[in response to my question about the availability of Alife progs on the net]
> Dig through AltaVista or your favourite web skimmer and look for
> references to "ALife" and to "Tierra." Related pages should swamp you
> in references; the Nova Genetica page is chok full of goodness.
Just tried it, and got loads of rude messages from the server. Will try again
on Monday.
>
> Ah yes, Life, one of the early cellular automata. It might amuse you
> to know that the environment that amused a 12yr old boy, as you put
> it, is the target of heavy research.
Really? How come. I can see that it may start some minds thinking about
how it might be re-modelled with more variables to increase the likeness to
reality (if it exists - Disclaimer :). Is this what the research is looking at?
Perhaps it would be coupled with more advanced life simulators, to create a
two teir system. Or amybe it already has, after all, I'd never know.
> Simple CAs like Life can host
> very complex interacting entities, made up of nothing but cells that
> blink on and off.
But at a base level everything is reasonably simple isn't it
>
> > Could you have moved your virtual people into other "worlds"? Does the
> > world have to be specifically geared to support them, or can it be totally
> > alien, like dropping them into a game of Sonic the Hedgehog :0
>
> Like most life, if you take them out of an environment which supports
> the physics their biologies depend on, they die quickly. In the case
> of Tierran organisms, they are nothing but strings of assembly-like
> code. Without an interpreter, they're just lumps of data like we're
> just lumps of matter without consciousness.
So they could never invade and take over a computer network?
Drakir
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Richard Jones "We are the New Breed
jonesr@gatwick.geco-prakla.slb.com We are the Future."
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