The open-endedness of a system is often defined as a continual production of novelty. Here we pin down this concept more fully by defining several types of novelty that a system may exhibit, classified as variation, innovation, and emergence. We then provide a meta-model for including levels of structure in a system's model. From there, we define an architecture suitable for building simulations of open-ended novelty-generating systems and discuss how previously proposed systems fit into this framework. We discuss the design principles applicable to those systems and close with some challenges for the community.
doi:10.1007/s12064-016-0229-7 | full-text view-only version
@article(Banzhaf-2016, author = "Wolfgang Banzhaf and Bert Baumgaertner and Guillaume Beslon and René Doursat and James A. Foster and Barry McMullin and Vinicius Veloso {de Melo} and Thomas Miconi and Lee Spector and Susan Stepney and Roger White", title = "Defining and Simulating Open-Ended Novelty: Requirements, Guidelines, and Challenges", journal = "Theory in Biosciences", volume = 135, number = 3, pages = "131-161", doi = "10.1007/s12064-016-0229-7", year = 2016 )