Cyberbiogenesis and the EvoGrid: A Twenty-First Century Grand Challenge

The quest for the understanding of the mechanisms of the origin of life on Earth (and by implication elsewhere) could be greatly aided through a synthesis of computer simulation operating at the molecular level and the chemical replication of resultant models in the laboratory. The authors term this synthesis a cyberbiogenesis. The central technological challenge to computing such an “artificial origin of life” is to design computer models permitting de novo emergence of lifelike virtual structures and processes through multiple levels of complexity. This chapter explores cyberbiogenesis by investigating its antecedents, engages in a thought experiment rendered in computer graphics, examines results from an early implementation called the EvoGrid, and concludes by looking at the scientific, technical, religious, and philosophical conundrums presented by such an endeavor.