The EvoGrid

Presentation to Center for Fundamental Living Technology (FLinT)

University of Southern Denmark, OdenseFeb 24, 2009

By Bruce DamerFounder/CEO DigitalSpace, Founding Director,

Contact Consortium/Biota.org

Laying the Foundations for anArtificial Origin of Life

I.Bruce Damer: Creative and

Research Background

1960s-70s –childhood spent dreaming up virtual worlds

1980s – College: self reproducing robotics (Lunar) and proto A-life work in 1985-87 at

the University of Southern California

Late 1980sBuilt first graphical desktop for PCs (Elixir-Xerox)

DigiBarn Computer Museum1987-present: collecting and tracing the

emergence of personal, interactive computing

1990s: Work in Virtual Worlds Medium(Book Avatars by Damer – 1997)

1996

Emergence of AlphaWorld: 1995-96

Mid-Late 1990s: First Meetings & Cyberconferences in Virtual Worlds

1997: Nerve Garden: Generative Virtual SpacesFor Learning about Biology

Biota.org - SIGGRAPH, Ars Electronica

1998: IHI World for Danish Insurance CompanyFirst use of a virtual world as a corporate support space

Virtual Worlds Design of large scale events: Avatars 99 & 2000

Space-Themed Worlds: Avatars 2001

1999: Virtual Walk on the Moon with Apollo astronaut Rusty Schweickart

Rusty Schweickart in Cyber Space - 1999

Rusty Schweickart in Outer Space - 1969

Apollo IX Pilot Rusty Schweickart: Historical actor and narrator to commemorate the 30th anniversary

of the Apollo XI moon landing

II.The Virtual World as a Design

Medium in Outer Space

Tele-presence on other worlds: Lunakhod, 1970s

MER - an “avatar on Mars”, height of mast camera tuned to height of a human

“Mars has now become a place”– Michael Sims, MER mission team co-investigator

2004: DriveOnMars: DigitalSpace’s simulator/experience for the public

Dawes CraterAs photographed by

Apollo XV

DigitalSpace virtual worlds as a new toolset for the robotic mission designer

Design challenge: traverse steep crater

wall’s on the Lunar south

pole, drill

Traditional NASA design process: spreadsheets, some CAD

2006: DigitalSpace drive-able simulation: establishing key issues (navigation, thermal load)

2007: Designing a Deep Solar System Mission: Near Earth Objects (NEOs) - Asteroids

Fully realized concept mission for NASA

Press misinterpretation

2008: Saving the Earth: Asteroid Deflection Campaign: For Rusty Scheweickart/B612 Foundation

2008: Humans in extreme technologically enabled environments: spacewalks (EVAs)

2009: Spacewalk simulations as cognitive enhancement training design tools

III.The EvoGrid

from Macro-level Physics to Micro-level Physics:A proposed virtual world for emergent self-organizational

phenomena

Early exemplar: Karl Sims’ Evolving Virtual Creatures (1991-4)

“Soft” Artificial Life: Concept begins in the 1940s, field named in the 1980s,

progress through the 1990s, 2000s

Evolving Virtual Creatures by Karl SimsInspired a generation of Soft Alife developers in the 1990s-2000s

Evolving Virtual Creatures by Karl SimsInspired a generation of Soft Alife developers

in the 1990s-2000s

2008: Spore by Will Wright Inspiring a generation on bio-inspired virtual worlds

Origins of Life: Archaean to Cambrian1997: Digital Burgess - quest for life’s algorithmic

origins in the “Cambrian Explosion”, Biota.org

1998: Digital Biota 2Cambridge UK

1998: DB32001: DB4

2000s: “Wet” Artificial Life: Protocells (Bedau et al)

Computational Complexity of Real Biochemistry

Lactobacillus colonies on Rogosa agar, how many discrete computations per second?

Damer: PhD Research Question Could Artificial Life arise spontaneously from

Artificial Non-Lifeand could this shed light on

the Origins of Life from Non-Life

New Book: Divine Action

and Natural Selection Gordon: Hoyle’s ChallengeDamer: The God Detector

The Vision: EvoGrid The MovieA Thought Experiment - Storyboards

Goals & ArchitectureCore-physics precursor to the EvoGrid

•Large numbers of atomic objects (quanta of varying properties)

•Movement of and encounters between quanta in simulated space

•Joining and breaking of bonds between quanta

•Malleability of space and time which permit analogues to solid, liquid and gaseous states and support transitions between these states

•Simulation of energy flows between sources and sinks (heat, waves)

•Random perturbations to the whole system at various levels

ArchitectureAutopoesis (ratcheting through self-organization search space)

•Fellermann and Solé et al: coarse-graining and scaling in dissipative particle dynamics, Spartacus.

•Multi-grid simulation (multi resolution).

•Object oriented vs simplistic batch-numerical processing

•Observer function, non-biasing of simulation (processes offline regular dumps)

•Simulation is “griddable” using BOINC a la SETI@Home

•Simulation is secure

One possible implementation (?)Gas Lattice/Cellular Automata (Fredkin, Hasslacher)

Particle movement (14 pathways)

Bond formation, global properties (graviton)

Transit delays (phases of matter?)

Next Steps

• Design Core Physics Module (determine best practices, re-use of existing open components)

• Design Observer Function & visualization interface.• Test runs & iterate• Correspondence to wet chemisty• Suggestion of eventual bridge between Soft & Wet Alife• Analysis, publication

EvoGrid:Philosophical Implications

Will biologists (one day) declare synthetic biological environments “worthy of study as a living system”?

Would an EvoGrid harnessing the power of evolution become a design tool for Humanity in the 21st Century? Would it become a mechanism for life’s expansion into the Solar System or for the survival and extension of life on Earth?

How does a successful origin of life simulation affect our sense of God, our place in the Universe and the future of life?

External Advisors •Richard Gordon, Professor, University of Manitoba•Tom Barbalet, Biota.org•Nick Herbert, retired physicist and author, Stanford University•Larry Yaeger, Professor, University of Indiana•Brian Allen, Graduate Student, MAGIX Lab, UCLA•Karl Sims, GenArts, Inc., Cambridge MA, USA•Dr. Ben Goertzel, CEO, Novamente, Silicon Valley, CA•Dan Miller, President/CTO, Singular Robotics, CA•Piet Hut, Member, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, NJ•Neil Datta, Imperial College London

Prospective:

•Professor Richard Dawkins (Emeritus, Oxford University)•Dr. Tom Ray (University of Oklahoma)•Professor Martin Hanczyc (Associate Professor, Institute of Physics and Chemistry and the Center for Fundamental Living Technology [FLinT], University of Southern Denmark)•Harold Fellermann, graduate student

Resources and Acknowledgements

Project EvoGrid at: http://www.evogrid.orgProject Biota & Podcast at: http://www.biota.org

DigitalSpace 3D simulations and all (open) source code at: http://www.digitalspace.com

We would also like to thank NASA and many others for funding support for this work. Other acknowledgements for this presentation include: Dr. Richard Gordon at the University of Manitoba, the team at DM3D Studios, Peter Newman, Ryan Norkus, SMARTLab, University College London Bartlett School, Exploring Life’s Origins Project, Scientific American Frontiers, and S. Gross.

(Only at the very beginning of this thinking)

Closing Thought