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Artificial Life, (commonly '''Alife''' or '''alife''') is a field of study and associated art form which examine , ''hard'' from Hardware , and '' Wet '' from biochemistry approaches respectively2. Artificial life imitates traditional Biology by trying to ''recreate'' biological phenomena.3 The term "Artificial Life" is often used to specifically refer to soft alife. simulation, programmed in Breve , an artificial life simulator]] OVERVIEW Artificial Life studies the Evolution of Agents , or populations of computer simulated life forms in artificial environments. The goal is to study phenomena found in real life evolution in a controlled manner, hopefully to eliminate some of the inherent limitations of evolutionary studies using live bacteria or mice. The simulated nature of the organisms and environments also allows for unorthodox and previously impossible experiments (such as a comparison of Lamarckian Evolution and Natural Selection ). Also sometimes included in the umbrella term "artificial life" are other agent based and become fitter over time. PHILOSOPHY At present the definition of life commonly accepted does not allow for any alife simulations to be considered "alive". However, different opinions about artificial life's potential have arisen:
TECHNIQUES
RELATED SUBJECTS # Artificial Intelligence has traditionally used a Top Down approach while alife generally works from the bottom up. # Artificial Chemistry started as a method within the alife community to abstract the processes of chemical reactions. # Evolutionary Algorithms applied to optimization problems are strongly related to weak alife, yet are sometimes dismissed as 'not ''real'' artificial life'. Many optimization algorithms have been crafted which borrow from or closely mirror alife techniques. The primary difference lies in explicitly defining the fitness of an agent by its ability to solve a problem, instead of its ability to find food, reproduce, or avoid death. The following is a list of evolutionary algorithms closely related to, and used in alife:
# Evolutionary Art uses techniques and methods from artificial life to create new forms of art. # Evolutionary Music uses similar techniques, but applied to music instead of visual art. HISTORY See Also: History of artificial life CRITICISM ALife has had a controversial history; John Maynard Smith criticized certain artificial life work in 1994 as "fact-free science". However, the recent publication4 of artificial life articles in widely read journals such as '' Science '' and '' Nature '' is evidence that artificial life techniques are becoming more accepted in the mainstream, at least as a method of studying Evolution . Generally the lack of biologists and abundance of computer scientists in the field has hurt the field's credibility within mainstream biology. There is also scepticism of the field within the computer science community. NOTABLE SIMULATORS SEE ALSO
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