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Virtual Organisms

The development of computers has naturally led to us comparing them with life, and attempting to model living things with computer programs. Cellular automata, such as John Conway's 'Game of Life', are an obvious example. In Virtual Organisms Mark Ward takes a look at this subject of Artificial Life - or ALife as it has become known. He describes current work in the area, such as genetic algorithms and the modelling of ecological systems. He also shows how other researchers have tried to avoid computers, and have created impressively lifelike robots using just simple electronics.

Its a few years since the book was published and its a fast moving subject, but this isn't as much of a problem as one might expect. At the start of the book Ward suggests that the book will be about ideas for the future of ALife, rather than summarising work done in the subject, but it turned out to be more about the latter. Ward is a journalist rather than an expert in the subject, and sometimes I got the feeling that he was putting together a book from what he had picked up at various ALife conferences over the years. But the book is easy to read and has plenty of interesting material.

Amazon.com info

Hardcover 320 pages
ISBN: 031226691X
Salesrank: 1421555
Weight:1.1 lbs

Published: 2000 Thomas Dunne Books

Marketplace:New from $4.11:Used from $0.68

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Amazon.co.uk info

Hardcover 320 pages
ISBN: 031226691X
Salesrank: 1849416
Weight:1.1 lbs

Published: 2000 Thomas Dunne Books

Marketplace:New from £4.07:Used from £3.52

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Amazon.ca info

Hardcover 320 pages
ISBN: 031226691X
Salesrank: 735084
Weight:1.1 lbs

Published: 2000 Thomas Dunne Books

Marketplace:New from CDN$ 7.99:Used from CDN$ 7.11

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Product Description
Harmless artificial life forms are on the loose on the Internet. Computer viruses and even robots are now able to evolve like their biological counterparts. Telecommunications companies are sending small packets of software to go forth and multiply to cope with ever-increasing telephone traffic. Protein-based computers are on the agenda, and a team in Japan is building an organic brain as clever as a kitten. Welcome to the startling world of Artificial Life. Artificial Life scientists are taking inanimate materials such as computer software and robots and making them behave just like living organisms. In the process they are discovering much about what drives evolution and just what it means to say that something is alive. Virtual Organisms traces the origins of this field from the days when it was practiced by a few maverick scientists to the present and the current boom in Alife research. Leading technology correspondent Mark Ward presents a fascinating survey of current ideas about the origins of life and the engines of evolution. Through interviews with leading developers of Artificial Life, and through his own compelling research, Ward shows how the convergence of technology with biology has enormous implications. In an accessible, entertaining manner, Virtual Organisms reveals an unexplored avenue in predicting the future of Artificial Life , and whether new forms of Alife may be evolving beyond their designer's control.

Product Description

Harmless artificial life forms are on the loose on the Internet. Computer viruses and even robots are now able to evolve like their biological counterparts. Telecommunications companies are sending small packets of software to go forth and multiply to cope with ever-increasing telephone traffic. Protein-based computers are on the agenda, and a team in Japan is building an organic brain as clever as a kitten. Welcome to the startling world of Artificial Life.

Artificial Life scientists are taking inanimate materials such as computer software and robots and making them behave just like living organisms. In the process they are discovering much about what drives evolution and just what it means to say that something is alive. Virtual Organisms traces the origins of this field from the days when it was practiced by a few maverick scientists to the present and the current boom in Alife research.

Leading technology correspondent Mark Ward presents a fascinating survey of current ideas about the origins of life and the engines of evolution. Through interviews with leading developers of Artificial Life, and through his own compelling research, Ward shows how the convergence of technology with biology has enormous implications.

In an accessible, entertaining manner, Virtual Organisms reveals an unexplored avenue in predicting the future of Artificial Life , and whether new forms of Alife may be evolving beyond their designer's control.

Enter�Inorganic Life ****
This book is an interesting survey of progress in using intelligent computer programs like cellular automata to replace older, more rigid programs. Ward attempts to redefine life as the passing of information. He concludes that "the informational basis of life can be abstracted away from the bodies we find it in and lose nothing in the process." He wants to attribute "life" to both organic and inorganic species, thus his title. He moves by steps to show that the quality of human life is no more special than the life of plants, birds, mammals, insects, algae and fish. Although man has advantages with manipulating symbols, other life forms are superior as receptors of smells (ants and dogs) and gravitational maps (salmon and migrating birds). Ward wants the reader to accept the idea that there is nothing any more special about human life than there is about ant life. In fact many of the Artificial Life programs were inspired by ant behavior. All life becomes a matter of processing information. Most of the examples given were in the field of telecommunications, network switching. Parallels were drawn between the information passed in DNA replication and that passed by computer programs. The groups he discusses are endeavoring to breed software in an evolutionary manner analogous to breeding animal life. To his thinking a string of computer bits are agents analogous to a string of amino acids in the chromosome of living agents-interesting ideas.

Enter�Inorganic Life ****

This book is an interesting survey of progress in using intelligent computer programs like cellular automata to replace older, more rigid programs. Ward attempts to redefine life as the passing of information. He concludes that "the informational basis of life can be abstracted away from the bodies we find it in and lose nothing in the process."

He wants to attribute "life" to both organic and inorganic species, thus his title. He moves by steps to show that the quality of human life is no more special than the life of plants, birds, mammals, insects, algae and fish. Although man has advantages with manipulating symbols, other life forms are superior as receptors of smells (ants and dogs) and gravitational maps (salmon and migrating birds). Ward wants the reader to accept the idea that there is nothing any more special about human life than there is about ant life. In fact many of the Artificial Life programs were inspired by ant behavior. All life becomes a matter of processing information.

Most of the examples given were in the field of telecommunications, network switching. Parallels were drawn between the information passed in DNA replication and that passed by computer programs. The groups he discusses are endeavoring to breed software in an evolutionary manner analogous to breeding animal life. To his thinking a string of computer bits are agents analogous to a string of amino acids in the chromosome of living agents-interesting ideas.

An Excellent Introductory Text ****
I have to disagree with many of the other reviewers that have commented on this text as I feel that it provides an excellent introduction to the field of Artificial Life. Any reader who picks up a 'penguin' style softback book with a jazzy cover running to no more than a couple of hundred pages and expects entensive algorthmic listings has little or no experience of printed IT literature. Bearing in mind the limitations imposed upon the author by the parameters of this work, this text provides an excellent theoretical perpective of the field free from the restrictive and time consuming portrayal of endless lines of coding that some reviewers would prefer to see. This is not a technical manual and does not purport to be, it is an excellent introductory text designed for those who use computers and are not used by them.

An Excellent Introductory Text ****

I have to disagree with many of the other reviewers that have commented on this text as I feel that it provides an excellent introduction to the field of Artificial Life. Any reader who picks up a 'penguin' style softback book with a jazzy cover running to no more than a couple of hundred pages and expects entensive algorthmic listings has little or no experience of printed IT literature. Bearing in mind the limitations imposed upon the author by the parameters of this work, this text provides an excellent theoretical perpective of the field free from the restrictive and time consuming portrayal of endless lines of coding that some reviewers would prefer to see. This is not a technical manual and does not purport to be, it is an excellent introductory text designed for those who use computers and are not used by them.

Annoying, boring **
The first entire chapter is just an annoying and unconvincing lecture on evolution that has, from what I can see, nothing to do with the book. The rest seems to be nothing but a history lecture on the people that researched and developed the concepts of digital DNA, cellular automa (Like Conway's game of life) etc... The history was mildly amusing, but without getting very technical, the author lost my intrest soon.

Annoying, boring **

The first entire chapter is just an annoying and unconvincing lecture on evolution that has, from what I can see, nothing to do with the book. The rest seems to be nothing but a history lecture on the people that researched and developed the concepts of digital DNA, cellular automa (Like Conway's game of life) etc... The history was mildly amusing, but without getting very technical, the author lost my intrest soon.

Wonderful book for the rest of us. *****
Another book from an English writer that covers the subject of information in living organisms. This follows on the subject covered in "The Bit and the Pendulum" about the DNA and RNA using digital code in the process of reproduction. Nerds are not invited to read the book. English writers seem to stay away from the Hype and let us in on Memes and Genes and present research on psychology in a methodical manner that references wide ranging thinking and writing such as this one does.

Wonderful book for the rest of us. *****

Another book from an English writer that covers the subject of information in living organisms. This follows on the subject covered in "The Bit and the Pendulum" about the DNA and RNA using digital code in the process of reproduction. Nerds are not invited to read the book. English writers seem to stay away from the Hype and let us in on Memes and Genes and present research on psychology in a methodical manner that references wide ranging thinking and writing such as this one does.

Not recommended **
The book description states, "...Mark Ward presents a fascinating survey..." but the book does not even come close to remotely interesting. The cover art, title, and book description are the highlights of this book, anything beyond that is an extremely dry read. I am surprised that such an interesting subject could be transformed into such a boring lecture. The first 60 pages is dedicated to a tedious review of basic evolution which has become common knowledge. Only later, after losing the readers' interest, does Ward begin to tie this in with the actual subject of the book, artificial life. Yet even when he gets to artificial life, programming codes are not included in the book, so don't even think about it. It's as if Ward were a humanities major writing an extremely tiresome thesis on artificial life. The only saving grace is the actual subject--even Ward cannot completely dampen the fascinating experiments with his stilted prose. Someone interested in doing a book report on the history of organismal life to artificial life may want to give Ward a try--anyone else familiar with the subject of A life should avoid this book.

Not recommended **

The book description states, "...Mark Ward presents a fascinating survey..." but the book does not even come close to remotely interesting. The cover art, title, and book description are the highlights of this book, anything beyond that is an extremely dry read.

I am surprised that such an interesting subject could be transformed into such a boring lecture. The first 60 pages is dedicated to a tedious review of basic evolution which has become common knowledge. Only later, after losing the readers' interest, does Ward begin to tie this in with the actual subject of the book, artificial life. Yet even when he gets to artificial life, programming codes are not included in the book, so don't even think about it. It's as if Ward were a humanities major writing an extremely tiresome thesis on artificial life.

The only saving grace is the actual subject--even Ward cannot completely dampen the fascinating experiments with his stilted prose. Someone interested in doing a book report on the history of organismal life to artificial life may want to give Ward a try--anyone else familiar with the subject of A life should avoid this book.

An easy-to-read approach to a highly theoretic field. ****
This book tries to explain how life is an universal prosess, that cannot be started or stopped. For me, a computer science student with interest in philosophical problems, this book was invaluable. My philosophy professor read it too and liked it, since the last book on this subject was written about ten years ago. The writer makes things easy to understand, even for readers without further knowledge of programming or biology. I found Wards theories interesting, and can recommend this book to anyone interested in the similarities between the human brain and an ant colony.

An easy-to-read approach to a highly theoretic field. ****

This book tries to explain how life is an universal prosess, that cannot be started or stopped. For me, a computer science student with interest in philosophical problems, this book was invaluable. My philosophy professor read it too and liked it, since the last book on this subject was written about ten years ago. The writer makes things easy to understand, even for readers without further knowledge of programming or biology. I found Wards theories interesting, and can recommend this book to anyone interested in the similarities between the human brain and an ant colony.

EnterýInorganic Life ****
This book is an interesting survey of progress in using intelligent computer programs like cellular automata to replace older, more rigid programs. Ward attempts to redefine life as the passing of information. He concludes that "the informational basis of life can be abstracted away from the bodies we find it in and lose nothing in the process." He wants to attribute "life" to both organic and inorganic species, thus his title. He moves by steps to show that the quality of human life is no more special than the life of plants, birds, mammals, insects, algae and fish. Although man has advantages with manipulating symbols, other life forms are superior as receptors of smells (ants and dogs) and gravitational maps (salmon and migrating birds). Ward wants the reader to accept the idea that there is nothing any more special about human life than there is about ant life. In fact many of the Artificial Life programs were inspired by ant behavior. All life becomes a matter of processing information. Most of the examples given were in the field of telecommunications, network switching. Parallels were drawn between the information passed in DNA replication and that passed by computer programs. The groups he discusses are endeavoring to breed software in an evolutionary manner analogous to breeding animal life. To his thinking a string of computer bits are agents analogous to a string of amino acids in the chromosome of living agents-interesting ideas.

EnterýInorganic Life ****