<<I fail to see the relevance of this. The task is to construct a program
on *reasonable* assumptions, and this is what Glenn has attempted to do. >>
The relevance is this: assumptions, reasonable or otherwise, dictate results.
You can get from your A to your B, C or Z, depending on how you define your A.
Thus, it is relevant when someone purports to "mimick" life, that you point
out the inherent assumptions and make the reasonable observation that life may
not be like this at all--that, in fact, considering complexity, maladaptivity,
the questionable efficacy of natural selection to preserve incipient
structures (the famous mesonychid-ambulocetus conundrum), the mimickry may be
less than meets the eye.
Marcel Marceau, the famous French mime, used to mimick a wall--but no one
ever thought it was really there.
Jim