Replicating Machine Contest

I plan to award a prize to anyone who can invent a non-trivial 3D machine which can replicate itself. The machine must be able to make copies of itself without human intervention, except possibly to supply the raw materials. Basically a 3D printer which can print a copy of itself which retains the ability to print a copy of itself, which… A page which can be photocopied does not count, because it is the photocopier which actually makes the copy, unless the photocopy machine also makes a copy of itself; a computer program which duplicates itself does not count unless the computer it runs on makes a copy of itself also.

The prize: the right to speculate about how life originated. Leave your artificial species alone and see how many generations it lasts before going extinct. If it makes accurate copies of itself for 100+ generations, then you also get to speculate about how genetic duplication errors might accumulate into major evolutionary advances.

In this German TV interview, W.E.Loennig complains about scientists who will admit they haven’t any idea how to synthesize a blade of grass, yet insist they have no doubt about how it came to exist. It is the astonishing fact that living species are able to replicate themselves without significant degradation, generation after generation, while awaiting rare beneficial accidents, which makes Darwinism seem even superficially plausible. It seems you should be required to have some understanding of how replication could happen in engineered machines, before speculating about how life acquired this ability by pure chance and used it to evolve.

And just seeing something happen is not the same as understanding how it happens, watch the video below to appreciate how astonishing reproduction really is, especially in higher animals like us.

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