Multidimensional tags, cooperative populations, and genetic programming

Summary. We present new results on the evolution of tag-mediated cooperation, demonstrating that the use of multidimensional tags can enhance the emergence of high levels of cooperation. We discuss these results in the context of prior cases in which work on the evolution of cooperation has led to practical techniques for improving the problem-solving performance of genetic programming systems. 1 Tag-mediated cooperation Altruism and cooperation are behavioral traits that have long drawn the attention of evolutionary theorists. From a naive reading of Darwinian theory one might expect that natural selection would produce only selfish agents, and that cooperation would be maladaptive and therefore rare. Early theorists recognized, however, that while natural selection may favor selfish genes it does not necessarily favor selfish agents. Beginning with Hamilton in the 1960s biologists have built and tested quantitative theories of the evolution of cooperative behavior among kin, grounded in the understanding that degree of kinship degree of genetic similarity are closely related [1, 2]. More recen