michael@stb.UUCP (Michael) (01/21/88)
In article <6094@oberon.USC.EDU> bishop@skat.usc.edu (Brian Bishop) writes: > I love the analogies to real viruses here - develop better antibiotics, and >what will you get? More virulent antibiotic-resistant viruses. I wonder if >you could mak a virus for the game of life that would infect self-reproducing >patterns and get them to reproduce the virus? It'd have to big a BIG matrix. >Could the organism eventually develop antibodies???? Wow. > > >brian bishop ---> bishop@usc-ecl.ARPA >(uscvax,sdcvdef,engvax,scgvaxd,smeagol) ---> usc-skat!bishop.UUCP It is well known how to construct an arbitrary turning machine in life. It is well known that there exists a self replicating life pattern, and how to construct it. It is also known that it is BIG. The book that discussed it (actually, I've seen this in two books) commented that the size for an organism that would take a blueprint of itself, use that blueprint to duplicate itself (a-la DNA/RNA), and also duplicate the blueprint, would, at a reasonable dot pitch (around .40mm, I belive), take up the entire solar system. (But that would get you both it and its offspring). Now, if all the arpanet were to meditate on this, how long would a generation take? Michael. -- : Michael Gersten ihnp4!hermix!ucla-an!remsit!stb!michael : uunet!scgvaxd!stb!michael : "A hacker lives forever, but not so his free time"