> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > In a message dated Tue, 18 Dec 2001 9:12:16 PM Eastern Standard Time, "Alberto Monteiro" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes: > > > > > The Fool wrote: > > > > > >But that is not the issue. You create a significantly advanced (and > > >probably slightly bug prone) system that is designed to make a better > > >system. That system should hopefully be bug free (if the original > > >programmers didn't f%&^ up severely). That system in turn creates an > > >even more advanced system that should be even more bug free (because > > >computers are not prone to the kinds of mistakes that humans make). Even > > >if that system was just a pure rewrite of itself, that should be enough > > >to create a perfect system within a few iterations. Run the system for a > > >few hundred thousand iterations (just to be sure) and you would have a > > >system that became infalliable. Also that system would become more and > > >more efficient with each iteration. > > > > > Uh? > > > > This process will surely increase *one* efficience - it would make > > reproducing faster. Natural selection would quickly operate, and > > the googol-th generation [*] would be as simple as a virus, and > > it would *not* be bug-free, it would be a naked bug. > > > > I think Alberto has hit the nail on the head. Self dupicating digital systems do exist. DNA is one. But it is not error free. If copying were perfect than there would be no evolution. So there will always be mistakes (mutations) in a system. And as systems become more complex they have more mistakes. There uppper limits of genetic complexity for various types of organisms that have a variety of error/reduction correction tools. I woudl the same would be true for machine environments. Selection experiments have been run in virtual environments and the same rules seem to hold as in natural selection.
Nope. You are comparing apples and orangutangs. See my other post for why there would be no 'selection' taking place. I am sure there is a system that could be created the way you explain here, but that system would not be as good as the system I describe. In some ways it could be better, by orders of magnitude, but my system would be error free. Now there is this _Doctor Who_ episode that was about this, called __Destiny of the Daleks__. One of the better episodes too. FYI all this discussion is not really off topic. The uplift universe has machine intelligence's (computer civilizations and just ordinary computers). And the book _Earth_ had a lot to do with stuff too.
