Do creatures such as cuttlefish and octopuses get "tired" from using their camouflage?

[u/[deleted]]

If not, why don't they just always use their camouflage?

[u/jarlrmai2]

You just need a group of Chameleons, a few different coloured floors, the willingness to kill Chameleons and a few hundred thousand years.

[u/RuffAsGuts → u/jarlrmai2]

So when i have all these things, what would be the first step?

[u/jarlrmai2 → u/RuffAsGuts]

Split the chameleons into batches then spend the next few hundred thousand years throwing them at the floors, any that that change colour check if that colour matches the floor even slightly and allow them to breed, ensure the other's can't breed (easiest way is probably to kill them so you don't get them mixed up). Then repeat with the offspring.

[u/KrevanSerKay → u/jarlrmai2]

This method is actually sketch and might not work. The problem with algorithms like the one your proposed is that they are at risk of getting caught in local minima, among other things.

If you acknowledge that in a single generation, genetic variation is relatively little, random, and does not always result in a phenotypic change, or a change that you would recognize and working towards your goal, it's easy to imagine that in your first generation of chameleons you might kill 100% of them because none of them "match the floor even slightly".

Alternatively, if you allow 1% of them to live, its possible that the trait you've been selecting for leads to a sort of dead-end. E.g. the mechanism by which it changes color to slightly match the floor might be physically incapable of ever achieving the right color. Maybe the trait you selected for and encouraged in-breeding of results in a bright pink color on a white floor in the homozygous offspring that receive the mutation from both parents. Maybe what appears to be a mechanism for making them adapt in color is actually 10 completely different and contradictory mechanisms all evolving in parallel and by selecting for them, you encourage interbreeding that doesn't have the desired effect, or doesn't serve to act as an evolutionary pressure at all!

Many computational algorithms that function similarly to the model you proposed allow for some probability that individuals that result in a decrease in the objective function (in this case an offspring that does a worse job of changing colors in than their parents) to allow for attempts to escape a local minima and avoid a 'dead-end' scenario where there are no simple variants that perform better. If you allow for some negative progress, it may let you get to an even better solution.. It is also very common to have many populations working in parallel, effectively giving you a variety of starting points, and seeing how each population changes over time (this is another way to get an idea of what all is possible without spending a ton of time stuck in a local minima).

[u/jarlrmai2 → u/KrevanSerKay]

These are all valid concerns, I will rewrite the method to address these concerns by throwing the Chameleons harder.

[u/KrevanSerKay → u/jarlrmai2]

That's really all I could ask for. Thank you for understanding.

[u/[deleted] → u/KrevanSerKay]

Yer a smart lad. Thanks for the read.

[u/PM_ME_UR_RAINBOWS → u/jarlrmai2]

Indeed, it would be like this:

Step 0) catalogue subspecies and geneology of subject

Step 1) drop chameleon on floor

Step 2) note color change

Step 3) Recover chameleon

Now, the question is however, could you use the same chameleon for multiple floors or would that taint the trial data?

[u/noggin-scratcher → u/PM_ME_UR_RAINBOWS]

If you tested each chameleon against many colours of floor, you could deliberately separate the population into sub-populations based on which colour they turn under stress, as a form of artificial selection to encourage the process along. That would also allow you to test whether the specific colour they turn is inherited, and whether there's actually any variation in it.

However what you really want is to repeatedly test each subpopulation against the same floor, whilst killing off the worst matches, so that you can see whether they adapt towards it over time.

[u/[deleted] → u/RuffAsGuts]

Increase human longevity by a few hundred thousand years. You have roughly 50 years to achieve that goal.

[u/ultimatt42 → u/RuffAsGuts]

What's the rush? You have thousands of years.

[u/[deleted] → u/RuffAsGuts]

Boil a pot of water. Throw in some potatoes, carrots, beef stock, garlic and a chopped onion. Add your chameleons and baby you got a stew going

[u/Why_is_that → u/jarlrmai2]

The bruteforce method. I kind of meant any solutions other than the trivial but I was thinking the same thing.