Evolution as an Algorithm

Hi Woodsy.If you are interested in what actually goes on in such a computer simulation, I recommend that you give DarwinBots a try.
It is an open source program built around hundreds (or thousands) of little "bots" that interact with each other to feed, fight reproduce and generally try to survive.
Each one has a "DNA" which is able to mutate due to various conditions during reproduction. The aim of the simulations is to see what happens when we change the physical conditions in the DarwinBots universe.

Please correct me if I have this wrong.
The wiki article appears to be saying that a random number generator inside an algorith (probabilistic deterministic algorith) is going to send the output in one of a finite number of possible directions such that for any one set of input criteria, N possible outcomes are possible because that is the total number of random possibilities that exist within the randomiser.
This is then deterministic because you can run the algorith N number of times, you will get every possible outcome.
Does that sound about right or am I way off base?

DarwinBots does.
Nothing is selected for except for the organism's ability to stay alive and reproduce successfully. Any number of individual attribute may account for general survival rate.

I thought so too. glad you agree with me.This does pose some rather interesting questions about biological evolution though.At heart, DNA is made up of a limited number of combinations of base pairs. It would be easy to apply the same logic to the real system since the randomiser that is "mutation" can only work within tightly defined criteria (ie. a finite number of base pairs). For any mutation event during reproduction, there are only a finite number of possible outcomes so that would mean that real evolution would also fall into the same definition of the term "non-deterministic algorith".

Yes it's a good idea to keep that stuff in mind for the broader picture but i'm just thinking about a single mutation event of a single organism and whether it can be considered to be an algorith or not.
If it has a random element in the same way as the hypothetical "probabilistic deterministic algorithm" then how is the event any different to a computer modelled event.
For the moment I am ignoring the fact that computers only generate pseudo random events since the wiki definition did not specify that a computer was the source of the randomness.

I've emailed it to you along with a brief description of how to install the program for best results.

It should be located in the same folder as the main DarwinBots.exe program (no matter which version)We should take this offline. Please email me your questions about Darwinbots or post them in the DarwinBots forums