13. A method for creating a digital life form, comprising: defining a digital life form; providing access for the digital life form to an environment; defining a plurality of potential actions for the digital life form; providing at least one object in the environment; providing the object with at least one characteristic; providing the digital life form with the ability to form percepts based on the characteristics of objects encountered, to store the formed percepts, and to use the stored percepts to identify subsequently encountered objects; providing the digital life form with the ability to select from said plurality of potential actions based, at least in part, on the percepts; and providing consequences to the digital life form for such actions; wherein the digital life form selects from said plurality of potential actions in order to avoid certain of the consequences with a primary objective being the continued existence of the digital life form; the digital life form arbitrarily selects an action when there is insufficient data to determine whether an action will further the primary objective; and the digital life form stores data indicative of the effectiveness of selected actions in furthering the primary objective for use in future action selections.
18. The method of claim 13 , wherein: at least one consequences of said actions is the simulated death of said digital life form.