The Secret Life of Chaos Page #6

a cosmic timescale.

From the first life on

Earth, to us walking about,

took in the region of

But we now have in our hands

a device that can mimic this process

on a much shorter timescale.

What is the invention

I'm talking about?

Well, there's a good chance you've

been sitting in front of one all day.

It is, of course, the computer.

Computers today can churn through

trillions of calculations per second.

And that gives them the power

to do something very special.

They can simulate evolution.

More precisely, computers can use

the principles of evolution to shape

and refine their own programs,

in the same way the natural world

uses evolution to shape

and refine living organisms.

And today, computer scientists

find that this evolved software

can solve problems that would

be beyond the smartest of humans.

One thing that we found particularly

in our original research is how

powerful evolution is as a system,

as an algorithm, to create something

that is very complex and to create

something that is very adaptive.

Torsten and his team's goal

was nothing less

than to use computerised evolution

to create a virtual brain

that would control a virtual body.

To begin with,

they created 100 random brains.

As you can see,

they weren't up to much.

Evolution then took over.

The computer selected the brains

that were slightly better

at moving their bodies

and got them to breed.

The algorithm then takes those

individuals that do the best

and it allows them

to create offspring.

The best movers

of the next generation

were then bred

together and so on and on.

Amazingly,

after just 10 generations,

although they're still a bit

unsteady, the figures could walk.

Eventually, miraculously,

you actually end up

with something that works.

The slightly scary thing

is you don't know why it

works and how it works.

You look at that brain and you have

no idea actually what's going on

because evolution has

optimised it automatically.

In 20 generations,

evolution had turned this...

..into this.

But these evolved computer beings

soon went far beyond just walking.

They evolved to do things

that really are impossible

to program conventionally.

They react realistically

to unexpected events.

Like being hit or falling over.

Even though we programmed these

algorithms, what actually happens

when it unfolds live,

we don't control any more

and things happen

that we never expected.

And it's quite a funny feeling

that you create these algorithms

but then they do their own thing.

An unthinking process of

evolutionary trial and error

has created these virtual creatures

that can move and react in real time.

What we're seeing here

is fantastic experimental evidence

for the creative power of systems

based on simple rules.

Watching how computers can

unconsciously evolve programs

to do things that no human

could consciously program

is a fantastic example

of the power of self-organisation.

It demonstrates that

evolution is itself

just like the other

systems we've encountered.

One based on simple

rules and feedback.

From which complexity

spontaneously emerges.

Think about it. The simple rule

is that the organism

must replicate with a few

random mutations now and again.

The feedback

comes from the environment

which favours the mutations

that are best suited to it.

The result is

ever-increasing complexity,

produced without thought or design.

The interesting thing

is that one can move up

to a higher level of organisation.

Once you have organisms

that actually have patterns on them,

these can be selected for

or selected against by processes

which are essentially feedbacks.

And so evolution itself,

the whole Darwinian scheme,

is, in a sense, Turing again

with feedbacks happening

through different processes.

And that's the essence of this story.

Unthinking, simple rules

have the power to create

amazingly complex systems

without any conscious thought.

In that sense, these computer beings

are self-organised systems,

just like the one Belousov

observed happening in his chemicals.

Just like the ones in sand dunes

and the Mandelbrot sets,

in our lungs, our hearts, in weather

and in the geography

of our planet.

Design does not need

an active, interfering designer.

It's an inherent part

of the universe.

One of the things that makes people

so uncomfortable about this idea of,

if you will, spontaneous pattern

formation, is that somehow or other

you don't need a creator. But

perhaps a really clever designer,

what he would do,

is to kind of treat the universe

like a giant simulation,

where you set some initial condition

and just let the whole thing

spontaneously happen

in all of its wonder

and all of its beauty.

The mathematics of pattern formation

shows that the same kind of pattern

can show up in an enormous range

of different physical,

chemical, biological systems.

Somewhere deep down inside,

it's happening

for the same mathematical reason.

Implicit in those facts

are these beautiful patterns

that we see everywhere.

This, I think,

is a mind-blowing thought.

So, what is the ultimate

lesson we can take from all this?

Well, it's that

all the complexity of the universe,

all its infinite richness,

emerges from mindless simple rules,

repeated over and over again.

But remember,

powerful though this process is,

it's also inherently unpredictable.

So although I can confidently tell

you that the future will be amazing,

I can also say,

with scientific certainty,

that I have no idea what it holds.

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