Deliverables from the project and classification into fields of science

Besides the knowledge they deliver, most research projects have deliverables that are crucial for gaining the knowledge.  Typically the deliverables arise from the research paradigm.  In many cases, progress in the research project can be measured relative to these deliverables.  Where information processing is a crucial part of the paradigm, data structures and software code are part of the deliverables.  For most such projects, the deliverables are in the form of one or two data structures and one or two software programs.  My research project is structured differently, in that there are many deliverables that are linked through common constraints.

For a single species

For a single innate skill, for a single species, we can list the following components or deliverables:
1. a representation of the skill as we would expect it to be stored in the brain
2. a program or process that converts the skill information into action, when the skill is invoked or activated.  For my research, the skills are limited to actions involving skeletal motion (joint angle rotations), and to the integration of some perception (primarily gravity and vision)
3. a program or process that converts the skeletal action into real-world action, e.g. walking
4. a program or process that converts the real-world action into 2D visual information, such as might be seen by an audience – important for falsification.  The same program or process is expected to provide visual information for the visual input associated with the skill.

If the skill above is innate, for a single species, we need the following additional components or deliverables:
5. a representation of the skill as we would expect it to be stored in DNA
6. a program or process that maps the DNA representation into the brain representation.

For the evolution of the same single innate skill, we need the following additional components or deliverables:
7. a program or process that combines the DNA representation for the father and the skill representation of the mother into the target DNA skill representation, where there is variation between the skill of the mother and the skill of the father, multiple ways of combining them, where mostly viable skills are generated, and where viable and non-viable mutations may be generated (in reasonable proportions).
a. Input consists of two DNA skill representations and output is the target skill or variants.
8. a program or process that shows how mutations might lead to additional skills that increase fitness and might lead to a new species

For evaluating the storage requirements and constraints for a complete set of innate skills for a single individual in that same species, we need the following additional components or deliverables:
9. a skill representation for the complete set of innate skills in DNA that is highly compressed to fit the storage constraint in DNA
10. a program or process that may decompress the representation for storage in the brain, and/or for decompression while executing the skill

For a single learned skill, for a single species, we need the following additional components or deliverables:
11. representations of the innate skills that are required and sufficient to generate the learned skill in the brain
a. this may generate new skills
b. this may modify innate skills
12. programs or processes that are required and sufficient to generate the learned skill in the brain
a. we consider mimicry as one of these ‘learning’ skills (imprinting)
b. we consider discovery as one of these ‘learning’ skills
13. programs or processes that may be required to compress the skill representation for long-time storage in memory

For group-level skill-sets of coordinated skills, we need the following additional components or deliverables:
14. representations of the skills in the skill-set of coordinated skills (always multiple skills):
a. we consider rutting and mating behaviours
b. we consider ‘apprenticeship training’, where a learned skill is passed from the parent generation to the offspring generation
c. we consider herd-based defensive skills, often with a lookout and alarms
d. we consider pack-based hunting
15. representation of the information exchange that allows the coordination of the skill-based actions, including information content, sequence, and timing
16. a program or process that models the associated real-world action – and shows how the coordinated action increases the fitness of the group (i.e. the resultant benefits) 

For the evolution of group-level skill-sets of coordinated skills, we need the following additional components or deliverables:
17. a program or process that shows how mutations in one or more of the skills in the set might lead to improvements in performance or communication that increase fitness and might lead to a new skill set and eventually to a new species

For an evolutionary progression of species:

Multiple sets of these components should be produces to model a progression of species with the associated improvements in fitness do to improved skills.

Summary

This research project is associated with an unusually large set of interdependent and mutually constrained deliverables.  In that way it is quite distinct from the typical information processing project.  However, all of the deliverables are in the form of information processing data structures and software code.


I hope this will help in future discussions of my research. Please respond with questions, comments, and clarifications.

Yours truly,

Rainer von Königslöw, Ph.D.
Task Re-engineering Inc.
15 York Valley Cr.
Toronto, Ont. M2P 1A8
416.489.2222
drainer@rogers.com