Artificial Life

"In September 1987, the first workshop on Artificial Life was held at the Los

Alamos National Laboratory. Jointly sponsored by the Center for Nonlinear Studies,

the Santa Fe Institute, and Apple Computer Inc, the workshop brought together

160 computer scientists, biologists, physicists, anthropologists, and other assorted

""-ists,"" all of whom shared a common interest in the simulation and synthesis of

living systems. During five intense days, we saw a wide variety of models of living

systems, including mathematical models for the origin of life, self-reproducing

automata, computer programs using the mechanisms of Darwinian evolution to produce

co-adapted ecosystems, simulations of flocking birds and schooling fish, the

growth and development of artificial plants, and much, much more

The workshop itself grew out of my frustration with the fragmented nature

of the literature on biological modeling and simulation. For years I had prowled

around libraries, shifted through computer-search results, and haunted bookstores,

trying to get an overview of a field which I sensed existed but which did not seem

to have any coherence or unity. Instead, I literally kept stumbling over interesting

work almost by accident, often published in obscure journals if published at all."