Spot the design, for fun and profit.

[ENIGMA]

6 Items

In the picture linked above are two circuit diagrams, two antennas, and two pieces of programming code.

One circuit diagram, one antenna, and one piece of programming code was designed and constructed/written by human engineers and programmers. The others were generated from genetic algorithms, the only human intervention being the construction of the genetic algorithms, specifically, the "fitness" function of each, based on whatever performance metric the task requires.

So given the designed and undesigned items, and given a major premise of ID (namely that the universe "appears designed"), it should be a simple matter to determine which was designed and which was not. So, surely someone among us can differentiate between the two sets of items using nothing more than some consistant algorithmic or quasi-algorithmic process without any further information.

To make this interesting, I am willing to give $100 to the first person who correctly classifies all the above items and states a consistant mechanism by which they can correctly classify the above pairs, and potentially any other such pairs of items from simple observation. (In other words, such things as "Search the internet and find its history", or "Randomly guess", etc. don't count)

Note: Each circuit and antenna performs an equivalent function as its counterpart, however the two pieces of code perform different functions.

EDIT: Changed to link to the picture instead of showing it directly, so that the preview pane doesn't go nuts.

[QED]

All optimization techniques suffer from the same problems (some more than others), such as the tendency to get "stuck" on local maxima.

True, but there's a deeper sense in which self organizing systems operate and that is their ultimate ability to solve problems. Problems for one solution become opportunities for others. There has been some recent discussion elsewhere on these forums about the deeper structures being uncovered in biological developmental evolution. This suggests that there is indeed a "trick" to life on Earth -- but it also suggests to me some sort of super "local maxima". Maybe I watched too many scary Sci-Fi films in the 80's but I can't help thinking contact with Alien life might not be too good a thing!

[SeekingTheTruth]

Let's be straightforward. Every object in this world comes from the earth.
If you truly believe that there isn't a G-d, then how do you believe that the world came into existence?

[Lotan]

Let's be straightforward. Every object in this world comes from the earth.

Even watches?

[Grumpy]

SeekingTheTruth

Let's be straightforward. Every object in this world comes from the earth.
If you truly believe that there isn't a G-d, then how do you believe that the world came into existence?

Well, it all began some 13.7 billion years ago in an eruption of energy called the Big Bang.

As the temperature and pressure dropped matter condensed out of the energy, time began and the properties of the universe started organizing the matter(all hydrogen except a little helium) into huge megastars where all the elements up to iron were synthesized and galaxies, black holes etc.. After a few million years these star exploded in hypernovas that generated all the other elements and scattered this mix of dust and gas throughout the surrounding space. There were many huge, short lived stars in these first generations, mostly due to the high density of matter(on average) in the early universe.

This gas and dust formed vast clouds where, some 4.5 billion years ago our sun and solar system were born(recent Hubble pictures show this process going on today in the Pillars of Creation). The dust ring around our sun condensed into our planet and the rest of the solar system.



Any other questions?

Grumpy

[QED]

Let's be straightforward. Every object in this world comes from the earth.
If you truly believe that there isn't a G-d, then how do you believe that the world came into existence?

I invited you to come to this topic and tell us how we could go about determining which artifacts were designed by people and which were not. The whole point of this topic is to demonstrate that we cannot infer, merely from appearance, what processes lead to the apparent design in things. This is an old argument that we know goes back at least to the earliest of Greek philosophers. For several thousand years people have be battling this out with some claiming, for example, that the regularities of the planetary orbits were a clear indication of a divine guidance. Then along comes a scientific observation that explains the behaviour. The ability of this explanation to describe every detail of the motion of the planets and their moons highlights the ambiguities involved and tells us that we have to exercise great care when we go simply by looks.

A more recent example of this sort of scientific revelation has come from the mathematical world of Cellular Automata from which simple logical rules can bring about great complexity:



But before our understanding of CA's we would most likely conclude that
patterns like this seen in nature were the aesthetic choice of the great artist of nature:



So while you might well ask how all this has come about, I think it is quite clear that we are witnessing the working through of a process rather than the piece-by-piece hand assembly of a world and all its contents. Not only that, but the nature of this process can be seen in the Genetic Algorithms giving rise to the "apparently designed" products that inspired Enigma to start this topic. The force at work here clearly isn't the least bit choosy about what it produces.

[ENIGMA]

Well, since it has been more than 2 months and there has yet to be either a correct solution posted or a mechanism for distinguishing between designed and generated, I shall now reveal the answers.

The initial 6 items.

1 and 2 were 1-bit adders with carry. I happen to have a few fond memories designing them in lab for a course at Georgia Tech.

1 was human designed, and in a manner roughly similar to how I would have designed it.

2 was generated by a genetic algorithm.

Source for 1 and 2 (Page 16)

3 and 4 were antennas developed for a NASA space mission in essentially a competition to work out whether direct human design by experienced engineers or generation from evolutionary algorithms would yield better results.

3 was designed by the engineers.

4 was generated from the evolutionary algorithms.

4 won the contest.

Source for 3 and 4 (#3 on Page 4, #4 on Page 11)

5 and 6 were snippets of code that did different things.

5 was an analog robot controller developed using evolutionary algorithms.

Source for 5

6 was a random entry from the "Obfuscated C Code Contest" in which participants write C code in such a manner that it is difficult, if not almost impossible, to determine what that code does from a visual inspection.

Source for 6

Obfuscated C Code Contest main page

The example given is not the most obfuscated C code entered in the contest by any means.

A classic example from the 1984 contest:

short main[] = {
277, 04735, -4129, 25, 0, 477, 1019, 0xbef, 0, 12800,
-113, 21119, 0x52d7, -1006, -7151, 0, 0x4bc, 020004,
14880, 10541, 2056, 04010, 4548, 3044, -6716, 0x9,
4407, 6, 5568, 1, -30460, 0, 0x9, 5570, 512, -30419,
0x7e82, 0760, 6, 0, 4, 02400, 15, 0, 4, 1280, 4, 0,
4, 0, 0, 0, 0x8, 0, 4, 0, ',', 0, 12, 0, 4, 0, '#',
0, 020, 0, 4, 0, 30, 0, 026, 0, 0x6176, 120, 25712,
'p', 072163, 'r', 29303, 29801, 'e'
};

Worked out what it does yet?

It moves a across the screen, of course.

It only works on a Vax-11 or pdp-11 computer, so unless you happen to have a 2 decade old computer readily available, don't bother compiling it.


If, by any chance anyone has worked out a mechanism for distinguishing design from generation by evolutionary algorithms, $100 is still up for grabs.

[QED]

I had rather hoped this thread might have been the focus of a little more debate about the potentials within the world for self-organising systems -- goodness knows I've linked people to it often enough! Thanks anyway ENIGMA. We could do with some more online examples of this sort of thing.

Although a little different, the one I keep looking out for is an online "texture explorer". This is a program that generates computer graphics that users can "steer" towards a particular "goal" i.e. if you want a picture of some clouds or wood-grain, then you pick one image from a selection offered to you by the generator (each one slightly different due to random mutations in the "genes" used to generate the images) and the next generation is bred from there. After selecting a series of images over several generations you can watch the image steadily evolve into the scene you wanted to achieve. By adjusting the mutation level and running enough iterations, remarkably authentic looking results can be obtained.

Playing with things like this makes concrete some of the otherwise abstract ideas that we regularly debate here. I can't help thinking that it makes a big difference to what we can accept or reject in our individual world-views.

It only works on a Vax-11 or pdp-11 computer, so unless you happen to have a 2 decade old computer readily available, don't bother compiling it.

Waves hand vigorously I had my hands on a number of these early DEC computers including a rugged 11 reputed to be the first that came into the UK... so the DEC engineer told me anyway.

[OccamsRazor]

Although a little different, the one I keep looking out for is an online "texture explorer". This is a program that generates computer graphics that users can "steer" towards a particular "goal" i.e. if you want a picture of some clouds or wood-grain, then you pick one image from a selection offered to you by the generator (each one slightly different due to random mutations in the "genes" used to generate the images) and the next generation is bred from there. After selecting a series of images over several generations you can watch the image steadily evolve into the scene you wanted to achieve. By adjusting the mutation level and running enough iterations, remarkably authentic looking results can be obtained.

Careful there QED.....that's the path to ID, guiding a genetic algorithm and all .

Also, I don't want to make you feel old guys but when the Vax-11 came out.......I was 2.

[QED]

Careful there QED.....that's the path to ID, guiding a genetic algorithm and all .

But that's the beauty of it The selections made by the user are obviously based on arbitrary aesthetics in the case of the "texture explorer". Once the process is seen in operation we can then consider what other selection criteria might be applied. In the case of the antennae designer this could be as simple as a Radio Frequency power meter automatically selecting the design that attains the highest reading. This demonstrates that no actual intelligence is needed to make the selection. Once we appreciate this, we can then understand how survivability to breeding age naturally selects from biological designs.

Also, I don't want to make you feel old guys but when the Vax-11 came out.......I was 2.

I often wonder what you youngsters have missed out on by not being there when we were punching cards and paper tape. Things like the concept of bootstrapping take on real meaning when you're writing short binary programs by soldering diodes onto boards to make a paper-tape reader capable of reading in the next level of program