Multi-species skill-evolution: stages and assumptions

The fundamental assumptions for the whole project:

1. Skills are self-assembled, i.e. without divine or other programmer
2. All skills rely on neural, dendrite, and synapse programming. They therefore use extremely slow processors Neuron run at 100Hz = 10ms, more than 10 million times slower than a PC, but use billions of processors in parallel compared to 4 or 8 for a PC.
3. Many skills are not inherited, i.e. programed by the genome. An example includes the ability to speak English and French. Such skills have been learnt after conception and birth.
4. Almost all skills have evolved, including learnt skills.
5. Innate and learnt skills have separate mechanisms for evolution.
6. Cooperation plays a role in the various mechanisms for evolution.
7. The functionality of skills accrues over evolution and maturation, i.e. later skills draw on earlier skills.

The framing assumptions for the whole project, separating skills from other components:

• Input from the world to skills comes through the perception system, primarily vision and hearing.
• All data from the perceptual analysis is available simultaneously as input to skills, somewhat like a buffet or smorgasbord.
• In some cases, skills and muscle action may be required for perception, such as for moving and focussing the eyes.
• Output to the world goes through action, through the motor-cortex, muscles controlling the angles of joints connecting limbs.
• Feedback controls may link perception to action without going through skills.
• A skeleton with 15 joints and 3 polar coordinates per joint is used for modeling locomotion.
• Joint angles are used instead of relative muscle-tension, to simplify the model
• Neurons are simplified.
• 25 frames per second equals 40 msec between frames, which is used as default neuron firing rate with a synchronized clock
• Numeric instead of binary values.