That's beautifully put. It reminds me of what Darwin said at the end of Origin of Species, 6th edition:
There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed by the Creator into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone circling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being evolved.I don't know how it all got started, but anyone who thinks this isn't awe-inspiring is really missing out.
Oh, but here's the really unsettling part, dear Patrick: Stephen Wolfram demonstrated evolution from the simplest of instructions, leading to the most unexpected outcomes/behaviors, and "natural" selection had nothing to do with it. Wolfram- (programmer)-selection had everything to do with the establishment of the initial conditions. And what subsequently followed offers an object lesson, so to speak.
Wolfram's cellular automata in their various evolutions (from different instruction sets) seemed to settle into a very small number of general "behaviors" or descriptions. They could rapidly (usually) evolve into a condition of virtually complete redundancy (e.g., either black or white; virtually no information content there); or quickly would begin to display regular and seemingly ad infinitum patterned behavior (low information content there); or they could stun you by surprise with the entirely unexpected and unpredictable evolutionary development they progressivly achieved, in which certain "branches" of the "forthcoming" development died out, while other branches flourished and propagated new forms (extremely rich information content probably involved here).
Please check out the Rule 110 cellular automaton, and then try to tell me that you have not seen Darwin's evolution theory captured in graphical form. :^)
Thanks so much for writing, dear Patrick.