Can An Evolutionary Process Create English Text?

Bailey, David H.

Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

关键词: Machine Translations;    Computer Codes;    Biological Evolution;    97;    Standardized Terminology;   

DOI  :  10.2172/964381
RP-ID  :  LBNL-2159E
RP-ID  :  DE-AC02-05CH11231
RP-ID  :  964381

美国|英语

来源: UNT Digital Library

【 摘 要 】

Critics of the conventional theory of biological evolution have asserted that while natural processes might result in some limited diversity, nothing fundamentally new can arise from 'random' evolution. In response, biologists such as Richard Dawkins have demonstrated that a computer program can generate a specific short phrase via evolution-like iterations starting with random gibberish. While such demonstrations are intriguing, they are flawed in that they have a fixed, pre-specified future target, whereas in real biological evolution there is no fixed future target, but only a complicated 'fitness landscape'. In this study, a significantly more sophisticated evolutionary scheme is employed to produce text segments reminiscent of a Charles Dickens novel. The aggregate size of these segments is larger than the computer program and the input Dickens text, even when comparing compressed data (as a measure of information content).