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Article 3115 of comp.ai.philosophy:
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>From: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Newsgroups: comp.ai.philosophy
Subject: HIV: smarter than human?
Message-ID: <63535@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 24 Jan 92 16:09:51 GMT
References: <TODD.92Jan23223358@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp>
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Reply-To: weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu (Matthew P Wiener)
Organization: The Wistar Institute of Anatomy and Biology
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In-reply-to: todd@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp (Todd Law)

In article <TODD.92Jan23223358@ai12.elcom.nitech.ac.jp>, todd@ai12 (Todd Law) writes:
>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. 

I would say that the people who are still spreading HIV are stupider
than the virus.  If the spread were essentially stopped, the virus
would have to mutate itself into non-lethality in order to survive.

>		     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 [....]

This ("unlocks") is unknown.  There is (controversial) evidence that 
HIV epitopes mimic CD4 epitopes, and so the immune reaction against
HIV becomes an auto-immunity--against the immune system.

A direct intelligence related aspect of HIV is the currently unknown
mechanism of AIDS dementia.  HIV in the brain infects the microglia,
which are part of the immune system.  (Some secondary infections, of
course, go after the neurons.)  One hypothesis is that the microglia
are the brain's trash collectors, and that this is essential for
higher order cognition.  Another hypothesis, more bold, is that the
known immune/neural system connections are the tip of the iceberg.
-- 
-Matthew P Wiener (weemba@libra.wistar.upenn.edu)


