Under conditions of free evolution by natural selection, the
initially differentiated network ancestor looses its differentiation,
and evolves into a form with a single cell type, albeit with more cells.
A typical example is 8313aaa, whose form and behavior is illustrated
here. The overall structure includes a 4352 byte genome, and a 3961
byte unused area. Only 125 of 4352 bytes (2.9%) of the
genome are expressed. Close inspection of the structure of the
genome (Figure 8) and its homology with the network ancestor reveal
that the sel, rep, cop, and dev genes are
still present, but the dif and sen genes have been lost.
Also, a 160 byte unexpressed region has appeared between the rep
and cop genes which were originally contiguous. The cop
and dev genes are still promoted from the rep gene as
in the ancestor.
The deterministic cell lineage of 8313aaa is illustrated in Figure 9.
The reproductive cell undergoes a series of eight
divisions, resulting in a tissue of 256 reproductive cells
(in this run, there was a hard-coded limit of 256 cells per
organism). These cells cooperate in copying the 4352 byte genome,
completing the process after 202 (parallel) CPU cycles.
At this point the digital organism enters what can only be described
as a state of programmed senescence resulting in an (almost)
complete disorganization of its function.
The state of programmed senescence is brought about by the 256 CPUs spreading themselves evenly, at seventeen byte intervals, over the entire space of the 4352 byte genome. During the first (parallel) CPU cycle in this disorganized condition, one of the cells executes the divide instruction, spawning the daughter as an independent organism, on the local machine (whereas the ancestor sent the daughter to a different machine). In the third (parallel) CPU cycle of the senescent condition, one cell causes the mother organism to migrate to another machine. The IP address to which the mother is sent, is gathered from a random location of the soup, essentially resulting in random migration. Migration of the mother causes its disappearance from the local node. It enters the new node in the ``new-born'' state, and must go through the entire developmental process again, to reach the mature 256 cell reproductive state.