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Particle Lenia: Self Organising Particles

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Re: Particle Lenia: Self Organising Particles

#21

Post by wizeman »

lioeters wrote: post #10

I wonder if such artificial life forms could be hooked up to a machine learning algorithm somehow, so that they learn from their experience in the environment. I imagine the organisms would need some kind of "senses" like touch and vision; maybe a concept of food, light, enemy/friend.. Oh, there's a link at the bottom of the paper to a project called Sensorimotor Lenia, which goes in that direction. > These patterns…

> https://developmentalsystems.org/sensorimotor-lenia/

Thanks for this link, this is amazing!

Coupling artificial life with machine learning seems to produce mindblowing results. I encourage interested viewers to watch the Youtube video at the top of that page, it's really great.

Re: Particle Lenia: Self Organising Particles

#22

Post by meheleventyone »

MagicMoonlight wrote: post #15

A completely artificial computer simulation exhibiting properties of life is meaningless. Of course if you call SimulateLife() it will appear to simulate life. But if the things you’re building the supposed life from are made up and you can’t do it in nature then you’re basically just making a video game.

But the point is that they’re not calling SimulateLife() the properties are emergent out of the rules of the simulation. In the same way life emerges from the rules of our universe. It’s just a different substrate and is interesting for its own sake.

Their site actually does a good job of explaining this: https://google-research.github.io/self-organising-systems/pa...

Re: Particle Lenia: Self Organising Particles

#25

Post by tanepiper »

kubb wrote: post #13

I don't see the potential (yet?) except that it's fun.

Imagine you could figure out the rules of the base amino acids, nucleotides and RNA that were around 4.5b years ago on this rock - you could probably get to a decent simulation of understanding how multicellular life came to be.

Beyond that almost everything is a system with rules - bacteria, traffic, people, etc.

By putting in rules only, you can understand emergent behaviours in any system.

Re: Particle Lenia: Self Organising Particles

#26

Post by yencabulator »

amelius wrote: post #20
culi wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you've heard of game of life, right? They've already created computers in that even simpler cellular automata world. They've even recreated the game of life within game of life...

One problem with the game of life is that it is further away from physics, e.g. you can have gliders getting/losing momentum out of nothing, and having limited number of angles in which they can move. From what I see in the video, this is not an issue here.

The point of research leading to Conway's Game of Life was to explore simple patterns that both exhibited complex behavior and were wildly unpredictable. You saying Game of Life is overly simple is a compliment.

Re: Particle Lenia: Self Organising Particles

#27

Post by aatd86 »

wizeman wrote: post #16
MagicMoonlight wrote: post #15

A completely artificial computer simulation exhibiting properties of life is meaningless. Of course if you call SimulateLife() it will appear to simulate life. But if the things you’re building the supposed life from are made up and you can’t do it in nature then you’re basically just making a video game.

> A completely artificial computer simulation exhibiting properties of life is meaningless. > if the things you’re building the supposed life from are made up and you can’t do it in nature then you’re basically just making a video game. It would be pretty cool to have video games with realistic artificial lifeforms...

I wouldn't want to be one of these life forms....

Why would I then play with another conscious life form...

Don't do unto others what you wouldn't want to be done unto you.

Re: Particle Lenia: Self Organising Particles

#28

Post by wizeman »

aatd86 wrote: post #27
wizeman wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> A completely artificial computer simulation exhibiting properties of life is meaningless. > if the things you’re building the supposed life from are made up and you can’t do it in nature then you’re basically just making a video game. It would be pretty cool to have video games with realistic artificial lifeforms...

I wouldn't want to be one of these life forms.... Why would I then play with another conscious life form... Don't do unto others what you wouldn't want to be done unto you.

> I wouldn't want to be one of these life forms....

How do you know you are not one of these life forms?

Re: Particle Lenia: Self Organising Particles

#29

Post by aatd86 »

wizeman wrote: post #28
aatd86 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't want to be one of these life forms.... Why would I then play with another conscious life form... Don't do unto others what you wouldn't want to be done unto you.

> I wouldn't want to be one of these life forms.... How do you know you are not one of these life forms?

I don't. If I were I wouldn't like being toyed with.

So I wouldn't toy with other lifeforms like that.

That's the point.

Re: Particle Lenia: Self Organising Particles

#30

Post by wizeman »

aatd86 wrote: post #29
wizeman wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I wouldn't want to be one of these life forms.... How do you know you are not one of these life forms?

I don't. If I were I wouldn't like being toyed with. So I wouldn't toy with other lifeforms like that. That's the point.

Let's say that tomorrow you literally find out (beyond doubt) that you are one of these lifeforms that lives inside a simulation, along with everyone else in this world.

Would you kill yourself? Would you prefer to never have lived?

What if life were extremely boring unless you were being toyed with? I.e. what if being toyed with actually makes life more fun and worth living.

It seems to me that the criteria for whether it's ethical to create conscious life is not whether someone plays with it, but rather whether the created creature experiences extreme and/or very prolonged suffering.

Even then it's questionable how real and problematic those experiences are, depending on context.

Perhaps suffering is just a trick the mind plays on you to motivate you to achieve something (mental health problems notwithstanding). Perhaps suffering can be relative and/or the mind can adapt to it, depending on how the mind in question works.

Perhaps it can be more ethical to create life, even if it can only live inside a simulation.

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