copy yourself ?

Nevin Pratt nevin at smalltalkpro.com
Thu May 22 21:43:41 UTC 2003



jan ziak wrote:

> hi. i would like to ask whether some squeaker has ever seen an object 
> which is capable of copying itself. for example, i have a glass in 
> front of me - certainly an object - but i have never seen any glass 
> copying itself in front of me when i say "copy yourself" to it. in 
> contrary, i have only seen people or machines capable of copying a glass.


Don't limit your imagination based on the current bounds of science.  We 
currently have a myriad of tangible products that, at one time, were 
completely inanimate, but because of increasingly embedded processors, 
are no longer so.  Think books, fridges, appliances, etc., for examples. 
So, what was science fiction yesterday is often now everyday reality.

Hence, the fact that currently a common glass is incapable of copying 
itself is completely irrelevent.

As to your suggestion that "wouldn't it be more rational to have objects 
capable of constructing copies of objects?", that seems to me to be an 
orthogonal question to whether or not the receiver can or should be able 
to create a valid copy of itself.  Both concepts could both be true 
simultaneously, both be false simultaneously, or one true and the other 
false, independently.

Nevin





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