Subject: Re: Hawking, Penrose: Our universe, highly unlikely. Date: Wed, 11 Jul 2001 00:48:18 -0700 From: "Brian Holtz" To: "Brian Holtz" "Paul Filseth" wrote : > > > Self-reproducing patterns that evolve by Darwinian selection can > > > exist in Conway's "Life" cellular automaton. > > > > Do you have a reference for this? > > Unless my memory fails me, I read this in "The Recursive Universe", > by William Poundstone. I think you or Poundstone has misunderstood something. A quick web search for Conway Life resources reveals the usual menagerie of puffers and gliders and the famous Turing Machine implemented in Life, but no self-reproducing patterns evolving by natural selection. Thomas Ray's Tierra system is I think still the most well-known alife system, but a cursory check of his web pages shows him still wrestling with issues of limits to evolvability. I think artificial systems rich enough to call "life" are definitely in our future, but we aren't there yet. -- Brian.Holtz@sun.com Knowledge is dangerous. Take a risk: http://humanknowledge.net