avida instruction set includes mov-head, jmp-head, and set-flow. Turing-completeness implies that if the Avida instruction set is inadequate to model what Cryptoguru wants modeled, then no other computer language is capable of the job, either.
Cryptoguru has a choice of dropping his particular objection to Avida, or his claim that biology equals computation. There is no third option.
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"You can't teach an old dogma new tricks." - Dorothy Parker
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