Are complex systems hard to evolve?

TL;DR

This paper investigates the difficulty of evolving complex systems by measuring the trials needed and analyzing the behavior of evolved logical gates, suggesting a possible isomorphism between behavioral and evolutionary complexities.

Contribution

It introduces a novel measure of evolutionary complexity based on trials and links behavioral complexity to cellular automata dynamics, proposing a hierarchy relationship.

Findings

Evolving logical gates requires numerous trials in non-linear media.

Behavioral complexity correlates with cellular automata behavior.

Hierarchies of complexity may be isomorphic under certain conditions.

Abstract

Evolutionary complexity is here measured by the number of trials/evaluations needed for evolving a logical gate in a non-linear medium. Behavioural complexity of the gates evolved is characterised in terms of cellular automata behaviour. We speculate that hierarchies of behavioural and evolutionary complexities are isomorphic up to some degree, subject to substrate specificity of evolution and the spectrum of evolution parameters.