The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

by David Deutsch

experiment of a slightly different kind: eliminate the graduate student from the project. Then, instead of using a robot designed to evolve better ways of walking, use a robot that is already in use in some real-life application and happens to be capable of walking. And then, instead of creating a special language of subroutines in which to express conjectures about how to walk, just replace its existing program, in its existing microprocessor, by random numbers. For mutations, use errors of the type that happen anyway in such processors (though in the simulation you are allowed to make them happen as often as you like). The purpose of all that is to eliminate the possibility that human knowledge is being fed into the design of the system, and that its reach is being mistaken for the product of evolution. Then, run simulations of that mutating system in the usual way. As many as you like. If the robot ever walks better than it did originally, then I am mistaken.