However, the whole point is that there aren't any concious organisms
in Tierra. Of course I believe that some digital universes will give
rise to concious life (subject to the randomness problem I have
discussed), however it ain't Tierra.
Cheers
I'm copying this to the everything list, as it is an interesting thread.
>
> Thanks for the references.
>
> If conscious life can arise in Tierra or some other digital universe, then those organisms
> should be aware of the conditions that allow it to survive. For example, the organism can
> avoid predators, dangerous zones, etc. Highly evolved or complex organisms like human
> beings would be able to describe those conditions in terms of laws. So in this sense, the
> anthropic principle would be redefined for these complex organisms. (I think I may have
> mentioned this before in an earlier post on SAS's.) To highly evolved (i.e., with
> inquisitiveness equivalent to humans) Tierrans, they may see their own version of the
> anthropic principle.
>
> Fred
>
> Russell Standish wrote:
>
> > No, I don't think the fact that Tierra uses pseudo-random number
> > generators has anything to do with it. Rather, I suspect it has to
> > with the fact that Tierra does not have to satisfy the Anthropic
> > Principle, whereas the natural world does.
> >
> > You might be interested in the following papers I have written on
> > this subject, which can be found on my publications web site:
> >
> > http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks/pubs.html
> >
> > 1) ``Evolution in the Multiverse''
> >
> > 2) ``Some Techniques for the Measurement of Complexity in Tierra''
> >
> > 3) ``Complexity Growth in Artificial Life''
> >
> > (The last paper in this list was never published, and is largely
> > superseded by the first on the list. I include it for historical
> > reason only)
> >
> > Note that the Avida group actually claim that Avida produces organisms
> > that increase in complexity. See
> > http://procyon.krl.caltech.edu/avida/home/research.html, in particular
> > refs [Adami98a] and [Adami99a]. However, I believe that they are
> > "cheating" (no implication of dishonesty here!) in a sense.
> >
> > Cheers
> >
> > >
> > > Hi Russell, I browsed "Artificial Worlds," by Richard Morris recently, and it was
> > > described there that the Tierran creatures (if you could call them that) evolved
> > > differently from what we would expect in the natural world. Since the Tierrans evolve
> > > toward more efficient use of the host CPU's resources, they evolved toward greater
> > > simplicity, while in the natural world, greater complexity arises through evolution.
> > >
> > > I found that quite interesting. I wonder if it is indeed because there is no 'true'
> > > randomness in Tierra?
> > >
> > > Fred
> > >
> > > Russell Standish wrote:
> > >
> >
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
> > Dr. Russell Standish Director
> > High Performance Computing Support Unit,
> > University of NSW Phone 9385 6967
> > Sydney 2052 Fax 9385 6965
> > Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
> > Room 2075, Red Centre http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
> > ----------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Dr. Russell Standish Director
High Performance Computing Support Unit,
University of NSW Phone 9385 6967
Sydney 2052 Fax 9385 6965
Australia R.Standish.domain.name.hidden
Room 2075, Red Centre
http://parallel.hpc.unsw.edu.au/rks
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Received on Sun Jan 09 2000 - 23:59:49 PST