Method

Nineteen runs of Cosmos were initialised, each with exactly the same ancestor programs, and exactly the same parameter values except for the seed for the random number generator (RNG). Most parameters took on their default values; those that did not are listed in Table 6.1.^6.4 For each completed run, the following measures were investigated:

 

Table 6.1: Non-default Parameter Values for Contingency Experiments.

Parameter	Value
inoculation
number	64
startinfo
rng_seed	[ $\mathit{variable}$]
termination
number_of_timeslices	300000
environment
max_cells_per_process	800
number_of_energy_tokens_per_grid_pos_per_sweep	10
max_energy_tokens_per_grid_pos	25
energy_collection_scheme	private
x_delta	0.025
cell
max_energy_tokens_per_cell	50
neighbouring_genomes_readable	yes
mutation
mutation_application_period	1
default_flaw_period	1000000

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Program age at death

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Replication period (time between 1st and 2nd faithful replication)

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Program length

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Flaw period

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Number of faithful replications per program

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Number of unfaithful replications per program

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Population size

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Population diversity

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Cumulative activity

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Mean cumulative activity

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Activity wave plots