THE SPONTANEOUS GENERATION OF DIGITAL LIFE

Digital cells, consisting of sequences of computer operations which co de for self-replication, spontaneously emerge from a primordial ''soup '', initially composed only of random sequences. The probability of ge nerating a self-replicator increases with the number of operations in its sequence. Random mutations drive the self-replicators to evolve in to more efficient and complex organisms as they compete with other spe cies for the computer system's two main resources, cpu time and intern al memory. The initially large replicators first reduce their size by eliminating useless operations. Later, their size increases again as t hey optimize their replication efficiency by adding more subroutines.