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Article 3111 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: todd@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp (Todd Law)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: Re: Viruses: alive?
Message-ID: <TODD.92Jan23223358@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp>
Date: 23 Jan 92 13:34:01 GMT
References: <1992Jan16.054716.14332@oracorp.com>
	<1992Jan16.145637.26097@news.media.mit.edu>
	<TODD.92Jan22225612@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp> <63302@netnews.upenn.edu>
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In-reply-to: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu's message of 22 Jan 92 22:51:49 GMT


In article <63302@netnews.upenn.edu> weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener) writes:

>>>Yet, could you admit to your self that computer viruses are alive?
>>
>>Who says that even biological viruses are alive?


My Collins English Dictionary gives the definition of 'organism' as
follows:

  organism 1. any living animal or plant, including any bacterium
  ~~~~~~~~ or VIRUS.  2. anything resembling a living creature in
           structure, behaviour, etc.


So it seems accepted that viruses are alive.  And anything that
can be killed would have to be considered to be alive.

An even more challenging thought:  are viruses intelligent?

E.G. the AIDS virus is doing pretty well against some of the best 
human minds, and the virus is even mutating faster than researchers
can track it down.  The AIDS virus is as information-pure as life
comes, as it is basically a molecular code that unlocks an immunity
system, itself heavily information based (just not in forms that 
we can relate to everyday-like).


Todd Law

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