Emergent Phenomena In Genetic Programming

Evolutionary computation systems exhibit various emergent phenomena, primary of which is adaptation. In genetic programming, because of the indeterminate nature of the representation, the evolution of both recombination distributions and representations can emerge from the population dynamics. A review of ideas on these phenomena is presented, including theory on the evolution of evolvability through differential proliferation of subexpressions within programs. An analysis is given of a model of genetic programming dynamics that is supportive of the "Soft Brood Selection" conjecture, which was proposed as a means to counteract the emergence of highly conservative code, and instead favor highly evolvable code. 1. Introduction The ability of complex systems to exhibit emergent properties [13] is one of their main attractions as subjects of study. By "emergent" I here mean behaviors that are not described in the specification of the system, but which become evident in its dynamics. In co..