Figure 5

Generations Needed to Evolve a Full Solution. For evolutionary targets with minimal coding length (a) 13, (b) 15, (c) 15 and (d) 19, the median number of generations needed for the evolution of a full solution is shown. Error bars depict the minimum and maximum number of generations. On the right (in red) the actual number of solutions out of 25 simulations per mutation rate is plotted. Among the solutions shown are some which cannot be maintained and are lost from the population. Leaving out these solutions even strengthens our conclusions. Prolonged experiments (maximum generations = 20000) with high mutation rates give comparable results. That is, results do not qualitatively depend on the amount of time provided for information accumulation.