On 10/7/07, J Storrs Hall, PhD <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I'm not convinced, primarily because I would have said the same thing about > actual bacteria vs humans if I didn't have the counterexample.
Granted, all I have is armchair reasoning, and it's certainly not unreasonable for you to fail to be convinced by such. It'd be more solid if we could throw some experimental evidence into the mix. Modern algorithms on modern hardware should be able to run a self-replicating creature in Conway's Life, perhaps a big enough population of them to get some sort of idea of some of the evolutionary pathways; anyone reading this in the mood for a fun challenge? :) I did once download and run an evolutionary CA someone wrote, that allowed various shortcuts to cram a self-replicator into a few tens of cells, with extraneous mutation and death functions. Had a spare Pentium box around at the time, so I ran it for 6 months, got some results the programmer hadn't anticipated. Not in the direction of intelligence alas. ----- This list is sponsored by AGIRI: http://www.agiri.org/email To unsubscribe or change your options, please go to: http://v2.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=50930439-12be0e
