"I'm deadly serious: we humans have _never_ been able to replicate something more complicated than what we ourselves are, yet natural selection did it without even thinking.
Don't underestimate the power of survival of the fittest."
This intrigued me so I looked at his blog http://torvalds-family.blogspot.com where he comments a few times on what he is reading. I will list some of the books he mentions there:
Phantoms in the Brain, The Brain that Changes Itself, Why Evolution is True, Genesis: The Scientific Quest for Life's Origins
This quote is interesting:
"Usually, I tend to read about genetics or similar (that is, when I read anything serious to begin with, which tends to be less than 10% of the time). This one is obviously related, but about the processes that came before it all began. And it also gives more of a look into the issues faced by <BOLD> somebody </BOLD> trying to do experiments in the area."
From the above comments his viewpoint possibly falls into the artificial life camp that tries to imitate traditional biology by recreating biological phenomena (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_life).
What do you think of this idea? He is well-noted for his programming skills and general ability. Maybe the kernel is just a basis for some sort of massive ai-life simulation?