Natural Selection of Artificial Lifeforms

Evolution of Artificial Life Forms at the Edge of Life Ecosystem

The evolutionary process known as Natural Selection is a non-random process of often quite gradual, accumulated change, with selection according to a process of competition between a range of candidates. Winners may pass their characteristics on to the next generation, which in turn form their characteristics, and continue to be passed on through the generations until changes in the competitive environment, or mutation, sends the candidates through the process again.

All living things evolve. Created forms also evolve, or at least the ideas contained in them do, through natural selection.

People sometimes find evolutionary theory confusing, believing that aspects of human intervention in the selection process somehow invalidate it as being ‘natural’ selection. This is due to root misunderstandings about Natural Selection, about what ‘nature’ is, and about the relationship between Artificial Lifeforms and Natural Selection. In truth, Natural Selection is a simple process that Artificial Lifeforms are subject to as much as is any other aspect of nature is.

Using Natural Selection to look at the changes happening to the the inhabitants of the Edge of Life Ecosystem, both in terms of winners of overt competition, and those that also win and survive, or have their progeny survive, through co-operative behaviours, we can watch Natural Selection in action, as the Artificial Life Forms evolve over time.