Artificial evolution of arbitrary self-replicating structures in cellular spaces

Abstract

Self-replicating systems are systems that are capable of producing copies of themselves. The terms replication and reproduction are often considered synonymous, but in actuality there is a distinction [36]. Replication is a developmental process, involving no genetic operators and resulting in an exact duplicate of the parent organism. Reproduction, on the other hand, is an evolutionary process, involving genetic operators such as crossover and mutation, thereby contributing to the variation that is an important aspect of evolution. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.