Reference

A Tale of Two Animats: What Does It Take to Have Goals?

Albantakis (2018). A Tale of Two Animats: What Does It Take to Have Goals? The Frontiers Collection. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-75726-1_2

Abstract

What does it take for a system, biological or not, to have goals? Here, this question is approached in the context of in silico artificial evolution. By examining the informational and causal properties of artificial organisms (“animats”) controlled by small, adaptive neural networks (Markov Brains), this essay discusses necessary requirements for intrinsic information, autonomy, and meaning.