"Excuse me?"
"Okay. Get a computer. Set it up with random bit-patterns."
"Have you heard that koan--"
"'So the room will become empty'. Yeah, I know. Bear with me. Every cycle, toggle one bit, chosen randomly, and move the program counter to a random location in memory."
"What's choosing the random locations?"
"Dunno. Some external program running on a faster computer."
"So where does the evolution come in? I mean, how are programs selected for?"
"How long they can run before they generate an error, maybe? Dunno that, either. Give them a greater chance of being chosen?"
"What about an infinite loop? You create one statement that branches to itself, the whole thing grinds to a halt."
"Well, I guess we'll just have to wait for that statement to be changed, randomly."
"Needs some work yet, guy."
"Maybe I'll make it a thesis project."
Back to my talk.bizarre page...
The Den of Ubiquity/ Aaron V. Humphrey / alfvaen@gmail.com