The Effect of Reactant and Product Selection Strategies on Cycle Evolution in an Artificial Chemistry

摘要

The molecules within an Artificial Chemistry form an evolutionary system, capable under certain conditions of displaying interesting emergent behaviours. We investigate experimentally the effect on emergence of the combinations of selected strategies for choosing reactants (Uniform and Kinetic selection) and products (Uniform and Least Energy selection) as measured by three measures of reaction cycle formation. Emergence is maximised by a Kinetic reactant selection strategy; the choice of product selection strategy has minimal effect.