Thanks for reminding me of it! Actually all those pioneering experiments in artificial life were the material that sparked my interest in evolution much further.

simple rules giving rise to complex things (like the "creatures" you see when the game is set in motion). In a way, there is a design to it, but I think it does give credence to simple things giving rise to complex systems.

This is what the call "emergent processes" or qualities, those functions that would not be predictable just from looking at the individual parts and the general rules in which they interact. You are very right in your reasoning that this is most likely playing a big role on how systems as complex as the eye came to be.

This could be a topic for another post, I remember reading all these books on Autopoiesis (auto-organizing) and simulations of life, they had amazing concepts and quite awesome experiments carried out mostly in the 80's that now have been forgotten.

Thanks for this thoughtful comment, @theabsolute!