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Subject: Re: Is every self-reproducing system subject to a virus?
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Date: Tue, 19 Nov 1996 12:35:06 GMT
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Arne D Halvorsen (adh@cx.dnv.no) wrote:   <some pruning has been done>
: Now my question is: could there be a proof that *any* self-reproducing
: system may be subject to a virus?
:
: - given a self reproducing entity A which is the simplest
: self-reproducer for given laws, 
:
: there exists a simpler entity B which reproduces
:
: (but obviously doesn't reproduce without A, as A is the simplest
: structure able to reproduce))


Why restrict the "virus" to being a "simpler entity" ?

Similarly, why use "occam's razor" to get rid of "overarching explanations"
to the rather low-dimensional "shadow" of the Truth we compile as "experience"?

Certainly, a shadow is not explained by a simpler thing, but rather by
stuff like redwood trees and bicycles and skyscrapers, themselves mere
'shadows' of culture and society and history.


It is altogether sensible that the higher levels of the cybernetics/mind
(in which we humans seem to live) are eclipsed by various passive and 
not-so-passive "mechanisms", and while we may not at all be parasites,
we are used much as carrier signals are used in electronics, or as text
and ink are used in various media.  If a book was sentient, it might 
develop extensive rationalizations for how it is used and abused.  Designed
as it is to fulfill certain functions, it might have a very strange story
for why it existed and why it existed in the copies and versions and 
annotations and locations in which it appeared.


The quintessential "paradox" of time-travel is that of preventing one's
own birth in one way or another.  If knowledge flows in all manner of ways,
then it would appear that the main "self-cancelling feedback" in information
systems (info-flux) would be due to information which endangered its own
genesis.  Thus we can understand the rather irrational and secretive nature
of certain fields of information, and certain strata and (power) structures.


VI  4:17 tues19nov96 4:24final
-- 

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                      May the best hallucination win.


          I want a God who takes responsibility for His mistakes.

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