Everything depends on everything

By Robin Dowling · 8 months ago

Complexity in setting the weight variables for everything affects the evolution massively. All weights influence each other, and changing one value ever so slightly can have enormous effects. Sometimes you need to weigh two or more values against each other, since they can have clashing effects.

Currently, with about 15–20 values, and each value able to vary independently across a wide range, the number of possible combinations is incredibly large — effectively limitless. The space of evolutionary paths grows exponentially with each added value. Add to that all the genetic compositions, each individually affected by the weights.

One problem with this is finding an equilibrium — a stable environment where life can be sustained continuously, but not overflow. It needs to be resilient to big changes, but also fluent enough to follow them into unexpected new evolutionary directions. Like, whoever thought that dinosaurs wouldn't be a thing after the Cretaceous period?

It's fun to see the environment adapt — and often collapse, unfortunately. I'm still tweaking those weights.