peter@wam.umd.edu (Peter Arensburger) (03/12/91)
A couple of days ago I was listening to a talk by Richard Dawkins about
modeling evolutionary processes on a computer. He mentioned an experiment
by Thomas Ray in wich small (40 instructions long) autoreproducing programs
where allowed to spread freely in a certain amount of memory. Then, by
randomly mutating some of the programs you could see mutant programs
become better adapted for reproduction.
This experiment has not yet been published, and I'd be interested
in knowing a bit more about it (what was his "parent" program, how did
he induce mutations, a general description of the processor emulated, etc.).
Has anyone heard about this experiment? If so please answer by e-mail.
--
In real life: Peter Arensburger, biology weenie
peter@cscwam.umd.edu
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