Evolving Communication without Dedicated Communication Channels

Artificial Life models have consistently implemented communication as an exchange of signals over dedicated and functionally isolated channels. I argue that such a feature prevents models from providing a satisfactory account of the origins of communication and present a model in which there are no dedicated channels. Agents controlled by neural networks and equipped with proximity sensors and wheels are presented with a co-ordinated movement task. It is observed that functional, but non-communicative, behaviours which evolve in the early stages of the simulation both make possible, and form the basis of, the communicative behaviour which subsequently evolves.