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Great article. For my money viruses are indeed "living" since what we call life is just that which carries and replicates RNA, or, the "selfish gene".
by Allocator2008 18y ago
Great article. For my money viruses are indeed "living" since what we call life is just that which carries and replicates RNA, or, the "selfish gene".
- yters 18y agoWhat's so special about RNA? What if our genetic code was bits and bytes on a computer? Would a computer be alive, or the artificial being that it created? If so, then a genetic algorithm already meets your definition of life.
- Allocator2008 18y agoThis is an excellent point. I suppose I was just thinking about the natural world (on planet Earth). Indeed, replicating information, RNA or not, would be a form of "life", provided it was persisted. I think persistence here is the key. A genetic algorithm would be life as you say, provided I think that its states could be saved into a database or the like. Self-replicating, persisted information in some kind of definable form or shape is life, roughly I would think. So, sure, a GA counts provided you persist it someplace. Naturally occurring crystals in a cave would too for that matter. And if the physicist Lee Smolin is right, the universe could be a replicating entity as well, making new universes via black holes or similar mechanisms (see his book, "Life of the Cosmos").