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From: bjm@dcs.ed.ac.uk (Bruce McAdam)
Subject: Re: Tierra: escaping organisms
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Date: Thu, 26 Oct 1995 12:14:30 GMT
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In article <46lnci$m6s@server.cntfl.com>, books@rtssec1.dms.state.fl.us (Roger Books) writes:
>   I've just been reading through docs on Tierra and how they have no
> real worry about their organisms "escaping" onto the net because the organisms
> run under a pseudo-computer.  Now, I realize this means they can't make the
> leap to running under a real instruction set on their own.  However, they 
> can still make the leap with assistance.
> 
>   IE, misguided person realizes that "lifeform" a would be fun to introduce
> into the net.  I realize that this same misguided person could write a 
> virus on his own.  The big difference being that something that has evolved
> to deal with network connections would have a major advantage as far as
> spreading itself over the normal disk-disk transfers we see on PC's.
> 
> Roger (Just musing, not really expecting an answer)

I too have just finished reading the docs.  From them I don't think there is any
chance of even an aided escape.

The Tierran virtual machine was designed to allow easy evolution, a Tierran
organism cannot live outside this environment and interact with other
programs as the traditional architecture is too brittle to allow for mutation.

Also, the organisms are shaped by their environment, in particular the entire
ecosystem of other organisms which does not exist outside the virtual machine.
A Tierran organism is unequiped to live in the relativly barren environment
presented by most computers. 

(I don't have a copy of the Tierra source as it takes way too long to download
from its home site, does anyone know where in UK or Europe I can it download from)

-- 
   ___          ___     Bruce J. McAdam
__/__ \__    __/__ \___ Computer Science Undergraduate
_____|_| \__/_____| |__ The University of Edinburgh
  \____| |_____| |_/    bjm@dcs.ed.ac.uk
     \___/  \___/       http://www.tardis.ed.ac.uk/~bjm/
