An Attempt To (Really) Tie Complex Systems Together

"Life is if it dies when you stomp on it."

The Reason For It All

This originally started out as an attempt to collate some of the stuff I found while scouring the Internet for Alife-related material. Then the trusty University of Pennsylvania decided to allow us to serve up our own Web documents and this thingy was born ....

Hope it makes life a little easier for someone !

The plaintext version is available via email; send mail to thesisnet-request@eniac.seas.upenn.edu with the subject cplxsys .

Overview

Then, there are ....

• FTP and WWW Sites
• Specific Programs and Papers
• Newsgroups, Journals and Mailing Lists
• Bibliographies
• Some Pictures ....

FTP and WWW Sites

These links represent a large fraction of the major repositories of informational resources related to Complex Systems in general. Most of the links to large sites just go to the top level, since there are quite a few potentially interesting sublevels in each case.

• The ftp site at life.anu.edu.au , which has a complex systems directory which is further subdivided into stuff like Alife, CA, Neural Nets etc. This site also has a WWW server installed. The above hyperlink gets you to the Web site at life.anu.edu.au which has a lot of neat stuff about L-systems, CA, Neural Nets, Alife etc. The papers presented at Complex Systems '92 are here .Definitely worth checking out !!

• The Santa Fe Institute , which is pretty much the place where all the alife and complex systems stuff started, also has an ftp site. The pub/Users/mm subdirectory has some interesting papers on GA/CA. There is an excellent section called ENCORE (Santa Fe Institute Evolutionary Computation Repository) that contains a collection of electronically available resources relating to the field of Evolutionary Computation. The README and OVERVIEW files are good places to start.

• The online-part of the Artificial Life journal also has an Alife Web site set up that looks promising.

• "I can't define it, but I know it when I see it" - words applied to pornography that fit Complexity pretty well too. To that end, here is a Bibliography of Measures of Complexity .

• The University of Texas has a Genetic Programming Web Page, which has links to the GP FAQ and the GP FTP archive. [NOTE : The Web page has been down for a while, God knows what happened to it ...(4/3/95)]

  The Illinois Genetic Algorithms Lab (IlliGAL) has a Web page on Genetic Algorithms. This page has tech reports, some journal papers written by IlliGAL members and some source code.

• CMU's Artificial Intelligence Repository has a page providing links to software packages related to Agents, ALife, CA and GA, among other things.

• The home page of the Avida Alife group at Caltech is now available.

• The Molecular Science Research Center's Neural Network Research Group has a Web page on, you guessed it, Neural Networks. This page also has links to quite a few other repositories of information related to neural networks.

• Neural Networks at the Pacific Northwest Laboratory.

• Marc Smucker's Evolutionary Computation and Artificial Life page has an excellent list of people and groups involved in working with complex adaptive systems.

• The Brookhaven National Lab has a page of Xtoys ie programs for X windows that model stuff like CA, forest fires, the sand-pile for self-organized criticality and so on.

• The UCLA ftp site , with a fairly extensive Alife bibliography.

• The Neuroprose Archives at Ohio State University contain a lot of stuff relating to Connectionism. Take a look at the INDEX file.

• The Adaptive and Evolutionary Systems Group at COGS,University of Sussex now also has a Web page.

• The Principia Cybernetica Web is the Web Server of the Principia Cybernetica Project which "tries to tackle age-old philosophical questions with the help of cybernetic theory and technology". An introduction to what PCP does is here .

• The Center for Complex Systems Research at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

• The Center for Complex Systems and Brain Sciences, at Florida Atlantic University.

• A somewhat unrelated, yet conceivably overlapping area is that of Intelligent Software Agents , with a page here.

• The Nanotechnology WWW page. Lots of links and pointers to other sources of info.

• The ftp site at funic.funet.fi , which, it's maintainers claim, is the largest ftp site in the world in all subjects ... it has stuff on Neural Nets, Neurophysiology, Artificial Intelligence and lots of other such subjects. A really useful file to look at before anything else is the INDEX file.

• Corewar : a repository of information related to Core Wars, warrior programs and all. There is a newsgroup and a FAQ. A tutorial on Core War is here, in part 1 and part 2.

• There is a WWW site at the Los Alamos National Laboratory's Center for Nonlinear Studies,which has some interesting stuff.There is also an FTP site : this contains preprints of various papers under the same headings as given later on in this document for the Nonlinear Science Bulletin Board .

• There is a Fractal FAQ at Ohio State.

• The archives of the Genetic Algorithm Digest are available here .

• The Archives of the Cellular Automata Mailing List (which see below under 'Mailing Lists etc') are here . The archives are stored in the ca.archive* files ie 'ca.archive-1987.Z' holds the compressed archive for the year 1987. The archive for the current year is stored in 'ca.archive'.

• The Xerox PARC site has some papers on the evolution of cooperative behaviour.

• There is a site on non-linear dynamics with a bunch of software and papers here. Check out README for info on what each file/directory contains.

• There are two official ftp sites for Tierra , here and here . These sites contain up-to-date source code, documentation and manuscripts.

• The CWRU Autonomous Agents Research Group has a homepage here.

• Dortmund University (in Germany) also has an anonymous ftp site. As usual, the README file is a good place to start.

Specific programs/papers

The following list is, of course, nowhere near exhaustive; these are just programs/papers I've seen/read and that are mentioned fairly frequently. In most cases, the hyperlinks just get you to the relevant directory, and it's up to you to retrieve the appropriate files; I've included the names of the 'non-obvious' ones. (Unix source code is mostly archived in a file called *.tar.Z ... this needs to be uncompressed and 'untarred').

There's a collection of ALife packages at CMU, which seems to contain pretty much everything.

Alternatively, you can go to the specific sources below :

• Tierra , Tom Ray's way cool digital ecology simulation. This site contains source code (runs on both UNIX and DOS platforms) and documentation for Tierra. There are also manuscripts on Tierra here; see also the Tierra mailing list below.
• Polyworld , another neat simulator, complete with C++ source code written to run on a SILICON GRAPHICS machine and technical paper describing polyworld. README file has more info.
• GENESIS ; this is a program for Neural Network simulation, runs on X11 platforms and is supposed to have rather good graphics.
• Cellsim , a cellular automata simulator by Chris Langton. (Much thanks for the pictures !)
• Cellular , a programmable CA simulator with it's very own language, Cellang, can now be obtained by sending mail to Majordomo@Think.Com. Send the messages get cellular-automata cellular.tar.gz.uu or get cellular-automata cellular.zip.uu in the text body to get the UNIX and DOS versions respectively. (The DOS version should be unzipped with the -d option.)
• SNNS , a neural network simulator written at the University of Stuttgart, Germany.
• ENCORE, a repository of programs/papers related to Evolutionary Computation, has lots of stuff. Check out the OVERVIEW file.
• An implementation of Core War for various systems (Mac, PC, Unix/X-Windows) can be found here. The FAQ lists what system each program is for.
• Game of Life . There are various Life forms ( geddit ?), for PCs and UNIX. Files ending in .zip are for PCs. This directory also contains a collection of 'the best Life patterns ever obtained' in the file lifep.zip. An MS-DOS program for running these patterns is life16.zip. [These patterns can be run on Xlife by changing the .lif extension to .life].
• There is a paper on GAs for beginners and intermediates, in two parts here.
• Bugworld ; simulates a bug-ecology, with predators and all. File is called bugworld.tar.Z .
• L-systems ; Aristid Lindenmayers' L-systems can be used for various neat things, like growing natural-looking plants out of very simple rules. The file is called lsys.tar.Z .
• Biomorphs ; I have a strong feeling that this is Richard Dawkins' program that simulates evolution of what he calls 'biomorphs'; evolutionary pressure is towards critters that look interesting. It looks like this file is for PCs; it's called biomrf.zip .
• LEE (Latent Energy Environment), an Alife simulator is available for ftp. There is also a paper on it here, as lee94.ps.gz .

Newsgroups, Journals and Mailing Lists

• The Artifical Life Distribution List : for subscriptions, deletions or administrative details, send mail to alife-request@cognet.ucla.edu . All submissions for distribution to alife@cognet.ucla.edu . List maintainers : Liane Gabora and Rob Collins .

• The ALife Digest from Aberdeen.

• The Evolutionary Programming List : send mail to ep-list-request@magenta.me.fau.edu with message body subscribe ep-list .

• There are 2 mailing lists devoted to Tierra (see 'Specific Programs/Papers' above): one is devoted to official announcements, updates and bug-fixes ( tierra-announce), while the other will carry official postings and is intended for discussion of Tierra by users ( tierra-digest). The latter is distributed in digest form when there is enough material.

  Addresses :

  tierra-request@life.slhs.udel.edu -> to be added, removed or complain about problems with any of the lists.

  tierra-digest@life.slhs.udel.edu -> to post to the list.

  tierra-bug@life.slhs.udel.edu -> for bug-reports or questions about code or installation.

• The Genetic Programming List : to subscribe, send mail to majordomo@lists.stanford.edu , with the message body subscribe genetic-progamming 'address' . To post to the actual list, send mail to genetic-programmin@cs.stanford.edu . See also the Genetic Programming FTP Archive .

• The Complex Systems News Distribution List : a mailing list dealing with Complex Systems in general ie CA, Alife, GA, fractals etc. To subscribe, send mail to listserv@life.anu.edu.au with the message body subscribe complex "full name" . To post to the list itself, send mail to complex@life.anu.edu.au .

• The Cellular Automata Mailing List : discusses all aspects of Cellular Automata. Send mail to majordomo@think.com with the words 'subscribe cellular-automata' or 'unsubscribe cellular-automata' in the text body to subscribe/unsubscribe respectively. For more information on Listserv commands, send 'help'.

• The Cellular Neural Networks List . From the announcement for the list :

  "Cellular Neural Networks are continuous-time dynamical systems consisting of a grid of processing elements connected only to neighbours within a given distance. They are therefore a class of recurrent neural networks [...]"

  To subscribe, send mail to Marco Balsi at mb@tce.ing.uniroma1.it; to post to the list iself, send the article to cells@tce.ing.uniroma1.it

• The Complexity International Journal , which is a refereed journal for scientific papers relating to work in complex systems research. This journal is available via ftp at life.anu.edu.au and can also be accessed using the hyperlink to life.anu.edu.au . Email correspondence : Submission of manuscripts to ci-submissions@life.anu.edu.au , editorial correspondence to ci-editor@life.anu.edu.au and subscriptions to ci-subscribe@life.anu.edu.au with message body subscribe ci "your name" .

• The Genetic Algorithm Digest : send subscription requests to ga-list-REQUEST@aic.nrl.navy.mil and submissions to ga-list@aic.nrl.navy.mil .

• There is a Genetic Algorithms Research Student List (GEARS) :

  Due to the response to my recent request for discussions, I have set up the GEnetic Algorithms Research Student mailing list (GEARS). In common with a lot of people, I feel that the existing mailing lists don't cater for research students, who are often "left out in the cold". This may be due to one of a number of factors; examples cited being "My supervisor knows nothing about GAs", "No-one else in my department is working on GAs", etc. Although existing mailing lists achieve their objectives admirably, I still feel that GEARS will fill a gap in the current "market". The mailing list will not be restricted to research students, but the discussions are expected to centre around the concerns and interests of this specific group. Example topics may be "How do I get started in GA research?", "Has x ever been tried before?", "Does anyone else get these results?", "Where can I obtain this paper?", "My supervisor's annoying me!", etc.

  Martyn Amos : martyn@dcs.warwick.edu, martyn@santafe.edu

  To subscribe, send mail to gaphd-list-request@dcs.warwick.ac.uk.

• There is a list on Evolving Neural Network Architectures :

  To subscribe : mail to gann-request@cs.iastate.edu with "Subject": subscribe.

  To unsubscribe : mail to gann-request@cs.iastate.edu with "Subject": unsubscribe.

  All administrative queries/enquiries/comments should be addressed to gann-request@cs.iastate.edu. All articles/notes/replies-to-queries/submissions to the list should be sent to gann@cs.iastate.edu

• The Nonlinear Science Preprint Bulletin Board ,at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, which provides a fully automated system for archiving and distribution of electronic preprints. This Bulletin Board is divided into several categories, and for information on how to to access and/or subscribe to any of the following divisions, send mail to the appropriate address with the subject help and a blank message body.

  Dynamical systems/chaos/quantum chaos/topological dynamics/cycle expansions/turbulence/propagation : mail to chao-dyn@xyz.lanl.gov

  Pattern formation/coherent structures/Solitons : mail to patt-sol@xyz.lanl.gov .

  Computational methods/time series analysis/signal processing/wavelets/lattice gases : mail to comp-gas@xyz.lanl.gov

  Adaptation/interacting particle systems/self-organizing systems/computation theory/machine learning : mail to adap-org@xyz.lanl.gov

  For all of the above, send mail to nlin-sys@xyz.lanl.gov .

• Newsgroups : The following newsgroups deal with the various subsets of Complex Systems : comp.ai.alife, comp.theory.cell-automata , comp.theory.self-org-sys , comp.theory.dynamic-sys , sci.nonlinear , comp.ai.genetic , comp.ai.neural-nets , comp.robotics , rec.games.corewar.

FAQs

The following FAQs are available :

• comp.ai.alife.
• comp.ai.neural-nets .
• comp.ai.genetic .
• The FAQ for comp.theory.cell-automata can be obtained by sending mail to majordomo@think.com with the commands

  get cellular-automata ca-faq.text

  end

  as the text of the message. The FAQ comes as PostScript, TeX, Bib or plain text, so just substitute the appropriate extension (.ps, .tex or .bib) for the .text extension in the above message.

• comp.robotics .
• rec.games.corewar.
• A Genetic Programming FAQ is also available.

Other Resources and Bibliographies

The Neurosciences Internet Resource Guide , with lots of good stuff is here .

There is a collection of bibliographies on the subtopics of complex systems, such as Artificial Life, Chaos, Fractals etc here .

The University of Mainz has a bibliography relating to Nonlinear Dynamics.

The Genetic Programming Bibliography.

A few pretty pictures

• Contours of the Mind : an exhibition on Fractal Geometry, Feedback and Chaos.
• Mona Lisa
• A Fractal Fern
• Mandelbrot Set
• Julia Set
• L-system leaf
• A few fractal pictures.
• Go vote on Genetic Art I, Genetic Art II and Genetic Movies.

Maintenance

• Last modified 950117
• This file is being maintained by Alex Mallet. Please email ale@seas.upenn.edu with corrections and updates.
• Alex Mallet's home page of sorts.