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Interesting dicurtion[this word is wrong, I know]

I don't consider data virus as life. I know little of biology. But all live forms have percentage of mutating when they reproduce (example: beatles 2%). This mutations, as someone talk before, is part of the evolution process, and is considered an "error". The Data virus cannot reproduce or mutate or adapt alone. If I put a data virus in a Diskete, 1000 years latter he will still the same virus.

A life Data virus, IMO, will be something alive who can be transported(physically, not information) by diskete and "eat" silicon, or destroy silicon.

My doubts:
A virus is a DNA/RNA chain protected by proteins, isn't that?
A virus can lower his metabolism to exist forever, in a hibernate form?

[ 10-18-2001: Message edited by: Ivan Cavallazzi ]

Originally posted by Ivan Cavallazzi:
<STRONG>My doubts:
A virus is a DNA/RNA chain protected by proteins, isn't that?
A virus can lower his metabolism to exist forever, in a hibernate form?
</STRONG>

You say you know little about biology, but you seem to know more than most people

Yes, a virus has a strain of either RBA (about 70%) or DNA, coated with different proteins to protect it. If not in a host cell, it's dormant, it doesn't have a metabolism of its own if not in a cell.

Some viruses can survive for incredible long periods, perhaps forever, if they are frozen. In Polar ice cores with ice as old as over 100 000 years, viruses have been found. Since they are not replicating while frozen, they don't change.

I have a perverted interest for immunology

i wrote a paper once on AI, well it was more or less sayign how it was impossible.
my theory was that intelligence and self awareness can only come through freedom. if something is telling me to think about myself than i am not really doing it out of intelligence. if i pull a rock on a string, the rock is not intelligent. computers are the same way. no matter how well you program a computer to respond to certain environments, it still has to follow the code laid out for it.
now if you are a person who doesn;t believe in free will, then by fault you have to agree that computers (and any virus) cannot be intelligent.
obbviously my paper had a bit more detail, but that was the gist of it with lots of discussion on freedom and intelligence

i wrote a paper once on AI, well it was more or less sayign how it was impossible.
my theory was that intelligence and self awareness can only come through freedom. if something is telling me to think about myself than i am not really doing it out of intelligence. if i pull a rock on a string, the rock is not intelligent. computers are the same way. no matter how well you program a computer to respond to certain environments, it still has to follow the code laid out for it.
now if you are a person who doesn;t believe in free will, then by fault you have to agree that computers (and any virus) cannot be intelligent.
obbviously my paper had a bit more detail, but that was the gist of it with lots of discussion on freedom and intelligence

Originally posted by nael:
<STRONG>my theory was that intelligence and self awareness can only come through freedom.</STRONG>

Interesting subject for a paper, Nael, and interesting reasoning. What ideas do you have regarding the cause or the nature of free will? Where does it come from, and what is it? Is it an independant part of the mind? Do you view it like Sartre did, or in some other way?

Originally posted by C Elegans:
<STRONG>
Some viruses can survive for incredible long periods, perhaps forever, if they are frozen. Since they are not replicating while frozen, they don't change.
</STRONG>

Intersting, like a cpu virus waiting in a disk for an apropriate suround(CPU).
The primary forms of lives should be very simple. Maybe the data virus is a start of a future AI. Like happens in Earth.

Humans joking as God.

Originally posted by C Elegans:
<STRONG>Interesting subject for a paper, Nael, and interesting reasoning. What ideas do you have regarding the cause or the nature of free will? Where does it come from, and what is it? Is it an independant part of the mind? Do you view it like Sartre did, or in some other way?</STRONG>

funny you should mention sartre...he was a BIG part of my paper. i also used a lot of presocratic thought, such as the epicureans' atomist ideas.
i am rather drunk at the moment so will not attempt to defend anything, but perhaps tomorrow...

Technically, a virus would have to be capable of living and reproducing on its own in order to be called a living creature. It would also have a structure with nuclea, organelles, and several forms of plasms within the membrane.

Computer viruses are nothing more living than AOL instant messenger... which I am ready to kill at the moment @_@