NialScorva

<a href="http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992701" target="_blank">Newscientist has an article</a> on a simulation with a rather complex genome and environment for expressing that genome. Cool stuff.

Vibr8gKiwi

Sounds a lot like <a href="http://www.frams.poznan.pl/" target="_blank">framsticks.</a>

[ August 26, 2002: Message edited by: Vibr8gKiwi ]</p>

GeoTheo

Looks like somthing someone created in God's image would do. Imitation is the highest form of flattery, you know.

NialScorva

You don't know many programmers, do you? God *wishes* he was a software engineer, he just can't compete on the ego.

GeoTheo

I could imagine. Of course I would suspect their egos have undergone some briusing with the devaluation of internet stocks. Though I understand there are many kinds of software that don't relate to the internet.
I think this is pretty neat stuff though. I like seeing people putting ToE to good use in technology. I see a lot of potential for this in the area of design.
I know you don't share this perspective, but I think this concept does speak concerning the wisdom of God in using evolution to create.

Vibr8gKiwi

So then as for the "image of god"... which point along the line of human evolution did we match up with god's image? Bacteria? Little rodent like creatures? Tree dwelling early primates? Like how we are now? Like how we'll be in another several thousand years (if we survive that long)? Or is "God's image" evolving right along with us?

GeoTheo

Name another animal that would concern itself with the best methods for the creation of life forms, and then you will have found another animal that bears the image of God. I don't think the ability to create this computer software is the sum total of the image of God, mind you. I think it is more like a snapshot in the life of an image bearer doing what comes naturally.
It to me is kind of like one of those pictures that is caused by two mirrors each reflecting an image of itself reflecting itself with a smaller image inside each image stretching on to infinity.

NialScorva

Probably 90% of software doesn't relate to the internet as such. Most are internal projects that no one will ever see, though many are moving over to technologies such as Java and HTML for their implementation. The internet crash of last year was more of a de-idiotification of the industry.

I would argue that software design is one of the most complex engineering tasks that we undertake. There's really not much room for fudging around, and there's a lot of interaction, degrees of freedom if you will, in every project. Pretty much all modern software techniques are about *simplifying* the process, making it into nice, simple packages that can be viewed on many levels.

Part of the problem is there isn't any "laws of physics" for software, the onus is on the programmer to develop both the universe, and the job inside the universe. So in a very real sense, being a programmer is a bit like playing god. You can see if what you put in gives you the right things out the other end, but that doesn't even begin to address what goes on in the middle. There's billions of ways of getting the same job done, and most of them are crap.

What's interesting is that evolutionary computing is a *complete* reversal of this design process. Rather than being as reductionist and control-oriented, it's a wholistic and hands-off approach to solving a problem.

So actually, I completely agree with you, I think it does say a great deal about god and evolution. We find that by relinquishing that control, some truly novel solutions can be found, solutions that would never have been created by an intelligent designer due to their shear counter-intuitiveness. It argues for a god that doesn't use anything resembling what we'd consider design, rather that he uses a proces that just works.

I have no problem with a deistic creator, and I don't think anyone else does either. It's the in-your-face personal god without any supporting evidence that gets on people's nerves.

GeoTheo

I agree with the in your face thing, but I don't think evolution neccesarily implies a deistic god.
Deism has actually fallen out of favor since the theory of evolution. The diests of a hundred or so years ago actually believed in special creation.
They believed God, as a watchmaker, created all the animals and plants and everything to work like clockwork and then left the scene. This would create a very deterministic existence. I tend to look at it this way: Evolution is the only way it could have been done to arrive at life as we know it at this point in time. Is it even possible to achieve the level of biodiversity present on the Earth today through the seperate creation of billions of biological machines?
Just as you say, I think there is great wisdom in using evolution to create for some of the same reasons you said. It works.

[ August 30, 2002: Message edited by: GeoTheo ]</p>