On Thu, 22 May 2003 18:15:55 -0300, Jecel Assumpcao Jr wrote
> On Thursday 22 May 2003 17:15, Andreas Raab wrote:
> > Yayy! What beautiful heretic questions ;-)))
> >
> > BTW, if you are interested in this area you should give eToys a try.
> > They do many of the things you're describing, e.g., make objects
> > tangible and therefore become more oriented to dealing with objects
> > instead of text input.
> 
> Another thing to try in Squeak is MorphicWrappers 
> 
> (http://www.dm.uba.ar/MathMorphs/) though you might have to get 
> Squeak 
> 2.7 for that.
> 
> This question was investigated early in Smalltalk's history in 
> several interesting projects, including the Alternate Reality Kit 
> (ARK) by Randy Smith.
> 
> "Experience with the Alternate Reality Kit: An Example of the 
> Tension Between Literalism and Magic" in IEEE Computer Graphics & 
> Applications, Sep 1987, pp. 42-50
> 
> http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~maratb/cs263/paper/node12.html
> 
> This was the inspiration for the Self dialect of Smalltalk where 
> your other questions about classes and copying were explored.
> 

the two references above look good.

> If you want to know more about objects capable of copying themselves,
>  look up the "Von Neumann machine" (not Von Neumann computer!).
> 
> http://www.brunel.ac.uk/depts/AI/alife/al-vonca.htm
> 

i have read the webpage at the supplied location. i draw the following from 
it:
- the automaton is constructed in such a way that IT SUPPORTS the 
reproduction process. thus, as i said, the organism (in my case it was a 
glass) must be situated in an environment which provides for its reproduction 
and thus no object can replicate itself as such. 
- an empty cell in von neumann's machine has also its logic, its behavior. so 
the question now is: are the empty cells copying the machine or is the 
machine copying itself? i thin that the answer to this question is that the 
machine exploits its environment in such a way so that it seems to us that it 
replicates itself.