Claude Shannon formalized the notion of information transmission rate and capacity for pre-existing channels. Wittgenstein in his later work insisted that linguistic meaning be defined in terms of use in language games. C. S. Peirce, the father of semiotics, realized the importance of sign, signified, and interpretant in processes of semiosis. In particular, the connection between sign and signified does not take place in a platonic vacuum but is situated, embodied, embedded, and must be mediated by an interpretant. We introduce a rigorous mathematical notion of meaning, as (1) agent- and observer- perceptible information in interaction games between an agent and its environment or between an agent and other agents, that is (2) useful for satisfying homeostatic and other drives, needs, goals or intentions. With this framework it is possible to address issues of sensor- and actuator- design, origins, evolution, and maintenance for biological and artificial systems. Moreover, correspondences between channels of meaning are exploited by biological entities in predicting the behavior or reading the intent of others, as in predator-prey and social interaction. Social learning, imitation, communication of experience also develop and can be developed on this substrate of shared meaning.

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. Hinton and Nowlan have demonstrated a model of how lifetime plasticity can guide evolution. They show how acquired traits change the shape of the reward landscape in which subsequent genetic variation takes place, and in so doing encourage the discovery of equivalent heritable traits. This enables the seemingly Lamarkian inheritance of acquired characteristics without the direct transfer of information from the phenotype to the genotype. This paper draws direct inspiration from their work to illustrate a different phenomenon. We demonstrate how the formation of symbiotic relationships in an ecosystem can guide the course of subsequent genetic variation. This phenomenon can be described as two phases: First, symbiotic groups find solutions where individual organisms cannot, simply because lifetime interaction produces new combinations of abilities more rapidly than the relatively slow genetic variation of individuals. Second, these symbiotic groups subsequently change the shape of the...

Several of the Major Transitions in natural evolution, such as the symbiogenic origin of eukaryotes from prokaryotes, share the feature that existing entities became the components of composite entities at a higher level of organisation. This composition of pre-adapted extant entities into a new whole is a fundamentally different source of variation from the gradual accumulation of small random variations, and it has some interesting consequences for issues of evolvability. In this paper we present a very abstract model of `symbiotic composition' to explore its possible impact on evolvability. A particular adaptive landscape is used to exemplify a class where symbiotic composition has an adaptive advantage with respect to evolution under mutation and sexual recombination. Whilst innovation using conventional evolutionary algorithms becomes increasingly more difficult as evolution continues in this problem, innovation via symbiotic composition continues through successive hierarchical levels unimpeded.

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Abstract. We consider temporal aspects of self-replication and evolvability – in particular, the massively asynchronous parallel and distributed nature of living systems. Formal views of self-reproduction and time are surveyed, and a general asynchronization construction for automata networks is presented. Evolution and evolvability are distinguished, and the evolvability characteristics of natural and artificial examples are overviewed. Minimal implemented evolvable systems achieving (1) asynchronous self-replication and evolution, as well as (2) protocultural transmission and evolution, are presented and analyzed for evolvability. Developmental genetic regulatory networks (DGRNs) are suggested as a novel paradigm for massive asynchronous computation and evolvability. An appendix classifies modes of life (with different degrees of aliveness) for natural and artificial living systems and possible transitions between them. 1 Models of Time: Logical vs. Physical Time We consider time in discrete dynamical systems. St. Augustine considered time as something intuitively graspable yet ineffable. Varshavsky distinguished two kinds of time: Time as a logical variable in a system defined by events vs. time as an independent physical variable [96], and studied self-timing and asynchrony theory for computing devices as the problem of reconciling the two types of time via design of system timing for the appropriate functioning asynchronous devices interacting with external environments. For a single observer or location, we can consider three main views of the (logical) time:

Dancing is surely the most basic and relevant of all forms of expression. Nothing else can so effectively give outward form to an inner experience. Poetry and music exist in time. Painting and architecture are a part of space But only the dance lives at once in both space and time In it the creator and the thing created, the artist and the expression, are one. Each participant is completely in the other. There could be no better metaphor for an understanding of the...cosmos. We begin to realize that our universe is in a sense brought into being by the participation of those involved in it. It is a dance, for participation is its organizing principle. This is the important new concept of quantum mechanics. It takes the place in our understanding of the old notion of observation, of watching without getting involved. Quantum theory says it can’t be done. That

The Internet has become a major vehicle for people to engage virtual cooperative interaction in which loosely associated individuals interact through a complex social network to mutual benefits. It has given new prominence to human discourse as a continuing source of knowledge. With the growth of usage of listservers and the World Wide Web, it is important to model and support the processes by which knowledge is acquired and disseminated through the Internet (i.e., the net). The emerging cyberorganism consisted of distributed intelligent agents, that is the Internet community at large, provides a `cybernetic living expert system' with a scope and scale well beyond that yet conceivable with computer-based systems alone. This dissertation develops a living systems conceptual framework for modeling socio-technical processes on the net; describes various forms of support mechanisms on the net and categorizes them in terms of the model; applies the conceptual model to generate techniques ...

Signature Sequence Distinguishing between Low-G�C and High-G�C Gram-Positive Bacteria and Pointing to a Specific Relationship of the Latter Group to the Gram-Negative Bacteria.....................1455 Signature Sequences Indicating that Deinococcus and Thermus Are Intermediates in the Transition

this paper. I express great thanksr for his kindness. Finally, I must thank my parents for their support and encouragement throughout my undergraduate and graduate studies. They allowed me to choose my own way, and always supported and encouraged me throughout my life. I will close my acknowledgment by wishing them both health and happiness. Takashi Kido February, 1996 ii Contents 1 Introduction 1