
<ftp://ftp.eeng.dcu.ie/pub/autonomy/bmcm9101/README.TXT>


             The Holland Alpha-Universes Revisited

             Barry McMullin,
             School of Electronic Engineering,
             Dublin City University,
             Dublin 9,
             IRELAND.

             <McMullin@EENG.DCU.IE>

                     September 1991

               Technical Report: bmcm9101

        Presented at the First European Conference on
        Artificial Life, Paris, 1991.


ABSTRACT:
---------

The Alpha-Universes were introduced by John Holland as minimal systems
in which the spontaneous emergence of self-replicating entities might be
studied.  This paper reviews Holland's original work and presents key
results from an extended empirical investigation. The results indicate
that, contrary to the original expectations, in the specific universe
studied the question of spontaneous emergence does not arise---because
the putatively self-replicating entities prove not to be viable, even
when artificially introduced.

+++++++++++++++++++++++

.bib entry for *this* TR:
-------------------------

@TECHREPORT{
  McMullin:AVs,
  AUTHOR      = "Barry McMullin",
  TITLE       = "The Holland $\alpha$-Universes Revisited",
  INSTITUTION = "School of Electronic Engineering, Dublin City University",
  YEAR        = "1991",
  MONTH       = "September",
  NUMBER      = "{\tt bmcm9101}",
  TYPE        = "Technical Report",
  ADDRESS     = "Dublin 9, Ireland",
  URL         = "ftp://ftp.eeng.dcu.ie/pub/autonomy/bmcm9101/"
  }

+++++++++++++++++++++++++