Appendix B References

[Alberts et al. 2002] Molecular Biology of the Cell, 4th edition; B. Alberts, A. Johnson, J. Lewis, M. Raff, K. Roberts, P. Walter. Published by Garland Science. 1463 pages.

The classic cellular biology textbook, and the book that started it all. Surprises on every other page. The focus is on biology, not on computation, of course, but there is a definite “cybernetic” tinge at times. The book is a wonder to read even for non-biologists (like me). It takes the time to build up from the absolute basics, and has a lucid structure. It is also filled to the brim with images.

[Banzhaf et al. 1998] Genetic Programming: An Introduction; Wolfgang Banzhaf, Peter Nordin, Robert E. Keller, Frank D. Francone. Published by Morgan Kaufmann. 470 pages.

An introductury text on genetic programming, with an overview of different techniques and results. Superficial and often repetitive, but presents limitations of the field.

[Beyer 2001] The Theory of Evolution Strategies; Hans-Georg Beyer. Published by Springer. 380 pages.

A very useful synoptic introductory chapter, and then a whole lotta math leading to some surprising conclusions. The faulty english is never altogether confusing.

[Calvin 1996] The Cerebral Code; William H. Calvin. Published by MIT Press. 256 pages.

[Dawkins 1982] The Extended Phenotype; Richard Dawkins. Published by Oxford University Press. 313 pages.

[Deacon 1997] The Symbolic Species; Terrence Deacon. Published by W. W. Norton and Company. 527 pages.

Another primary inspiration for Monod. The book argues for the close coevolution of the human brain and of language, principally the semiotic aspects of it, and argues that most of what makes us human derives from this history. A principal goal of Monod is to provide an environment suitable for making experiments on coevolution.

Now whether one wishes to invoke the “Baldwin Effect” is a story we will stay away from!

[de Castro and Timmis 2002] Artificial Immune Systems: A New Computational Intelligence Approach; Leandro N. de Castro and Jonathan Timmis. Published by Springer. 357 pages.

A book whose focus is very close to that of the Monod project: to investigate biologically motivated computation. It tackles the properties of the immune system, which are among the most exciting: memory and quick adaptation. However, the area of reseach is clearly very young, with few interesting and original results yet.

[Edelman 1988] Neural Darwinism: The Theory of Neuronal Group Selection; Gerald M. Edelman. Published by Basic Books. 371 pages.

[Monod 1970] Le Hasard et la Nécéssité; Jacques Monod. Published by Éditions du Seuil. 243 pages

The one book that I would have liked to read back in a college biology class - or in philosophy, for that matter. A lucid and far reaching synthesis of the new direction of biology taken after the first discoveries of molecular protein pathways within the cell. Everything is there, from the second law of thermodynamics to materialistic dialectics.

[Sienko et al. 2003] Molecular Computing; edited by T. Sienko, A. Adamatzky, N. Rambidi, M. Conrad. Published by MIT Press. 257 pages.

I discovered this book when the first draft of the documentation was mostly finished (10/22/2003). Reading the introduction and the first chapter, my heart stopped because of the close similarities to Monod. Its stated goal, however, is very different from that of Monod: it is to investigate the appropriateness of non-traditional substrates (molecular, chemical, biological) for computation. Monod is not concerned with substrate. Nevertheless, many sections are concerned with the more theoretical questions of the impact to the notion of computation.

[Turney 1996] Myths and Legends of the Baldwin Effect; Peter Turney. 13th International Conference on Machine Learning (ICML96), Workshop on Evolutionary Computation and Machine Learning, Bari, Italy, July, pp. 135-142. (NRC #39220).

This article can be found online on the author's website:

          http://members.rogers.com/peter.turney/.
     

The Baldwin Effect was one of the reasons the author embarked on the Monod project. This article is a very short, tremendous diatribe about its real meaning — and one of the few places where it is described adequately.