SETI mach II

Quite true, Holmes - the CPU load would be preposterously high. However, one possibility is to model a "similar" world, with much simpler rules that behave "in general" in the same manner, and try that out.Of course, pretty much any distributed 3d world will probably be too bandwidth intense.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."

You misunderstood, holmes. I was not proposing that we try and model this world with other rules. I proposed that a different world be created with other, easier to model properties. These properties should attemot to model, on the macro-scale, what we see in the real world, but would not be representative of them. Thus, abiogenesis in the virtual world would not guarantee that it could occur in the real world, but would be highly indicative that, if it can occur in a virtual world of simple rules, then it can happen in ours as well.------------------
"Illuminant light,
illuminate me."