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From: dailey@cpsin3.cps.msu.edu (Chris Dailey)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: computer life?
Message-ID: <1991Mar14.175734.11846@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu>
Date: 14 Mar 91 17:57:34 GMT
Sender: news@msuinfo.cl.msu.edu
Reply-To: dailey@cpsin3.cps.msu.edu (Chris Dailey)
Organization: Dept. of Computer Science, Michigan State University
Lines: 34
Originator: dailey@cpsin3.cps.msu.edu

Again, I'm copying this from hardcopy, I've lost the article ID, etc.
All appropriate disclaimers, therefore, apply.

Most people have probably had their say about this article (it was
posted 1. March '91), but I was reading back over the hardcopy and found
something that still needed to be said that I failed to say in my
original response.

I said:
>I would tend to agree that we could not do software mutation and weeding
>out of bad variants with what are today's acceptable software
>engineering practices.  Maybe this will become a new specialization?  I
>think it is needed to accomplish 'AI' (I'll leave the reason
>unexplained).

To which Scott Dorsey replied:
>No comment.  Except to say that if we do mutation and weeding, than we need
>to develop an adequate mutation system and also a criterion for weeding out.
>Evolution (in the sense of biological systems) is very, very slow.

Can a single person evolve?  A single person can adapt, but this is not
called evolution.  I'm not necessarily thinking about the //species//
adapting/evolving, but about the //individual// (in this case, the
computer program) adapting.  

As I said in my original reply to this message, to do this, the
computer would need to evaluate its own processes, try to think of a
more efficient process, and then verify that the new process, if
faster, is indeed equivalent.
-- 
Chris Dailey   dailey@(frith.egr|cps).msu.edu            
    __  __  ___    | Software Engineer Wanna-be studying compiler design &
 __/  \/  \/ __:>- | implementation. Temporarily residing in Software
 \__/\__/\__/      | Engineering Lab, Engineering Bldg., MSU Campus -- cps424