A Philosophical Essay on Life and Its Connections with Genetic Algorithms

This paper makes a number of connections between life and various facets of genetic and evolutionary algorithms research. Specifically, it addresses the topics of adaptation, multiobjective optimization, decision making, deception, and search operators, among others. It argues that human life, from birth to death, is an adaptive or dynamic optimization problem where people are continuously searching for happiness. More important, the paper speculates that genetic algorithms can be used as a source of inspiration for helping people make decisions in their everyday life.