| This thesis aims to explore problems surrounding evolvability in biologically inspired cyber-organisms (cyberzoans) and suggest how these problems may be overcome. In this thesis I provide an overview of relevant and related work in the fields of artificial life and theoretical biology; specifically, models which have focused on gene regulatory networks, embryogenesis, and virtual creature evolution. I also propose an idealized model of the cyberzoan approach which may overcome some of the limitations involved in generating complex phenotypes with the traditional virtual creature approach. |
