Artificial Life Books

Clear, readable, interesting topics, mathematical tools are introduced nicely. Great book and a great introduction to simple (but useful) neural modeling.

Brownian Agents and Active Particles: Collective Dynamics in the Natural and Social Sciences

by Frank Schweitzer

The field discussed by the book of Frank Schweitzer has been recently popularized by a novel of Michael Crichton: "Prey". If you want to know more about flocks and swarms and you are interested not only in science fiction, but also in science, the work of Frank Schweitzer is the right place to start with. The popularization of a rather esoteric scientific field, as the one discussed by Schweitzer, is a clear sign of its increasing relevance.

As usual, Crichton's book has a list of references and, as usual, almost only research performed in the United States is quoted. You will find many clues on this US tendency to completely overlook the work done elsewhere in the world also in the book of Schweitzer. Schweitzer's bibliography does justice to the huge efforts taking place in Germany and in Europe. Even if it is very difficult to give proper credits dealing with such a large range of issues as Schweitzer does, his bibliography is to be praised. His book is about Brownian agents, a smart generalization of Brownian particles including internal states. Brownian agents can be effectively used as phenomenological models for many natural and social phenomena including track formation in biological systems, movement and trail formation of humans, evolutionary optimization strategies, urban growth, quantitative sociodynamics, spatial opinion structures in social systems.

Schweitzer's approach is gradual. The first four chapters are devoted to introducing more and more complexities and subtleties in the Brownian agent models, and the focus is on the models themselves rather than on the systems. Reading and understanding these chapters may be a difficult time-consuming task, but the reward is high. Starting from chapter five (on tracks and trail formation in biological systems) and ending with chapter ten (on opinion formation), the reader can amuse him/herself in dealing with models of real systems and devote his/her attention to the more relevant issues for his/her research.

This book contains some gems. My favorite one is in chapter nine: the discussion of a spatial dynamic model for the labor market introduced by the well-known US economist Paul Krugman where "workers are assumed to move toward locations that offer them higher real wages". Schweitzer shows not only that Krugman's model is nothing else that an instance of a selection equation of the Fisher-Eigen type, but also, using the formalism developed previously, he can easily generalize it and question the economic meaning of the assumptions leading to Krugman's equations.

A limit of this book is that the comparison between theoretical results and available empirical data is not always discussed. In many cases, however, not many empirical data are available or of good quality. In this respect, this book can become a stimulus for further empirical research in the fields outlined.

Finally, as in many contemporary books, there are various misprints scattered throughout the chapters. However, these are minor and do not hamper the understanding of the text.

I can recommend this book to all those working in the field of complex systems. They will find a detailed survey of the Brownian agent method and they might get good hints for further research in some of the fascinating fields herein discussed.

The quest for immortality has been a persistent theme in human history. From the mythology of ancient Greece through the ages to the present we have sought limitless life. Stories of vampires, for instance, are in part predicated on the quest for eternal life. So is the story of Frankenstein. But Sidney Perkowitz, professor of physics at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, demonstrates in this important new book written for a general audience that the quest has taken the form of androids, robots, and cyborgs for millennia. For example, Talos of Greek myth was a bronze automaton created by Hephaestus. More recently, fiction has given us robots, cyborgs, and replicants that all demonstrated this quest for immortality. For the first time modern science has created the possibility that the bionic human might be possible in the twenty-first century.

After an introduction that suggests that androids are all around us, Perkowitz divides his study into two parts--"Artificial Beings: Meaning and History" and "How Far Along are We?"--and proceeds to discuss the evolution of the quest for eternal life and the possibilities that exist at the present. In the process he argues that humans have always been bionic from the point that they picked up the first stick and used it as a club to the ultimate merging of humans and machines in cyborgian symbiosis. We see this all the time with artificial body parts made for amputees or hip or knee or other replacements. We also see it with pacemakers and diabetic pumps and hearing aids and eyeglasses.

Perkowitz believes that this is just the beginning of the merging of human and machines and finds the possibilities for the future truly exciting. He does envision serious moral and ethical concerns that require concentrated and long-term consideration. He does not, however, envision any way of stopping this inexorable movement toward ever-greater symbiosis between living beings and technology.

The quest for a bionic person is well underway in laboratories around the world and Perkowitz takes us on a tour of some of the most inventive people and places, ranging from Rodney Brooks and Cynthia Breazeal at MIT to the Honda Corporation lab to the ROBODEX 2003 exposition where the latest ideas on robotics found expression. There is, in Perkowitz's thinking, a critical mass driving humanity toward a new and different level of life and consciousness. Science is exploiting fast developing knowledge of materials, nanotechnology, artificial intelligence, and molecular biology to move toward the creation of ever more complex machines that look and act like people. At the same time scientists are incorporating into humans more and more technology to enhance the quality and longevity of life.

As written on the dust jacket of "Digital People": "In short, we are going beyond what was once the stuff of books and films to create genuine bionic people with fully integrated artificial components--and it will not be long before we reach the ultimate goal of constructing a completely synthetic human-like being." Perkowitz asks, will this step lead to reinterpretations of the meaning of life and debase the human spirit? As text on the dustjacket indicates: "Certainly this God-like ability brings us face-to-face with a host of troubling spiritual, ethical, and legal dilemmas."

This is a stimulating book, one that educates and provokes and questions all at the same time. I highly recommend it.

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Dr. John Ott was upsetting a lot of establishment-type dogmatic teachers and professors in the 1970s and 80s, because his work showed we all need the trace UV radiation which comes from the sun, and that it is not a danger. He showed how "mal-illumination" created illness in plants and laboratory mice, and his work suggested schoolchildren were reacting badly -- with outbreaks of lukemia and hyperactive behavior -- when confined like lab rats in those window-less fluorescent-lit cages called "schools". He stumbled upon these problems while making time-lapse films for Disney, observing that basic physiology and even sexual behavior was affected by loss of trace UV, and that life required full-spectrum light and the normal dark period of rest. The implications of this is, fluorescent lights (even the cute little "compact fluorescents", which are little toxic bombs) cause cancers and childhood learning and behavior disorders. And long term exposure to non-visible radiations from fluorescent lights, computers, microwave ovens, cell phones and such, can also harm your health. This film not only details an important scientific discovery, but it is entertaining, as you get to see all kinds of plants moving and growing in speeded-up time-lapse photography. Not just the opening of flowers, but the growth and ripening of apples and bananas, the growth of a full-size pumpkin from a tiny seed shoot, and the crazy behavior of lab rats and children when exposed to low-level electromagnetic frequencies, as compared to when those frequencies are blocked. He also shows how greenhouses using uv-transmitting plastic windows have better and healthier growth than the normal ones using uv-blocking window-glass. Same with animal breeders, where the lack of UV in indoor pens led to sickness. Really quite amazing. Dr. Ott was ignored, mostly, which is unfortunate, as we continue to live away from nature, behind all sorts of sunlight and UV-blocking architecture, from windows where manufacturers boast "UV-blocking", to sunglasses which boast this, to people at risk slathering heavy-metal creams onto their skin which itself is cancer-causing, not the UV. At some point in the future, people will marvel at our superstitions about the "toxic sun".

This is the VHS version, which appears to be available from resellers in PAL for Europe. It is the same film Dr. Ott used to show at his lectures.

As someone who is interested in the subject of computational neuroscience, I found this book of great help. It is the best introduction to this very interesting and new discipline and well prepares the reader for more advanced reading of the subject.

Genetic Programming helps computers to write their own software, make discoveries, and no doubt will help robots interact with humans in some not too distant future. This book is more interesting than most because each chapter discusses GP from a different perspective. Yet, chapters seem inter-related. By reading the whole book I have gotten more than the sum of all of the individual chapters. It is definitely a good source of information about the state of the art in GP.

The name Thomas J. Sanders must be included in any list of the best Science Fiction writers of our day.

His newest offering is God's Fire, following closely on the heels of The God Chip Conspiracy, his brilliant debut novel of last year. God's Fire's cast of zany but brilliant characters are actually the ancestors of the heroes of The God Chip Conspiracy, and this story is set in the same universe, but 120 years earlier. No matter though, since time in a Sanders novel sometimes turns around and meets itself coming, and both books can be read as complete stories, and in the order you choose.

In God's Fire, we learn more about the development of the God Chip and its first recipients: Joy, a high-tech love doll and CHESTER, the Complete Human Environment Simulation for Tacticel Emergency Response. Our hero, Galileo Newton Goddard, destined from the moment his name was typed on a birth certificate to become the world's greatest scientist, is the creator of the God Chip. Caught in a squeeze play between the forces or irrationality and love, he confronts the ultimate technological dilemna: Can a man find true love and happiness with a machine?

Sander's penchant for mixing complex scientific thought, philosophical allusions and illusions, with a folksy way of storytelling and an almost bizarre but impressive imagination, make every page of God's Fire a work of science fiction art. You'll be guessing all the way through where it will go next.

If you could merge, or clone perhaps, Asimov and Vonnegut, and sprinkle in some cellular matter from Heinlein, you could aptly name the offspring of that mix Thomas J. Sanders.

I enthusiastically recommend God's Fire to all readers, and especially to science fiction lovers.

I have never written a review of anything, but this book compelled me to take the time. I am a physician, and it hit me personally, but it is awe inspiring, refreshing, encouraging, and humbling. I give it my highest recommendation for a book that is about a man who has accomplished inventions similar in scope to individuals who hold much more common names in households today.

"Lethal Secrets" takes a long-range view of donor insemination by interviewing donor offspring, donors and parents years after the fact. Taking a hard look at the ramifications of secrecy and donor insemination is not the norm, nor is advocating for openness. Many, if not most, doctors, patients and sperm banks continue to advocate for secrecy, blithely ignoring the psychological dangers of this widespread practice. Baran and Pannor are ahead of their time. They support donor insemination, yet argue persuasively for openness: not only is it every child's right to know the truth of his or her genetic heritage, it is healthier for the parents and the donors, as well. If you are considering using donor insemination or even donor egg to have a child, this book is invaluable. I only wish the authors would write a book specifically about the psychological aspects of using donor egg