4 ms·

You're making a distinction without a difference there.

• Nevermark 3y ago
  Seeds are much more than single cells. Embryos are much more than single cells. The comparison is apt, and highlights a relevant difference.
  • Suppafly 3y ago
    Sure, but you don't need to bootstrap the whole system to be able to clone a plant and reproduce it. We already can clone plants using single cells, the next step would be to synthesize the cell from raw ingredients.
• TeMPOraL 3y ago
  No, it's not. Seeds and even embryos are to DNA what a running piece of software (and especially, a Lisp/Smalltalk image) is to its source code: the latter stores only a fraction of the former. And then consider that life is always built by other life, there is no bootstrapping from source code happening. Compare with Ken Thompson's "Reflections on Trusting Trust", and realize that the most important bits about life may not even be encoded in the DNA, but rather in the runtime state that's passed "out of band" from generation to generation.
  • Metus 3y ago
    > No, it's not. Seeds and even embryos are to DNA what a running piece of software (and especially, a Lisp/Smalltalk image) is to its source code: the latter stores only a fraction of the former. Thank you for pointing out this similarity. While a piece of software is infinitely replicable - a simple git clone from GitHub would suffice -, the surrounding software ecosystem - compilers, interpreters, installers, linkers, operating systems - needs to be in place, as well as the hardware.