[AndrewC]

No.

A simulation does not walk in a real physical environment. Programs are concepts as demonstrated in all of the virtual creatures that were "created" in the link you cited. IOW nothing that you presented as evidence was a material object.

[freeper4u]

Andrew,

In this example, the point I set out to make, and I think it was proved in the paper is that many problems that would be hard to solve by direct computation can be easily solved indirectly by genetic algorithms.

No simulation will ever be as good as the real world. But you can still learn a lot about the real world from a simulation.

Of course there are a zillion other hard problems that real creatures need to solve in the real world, but the Sims simulation effectively singled out a few of them and successfully showed they can be addressed quite effectively by genetic algorithms instead of a solution arrived at by direct design.

[donh]

A simulation does not walk in a real physical environment. Programs are concepts as demonstrated in all of the virtual creatures that were "created" in the link you cited. IOW nothing that you presented as evidence was a material object.

A successful demonstration in a simulation, however, demonstrates that the possibility exists.