Abstract
Biology gives us numerous examples of self-assertional systems whose essence does not precede their existence but is rather revealed through it. Immune system is one of them. The fact of behaving in order not only to satisfy external constraints as a pre-fixed set of possible environments and objectives, but also to satisfy internal "viability" constraints justifies a sharper focus. Adaptability, creativity and memory are certainly interesting "side-effects" of such a tendency for self-consistency. However in this paper, we adopted a largely pragmatic attitude attempting to find the best hybridizing between the biological lessons and the engineering needs. The great difficulty, also shared by neural net and GA users, remains the precise localisation of the frontier where the biological reality must give way to a directed design.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Doyne Farmer, J., A. Packard and A. Perelson (1987): The immune system, adaptation and machine learning. Physica 22D.
Kauffman, S.A. (1989): Principles of Adaptation in Complex Systems, in D. Stein (Ed), Lectures in the Sciences of Complexity, SFI Series on the Science of Complexity, Addisson Wesley.
Goldberg, D.E. (1989): Genetic Algorithms in search, optimization and machine learning. Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Inc.
Holland, J.H., Holyoak, K.J., Nisbett, R.E. & Thagard, P.R. (1986): Induction: Processes of inference, learning and discovery. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Stewart, J. and F. Varela (1990): Dynamics of a class of immune networks. II) Oscillatory activity of cellular and humoral component. J. theoret. Biol. Vol. 144 pp. 103–115
Varela, F., A. Coutinho, B. Dupire and N. Vaz (1988): Cognitive networks: Immune, neural and otherwise, in A. Perelson (Ed.), Theoretical Immunology, Vol.2 SFI Series on the Science of Complexity, Addison Wesley, New Jersey.
Varela, F., V. Sanchez and A. Coutinho (1989): Adaptive strategies gleaned from immune networks, in B. Goodwin and P. Saunders (Eds.), Evolutionary and epigenetic order from complex systems: A Waddington Memorial Volume. Edinburgh U. Press
Varela, F. and Stewart, J. (1990): Dynamics of a class of immune networks. I) Global behaviour. J. theoret. Biol. Vol. 144: pp. 93–101
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1991 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
About this paper
Cite this paper
Bersini, H., Varela, F.J. (1991). Hints for adaptive problem solving gleaned from immune networks. In: Schwefel, HP., Männer, R. (eds) Parallel Problem Solving from Nature. PPSN 1990. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 496. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0029775
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BFb0029775
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-54148-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-70652-6
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive