ADVANCED ENGINEERING

INFORMATICS
Advanced Engineering Informatics 20 (2006) 313320
www.elsevier.com/locate/aei

Emergence out of interaction: Developing evolutionary technology

for design innovation
George Kampis

a,*

, Laszlo Gulyas

a
b

History and Philosophy of Science, Eotvos University, Budapest, P.O. Box 32, H-1518, Hungary
Computer and Automation Research Institute, Hungarian Academy of Sciences, Budapest, Hungary
Received 22 December 2005; accepted 16 January 2006

Abstract
We consider Class III problems in emergent synthesis methodology. Our aim is to minimize human interaction in coping with problems of incompleteness. We introduce and discuss an agent-based simulation informed from biological evolution. We deal with the problem of persistent species evolution in an articial evolutionary system and argue that a species evolution process can help addressing
design problems, especially design innovation and changing function spaces. Our simulation is based on the theory of fat phenotype
applied to the dynamic generation of new evolutionary tasks. We present the model and its computational results showing how fat phenotypes can yield changing interaction spaces to dene new selection forces that recursively give rise to new species that solve new selection tasks. We discuss prospects for radical evolutionary technology and for emergent synthesis.
2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Emergent synthesis; Design innovation; Phenotype evolution; Agent-based simulation

1. Introduction
We deal with design as a synthesis problem. The question considered in the paper concerns the generation of
novel design in the context of emergent synthesis as introduced by Ueda [1]. In this theory, the diculties in synthesis are categorized into three classes [2]. Class I is
characterized by systems with a complete description of
the design specication and the environment; Class II
means a complete design specication but incomplete
information about the environment; nally, Class III
denotes systems with both incomplete specication and
an incomplete environment description. It is generally held
that the most dicult challenge is posed by the Class III
problems. Because of the underspecied nature of some
of these problems, a continual human interaction is often

Corresponding author. Tel./fax: +36 1 372 2924.

E-mail addresses: kampis@hps.elte.hu (G. Kampis), gulya@omega.
ailab.sztaki.hu, lgulyas@aitia.ai (L. Gulyas).
1474-0346/$ - see front matter 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.aei.2006.01.006

held signicant. For example, manufacturing systems have

been treated as co-creative systems of this kind [3].
However, sometimes human interaction is infeasible,
costly or impossible to achieve (such as in systems dispatched at distant locations). A minimization of human
interaction may be required in such cases. A problem with
this approach is that incomplete information does not
make it possible to achieve a direct design method. We
need to nd another solution that allows for complementing the missing information in an automated way.
The situation is illustrated in Fig. 1. The gure is
adopted from Ueda et al. [2] and refers to Yoshikawas
General Design Theory [4,5]. Ideally, design functions
and the attributes realizing them are linked by mappings
that reect a complete knowledge. To handle incomplete
knowledge without human intervention, we will consider
an iterated process with changing function space and
changing attribute space as in Fig. 2. Our aim is to study
the possibility of minimal knowledge allocation by the
autonomous generation and solution of a series of new
design problems. This procedure may be especially relevant

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G. Kampis, L. Gulyas / Advanced Engineering Informatics 20 (2006) 313320

Fig. 1. Design process using ideal knowledge in General Design Theory

by Yoshikawa.

Fig. 2. Design process with minimal knowledge allocation and an iterative

use of function and attribute spaces in Evolutionary Technology, to cope
with Class III problems of Emergent Synthesis in the sense of Ueda.

in unknown or unpredictable environments, like in the

autonomous operation of populations of robots. At the
same time it models certain features of design innovation
where the introduction of new function spaces is critically
dicult to achieve.
Our approach is very similar to that taken by Luh and
Cheng [6] in an earlier paper of this Journal, using reactive instead of deliberative systems in robotics in a
work informed from immunology. They write: . . . robots
must operate without the direct intervention of other
agents (possibly human) and maintain interaction with
their environment. To support this, . . . try to explore
principles of the immune system focusing on its self-organization, adaptive capability, and . . . memory. Our own
work is motivated from evolutionary theory, where selforganization, adaptability and system memory oer a
framework for coping with function space generation and
hence design innovation as an example of Class III
processes.
We will study how in an evolutionary system it is possible to achieve sustained evolution with a changing function
space. Sustained evolution is known to be one of the most
profound current challenges for Articial Life modeling as

argued repeatedly by dierent authors such as Kampis [7]

and Holland [8]. In this paper we consider the challenge
of sustained evolution to be equivalent with the problem
of the production of new species (i.e. reproductively isolated sub-populations) with a dierent function space. We
present both a theoretical model and a computer simulation to approach the question. In our model, the function
space will be the evolutionary task space of selection and
the attribute space equivalent with the evolutionary phenotype of articial organisms.
Achieving open-ended evolution in design space is just a
rst step towards a minimal allocation design methodology,
that is, an Evolutionary Technology [9]. Ideally, in Evolutionary Technology a system should be able to develop its
own increasing task space by solving a hierarchy of realworld problems. In our model, to support the iterative
process as in Fig. 2, an Evolution Engine is used that could
easily be augmented in the above way with engineering
tasks, like Genetic Algorithms and other adaptive search
techniques. However, the novel step in our study is the testing of the generation and utilization of variability in the task
space, which we consider the missing element to be solved.
Therefore, we concentrate on the free evolution of a system with internal constraints only. In a next step, a complex
and dynamically structured real world environment could be
added to imply environmental problem solving. Here, again
we follow the in-principle test of [6] where a purposeless
abstract environment in the form of a set of discrete states
was assumed in a similar minimal model.
2. The theoretical framework
In the model, we utilize the consequences of the changing dynamics of a phenotype-to-phenotype interaction system in a population of sexually reproducing agents.
The approach is based on the evolutionary application
of fat interactions of natural causal processes as introduced by Kampis [9]. The causal interactional framework
provides a natural tool for discussing the problem of the
production of species understood as sub-populations with
dierent function spaces. Such stable species emergence
is an inherently ecological problem: multiple species with
identical needs (i.e. occupying the same niche) tend to compete and therefore cease to coexist. As a consequence of
this situation, the problem of species evolution in functional space is closely related to that of the emergence
and maintenance of dierent ecological niches in evolution
[1012]. In a series of recent writings by Kampis and Gulyas [13,14] we developed the idea that the dynamics of
niche emergence can be guided by a recursive change in
phenotype-based interaction space that complements adaptive processes that occur relative to a given interaction.
The essential novelty of the model is feedback from the
phenotype to provoke function space change. In a purely
genotype-based evolution model, transformation dynamics
would be necessarily subjected to a xed set of rules over
the entire evolution period rules describing the process

G. Kampis, L. Gulyas / Advanced Engineering Informatics 20 (2006) 313320

of gene (i.e. replicator) selection. In that framework, the

direct modeling of the genetic emergence of new species
and new functions spaces is very dicult, if not impossible,
to achieve at least in lack of exible new selection forces
introduced articially, such as by the human experimenter.
Phenotype-based evolution, by contrast, does not suer
from the same diculty. Here, selection processes are
exerted via the phenotype (i.e. the interactor), where the
phenotype is less rigidly dened than the genotype [15].
Thus, making selection forces depend on phenotypes, we
can try to exploit the rich dynamics of the latter, with the
aim of producing genuine and ecologically meaningful
new selection tasks completely endogenously.
In a real-world evolutionary system, the relation
between the hard genotype, considered in the rst part
of the above paragraph, and the soft phenotype, considered second, is specied by a combination of ontogenetic
and ecological factors. Of these, in the present model we
focus exclusively on the constraints from (articial) ecology. We elaborate the nature of such constraints next, to
illuminate how they can contribute to the problem of
Fig. 2.
We view the interaction capability of the phenotype as
an evolutionary product. The idea is best illustrated by
the simple example of sexual selection. Of the many variables that make up the phenotype, what counts as a variable for the relevant selection function (e.g. tness
function) when the two sexually reproducing organisms
are paired is a function of the two individuals physical
relation. The variable that stands for the one organism is
marked by the other organisms corresponding variable
that interact with it. Mating can occur when the values
taken by these two variables (or, sets of variables) t. To
use a toy example, if the female organism prefers large male
antlers (variable 1) and the male possesses such large antlers (variable 2), then a t, and a mating, is possible, and
reproduction will occur, thus propagating both the genotypes and the phenotypes of the organisms involved in it.
As readily seen from this example, such a matching is
groundless, in that it is based on the relational properties of the two phenotypes and nothing else. Should a
female (or more precisely, a population of females) switch
to focus on body size rather than antlers size, the selection
of the ttest male would be very dierent. In other words,
there is no inherent trait of an organism that predetermines
the success of sexual selection events: female preference (to
stay with the example) may change over time, subjected to
evolutionary factors. This characteristic of sexual selection
is, we suggest, a suitable metaphor for more general ecological and evolutionary interactions.
Ecological evolution producing new evolutionary tasks
(i.e. function spaces) can be as groundless as sexual selection, bootstrapped by similar mechanisms that keep it in
persistent motion. In this way it might be possible to eciently scan a large design space (to borrow the term from
Dennett [16]) which otherwise remains inaccessible for a
total synthesis approach.

315

3. Basics of the model

In the rest of the paper, we study the phenotype-based
evolutionary dynamics of a simple sexual selection system
in order to bring forth new species in the sense as discussed
above. Our work was motivated by the hypothesis, corroborated by the results to be presented, that in a model of sexual selection, evolution can transform and nally split the
population when genetic mutations (or other factors) produce individuals with new phenotype traits. This is because
the new phenotype feeds back on the sexual selection process and redenes the relevant interaction variables. Back
to the example of the new female(s) that prefer body size
and not antlers: with the appearance of such dissenter
individuals, previously silent phenotype traits in the other
individuals (body size in the given example) become suddenly activated and become part of a changed ecological
interaction space.
Note the fact (which will be of primary importance),
that typically all individuals are simultaneously eected
by such a transition. This cannot be otherwise, since they
are all potential mating partners of the dissenter(s), and
they all have some body size. As a result of this situation,
the extant global sexual selection pressure can now be supplemented with a new one that arises spontaneously,
endogenously, and signicantly for evolution theory
but maybe of secondary importance here within a fully
sympatric (i.e. spatially coextensive) population. Ultimately, the idea we will introduce and test is how this
new sexual selection process can repeatedly lead to the
development of new best matches, and, consequently,
to new, sexually reproducing, stable sub-populations that
is, new species which are reproductively isolated and functionally dierent from the rest of the original population.
In the computational part, we present and discuss an
agent-based simulation developed by the authors to illustrate the feasibility of the approach. The agent-based
framework is implemented in the REPAST environment
[17] and is called the FATINT system (short for fat interactions). We performed experiments with populations
consisting of several hundred or a thousand individuals.
Our population consisted of simple sexually reproducing
genderless individual agents (modeled on organisms such
as snails) whose ecological properties are represented as
phenotype vectors. The intended interpretation is that the
components of the phenotype vector stand for the currently
active ecological interactions (i.e. traits turned on). Mating success will be introduced in this system as a function of
a similarity measure, dened as a distance metric over the
phenotype vector pairs. To establish the usual basic evolutionary setting with variability, population turnover and
overlapping generations, every individual was equipped
with a minimal physiology that requires it to eat food
(supplied externally to the population in the form of
energy), and to undergo aging, which leads ultimately to
death (modeled as a progressive failing of the eciency
of energy processing).

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Fig. 3. Without a change of the interaction dimension, the population tends to develop into one single stable species, which is characterized with a selfdeveloped center and a typically normal distribution of the property (phenotype) vectors.

Reproduction was represented as the spawning of new

agents, accompanied with crossing over and mutation,
which are operations executed directly on the phenotype
vectors (in other words, biologically, the underlying ontogeny is trivial: phenotype equals genotype). In the current
version of the simulation, the only internally adjustable
parameters are the phenotype vectors.
Phenotype vectors are understood in our model as variable length records that remain xed during the lifetime
of an agent but may change across generations. By way
of simplication, in this pilot study the interaction change
will be represented as the change of the dimensionality of
the phenotype vector at the birth of a new dissenter
agent. The semantics of the interaction change implies that
when such a change of dimensionality is introduced in one
individual, it is swept across the whole population
instantaneously, corresponding to the global nature of
the concept of interaction space, as discussed.
To anticipate the results: If dimension change is prohibited, the population in the model tends to develop into one
stable species under a wide range of parameters, starting
from a seed of agents with randomly selected phenotypes.
This corresponds to what is expected in a basic evolution
engine as described above. The stable population is characterized with a self-developed emergent center and a normal
distribution (Fig. 3). On the other hand, the internal intro-

Fig. 4. Spontaneously evolved species represented in a Fruchterman

Reingold [18] plot after 6000 steps. Disconnected components denote subpopulations in reproductive isolation.

G. Kampis, L. Gulyas / Advanced Engineering Informatics 20 (2006) 313320

duction of new interaction dimensions facilitates the

spontaneous development of several more species, i.e. of
reproductively isolated sub-populations with dierent
emergent foci (Fig. 4).
A key issue in the technology of modeling interaction
change is the assignment of phenotype traits to new interaction dimensions. We performed experiments with several
assignment methods, among them a type-based deterministic and a non-type based random assignment, as well as a
modulo rule based assignment, the meaning of which will
be explained at the end of Section 4. Importantly, in each
case, new phenotypes are stretched along the new interaction dimension, which introduces new variance. We found
that the emergence of new species was eected but did not
crucially depend on the choice of the particular stretch solution applied. At the end of the paper we discuss the feasibility
of natural mechanisms to achieve the same results under biologically and technologically meaningful conditions.
4. Specication of the model
Our experiments were conducted using the basic evolution engine that maintained a stable population. The
engine denes a usual evolutionary setting and provides a
sympatric environment without a spatial component. This
engine simulates a partial articial ecology with a single
resource, energy. Each organism has an equal chance to
eat in every time step. (This fact introduces an implicit
competition for energy, which leads to density-dependent
eects. Genotypes represented with a higher number of
individuals will necessarily obtain a larger share, even if
all other things are equal.)
The emergent model of interest in the paper is built on
top of the evolution engine. In the evolution engine each
agent has its phenotype represented as a vector of integers
from the interval [Vmin, Vmax]. The length of the vector is
always identical for all agents. In addition to their phenotypes, agents only have the minimum of properties: age
and accumulated energy. The evolution engine uses a
quasi-parallel activation regime. Every agent gets activated
exactly once per every time step in a dynamically randomized order. The agents activity consists of three steps:
energy intake, energy consumption, and reproduction.
The agent rst seeks Ein units of energy from the shared
environment, and, depending on the amount available, it
receives ein units (possibly 0). The eciency of energy
intake decays with age:
age

eaccumulated eaccumulated ein  Ediscounting ;

where 0 < Ediscounting < 1. Next, the agent consumes
Econsumption units of its accumulated energy. If the agent
does not have the sucient amount available, it dies.
Surviving agents attempt to reproduce with probability
Pencounter. The updating of the shared environment, which
means the addition of Eincrease units to the energy pool,
completes the iteration step. When reproducing, the agent
picks a random mate from a list of potential partners, lim-

317

ited to the individuals similar enough to bear an ospring

with the given agent. Similarity is measured using Euclidean distance between the agents phenotype vectors. An
important advantage of this metric is that it is dimension
independent. Therefore, our metric allows for sexual selection to occur identically between all conceivable pairs of
phenotypes of an arbitrary dimensionality.
Given two parents, and similarity d as above, the
number of ospring is Mconst + (Mlimit  d) Mslope (for
d > Mlimit). The spawned new agents inherit their parents
phenotypes, except for mutation and crossing over that
occur with probabilities Pmutation and Pcrossing, respectively,
per gene. Mutation shifts the value of a gene by a random
value in [Vmutation, +Vmutation]. If the mutated value falls
outside [Vmin, Vmax], the ospring is dropped.
A new phenotype dimension is introduced with probability Pchange per ospring. When such an event occurs, a
new trait slot is added to the end of the agents phenotype
vectors. The particular value an agent receives depends on
the used stretch method. The type-based method calculates this value from the agents old phenotype traits,
whereas the non-type based method relaxes that condition.
For simplicity, only the value v of the last dimension is used
in the type-based procedure:
vnew V min v  V stretch mod V max  V min 1;
where Vstretch is a positive parameter. The type-independent
method selects a uniform random value from [Vmin, Vmax].
The meaning of the expressions type-based and nontype-based should be clear from the procedure. The rst
one generates identical new phenotypes for each copies of
a genotype, whereas the latter permits phenotypes and
genotypes to be linked by many-to-one or many-to-many
mappings.
5. Computational results
We summarize our main results by rst pointing out the
observed dramatic dierence between the atline behavior
of the basic engine and the divergent, rich species production behavior of the same system when interaction change
is allowed. Interaction change introduced, a formerly stable
convergent species becomes more extended in property
space, and nally it splits, giving rise to two or more new
stable sub-populations, or species. The process can repeat
itself several times, ultimately producing a host of new,
smaller species, all functionally and reproductively distinct
from each other. This, together with the competitive forces
from the density eects (discussed in Section 4) yields a
steadily, but slowly increasing number of species as illustrated in Fig. 6.
The qualitative process is as follows. The introduction
of new dimensions alters the property distribution of phenotypes, so that their average distance increases. This
makes it possible for several individuals to escape the
attraction of the sexual selection force that maintains the
original species and keeps it conned within a small radius.

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G. Kampis, L. Gulyas / Advanced Engineering Informatics 20 (2006) 313320

At the same time, along the new dimension axis some new
close ts can emerge that diminish the distance among individuals which are far from the center of the original species.
Thereby new mating centers are dened, and reproduction
makes them ever stronger. The process happens with a high
probability if the distance within the new germs is smaller
than the average distance within the old species. Finally,
with the death of individuals which were close enough to
both centers, so as to be able to reproduce with individuals
from both groups (and to maintain the whole population
as one single species), the original species splits into two
(or more) parts. Parts once separated will never be united
again, because their intermediates are strongly selected
against as the radius of the new species decreases due to
competition between best ts in the new emergent center
and less perfect ts surrounding it (Fig. 5).
Prior to testing these consequences of the interaction
change we conducted several experiments to test the stabil-

ity of the underlying evolution engine. Our results show

that, left alone, the engine forms and maintains a single
species under a very wide range of parameters. In the tests
we applied conditions where a constant energy inux constrained the maximum potential number of individuals that
can be maintained in the model. Under such conditions,
new species can emerge only at the indirect cost of others.
Taken together with the density-dependent side eects of
the energy uptake algorithm (see Section 4), the fact that
population size is bounded, poses a limitation on the possible emergent processes of interest and biases the system
towards single-species solutions. On the other hand, maintaining a stable and realistic minimal ecosystem such as this
was considered fundamental to the study of species emergence. Detailed results about the convergence and stability
properties of the basic evolution engine can be found in
[14].
Let us now focus on our key issue again, the eect of
interaction change. All experiments were performed with
populations of several hundred or a thousand individuals.
A typical run was started with phenotypes of ve dimensions. (For the default values of the other parameters of
the evolution engine see Table 1.) During the simulation
process this number has increased to about 50 in a few
thousand time steps. To ensure the robustness of our
results we conducted extensive experiments with various
parameter combinations and pseudo-random number
seeds. Specically, we varied each parameter in a wide
range, while always keeping the rest at their default value.
We discussed earlier that the normal functioning of the
evolution engine leads to a fast convergence to a single
species. By contrast, as shown in Fig. 6, the gradual introTable 1
Default parameter settings
Vmin
Vmax
Pencounter
Pcrossing
Pmutation
Vmutation

Fig. 5. Stages of the development of a population that splits into several

species, i.e. reproductively isolated sub-populations that solve dierent
tasks. Lines mark mutual reproduction ability between the pairs of
individuals represented as dots.

0
100
0.1
0.2
0.1
2

Mlimit
Mslope
Mconst
Econsumption
Ein
Ediscounting
Eincrease

15
0
1
5
10
0.9
1000

Fig. 6. The evolution of species in the FATINT system. The graph shows
the average number of species (over 10 runs) versus time using default
settings. Error bars show minimum and maximum values, respectively.

G. Kampis, L. Gulyas / Advanced Engineering Informatics 20 (2006) 313320

Table 2
Default values for the interaction change parameters
Pchange

0.0075

Stretch method

Type-based/
type-independent
1

Vstretch (Only used with the

type-based method)

Fig. 7. The evolution of species using a type-independent stretch method

(see text). The average number of species (over 10 runs) versus time, using
default settings. Error bars show minimum and maximum values.

duction of new phenotype interaction dimensions results in

a growing number of reproductively isolated species. Since
we have seen that the evolution engine limits population
size, there is a natural upper limit to the number of emergent species. Except for this factor, the interaction change
simulated in this model yields a persistent evolution of
new species.
There are three parameters related to interaction change
as summarized in Table 2. We experimented with changing
them one by one. Selecting Pchange between 0.0005 and
0.001 yielded similar results: the number of species shows
a monotonic growth. The curve gets steeper for higher values of the parameter, and the number of species after
12,000 iterations falls between 5 and 15. The value of
Vstretch was varied between 1 and 20, with similar resulting
behavior in all cases, although higher parameter values
yielded higher variance. Finally, the type-independent
stretch method also reproduces the same qualitative
results, although with a much greater variance (see Fig. 7).
6. Discussion
Using a simple sexual selection example our model demonstrates the validity of the in-principle claim that a changing interaction eld can lead to emergent eects producing
sustained evolution of populations or articial organisms
with a changing function space. A detailed sensitivity analysis is published elsewhere [14].
The presented model clearly lacks biological feasibility
(dimensions are only added and never dropped; new properties are assigned too radically in the whole population,
etc.). Yet we maintain that there exists several biologically

319

relevant mechanisms that produce similar results. One candidate is the existence of phenocopies, that is, environmentally induced dierent phenotype types for the same
genotype. Another is the switching of food or mating preference as it also occurs in actual populations. The computational modeling of these mechanisms would require the
use of epigenetic and ecological theory, as well as detailed
phenotype-to-environment mappings, and goes beyond
what is attempted here in this paper, where our focus was
on emergent task spaces only.
In the domain of engineering problems, our models relevance is with addressing underspecied problems in a
dynamic environment. Such problems are immensely hard
as open-ended, dynamically changing task and function
spaces require open-ended solutions, capable of dynamic
change. Adaptive models have long been used and are also
part of Class II and Class III methodology in emergent
synthesis [1,2]. We argued that adaptation alone is not
enough, as design innovation as a Class III problem is
not amenable for such adaptive modeling. Yet evolutionary models using self-organizational properties such as
ones arising from phenotype interaction may be of help.
Our work operationalizes this insight by demonstrating
the possibility of iterative design systems such as foreseen
in [9] and illustrated in Fig. 2. However, our results stay
among the boundaries of modeling and simulation of emergent systems, which, admittedly, is but a rst step towards
applications to real technical systems and problems. Yet,
we argued that augmenting our FATINT model with concrete tasks to be done is relatively easy in certain domains.
However, in other domains external (i.e., human) interaction may prove to be unavoidable. Nonetheless, keeping
this type of costly and often infeasible interaction to a minimum is essential. Therefore, the capability of automating
design innovation is valuable even in this broader problem
domain. Such an approach would be in line with a number
of pioneering tendencies that aim for the building of hybrid
systems, where computational processes are complemented
with physical realizations having an autonomous role.
Acknowledgments
Part of the work reported here was carried out during
the rst authors stays in the School of Knowledge Science,
JAIST, Japan, and in Kalamazoo College, MI, USA. The
hospitality of these institutions, as well as the personal support of Professor S. Kunifuji (JAIST) and Professor Peter
Erdi (Kalamazoo) is gratefully acknowledged. Computer
simulations were done on the BeoWulf cluster of the Center for Complex Systems Studies, Physics Department,
Kalamazoo College, as well as on the SUN E10K, E15K
system of Hungarys NIIF Supercomputing Center in
Budapest.
Laszlo Gulyas acknowledges the support of the GVOP3.2.2-2004.07-005/3.0 (ELTE Informatics Cooperative Research and Education Center) grant of the Hungarian
Government.

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G. Kampis, L. Gulyas / Advanced Engineering Informatics 20 (2006) 313320

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