There is no escape from evolution (variation and selection).
Sure there is. Organisms could, in theory, create perfect replicas without variation for selection to act on. Contrariwise, they could create new organisms depending on what they needed that would bear no relation to themselves and would not reproduce in kind (or at all).
If I could write an AI, the last thing I'd want is to make it reproduce with random variations. If I could genetically engineer myself or my children, I'd want to introduce deliberate changes and eliminate random ones. (Apart from some temporary exceptions like the random element in our current immune systems.)
I think you're overusing the term "evolution". If you let it include any kind of variation (deliberate design) and any kind of selection (deliberate intelligent selection), you can't make any predictions that would hold for all "evolving" systems.
Organisms could, in theory, create perfect replicas without variation
In which theory? I don't think this is true if temperatures are above absolute zero, for example.
I think you're overusing the term "evolution". If you let it include any kind of variation (deliberate design) and any kind of selection (deliberate intelligent selection), you can't make any predictions that would hold for all "evolving" systems.
I suspect that you're being too restrictive- it doesn't seem like variation has to be blind, and selection done by replica...
Another month has passed and here is a new rationality quotes thread. The usual rules are: