[_5659]

Von Neumann outlined two rules.

1) Self-reproduction

2) Simulation of a Turing machine

I have seen other summaries of this description as replacing step 2 with "mutation" or using simulation of a Turing machine as being synonymous with mutation

I am not a fan of this analysis, I think two rules is too many. Really there should be only one rule: no rules.

Plus, I think the second rule necessarily implies the first, since the theory of the universal Turing machine sufficiently allows for self-reproduction which later outlined the sketches for cellular automata and subsequent models such as Conway's Game of Life.

[tgbugs]

I've gotten it down to more or less one rule. Keep being. Everything else flows from that one rule, often with surprising consequences. Coelacanths are better at keeping being than mountains and continents.