From: CYMM (cymm@trinidad.net)
Date: Wed Jun 28 2000 - 07:29:56 MDT
KPG SAID: "...Thus, the program runs quite well in the beginning of its life
cycle, then to became less and less runnable with increasing uptime. The
more complex life forms use a repeated reboot method to get rid of this
problem.
CYMM SAYS: Very true. It's also a bit deeper than that...it's a more complex
tradeoff... yes, you could produce shortlived individuals who are very
fecund versus long lived individual who are less fecund.
Yes, it's harder to evolutionarily engineer very long lived individuals
because such fitness represents a global optimum on the fitness landscape.
Many many fixes have to be made to a highly specialized metazoan cell. The
reboot is more local an optimum.
BUT, there are also distinct ADVANTAGES to short life... the main ones being
genetic adaptability because of the increased genetic mutation and
recombination.
That's why bacteria can run evolutionary rings around humans.
Even in creatures like smart mammals and smart birds, where memetic
adaptability counts, shorter life often means greater adaptability.
It's only when the meme pool is of necessity huge and stable and meme
replication rates comparatively slow, e.g., elephants, macaws etc. does long
life become especially favourable in evolutionary terms.
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