A thermodynamic approach to the virus as organism debat

[charles mccarthy]

In <m0teJC0-00056cC at uctmail2.uct.ac.za> ED at MOLBIOL.UCT.AC.ZA ("Ed Rybicki")
writes: 
[edit]
>Quite.  Now for the Rybicki definition (honed by Hawking's recent 
>comment that computer viruses deserved consideration as lifeforms:
>
>Life: a phenomenon assocaited with the replication of informational 
>systems.
>
>                     Ed Rybicki, PhD  
>      Dept Microbiology     |  ed at molbiol.uct.ac.za   
>   University of Cape Town  | phone: x27-21-650-3265
>   Private Bag, Rondebosch  |  fax: x27-21-650 4023
>      7700, South Africa    |   
>    WWW URL: http://www.uct.ac.za/microbiology/ed.html      
>                                        
>"And then one day you find, ten years have got behind you"

Nice shot, Ed, you inspired me to have a go at it...

Life:  the existence of any entity capable of being identified by unique
attributes, and whose core attributes are reproduced in new entities within
its biome over time by the proximal application of some portion of the
original entity's physical structure within any structural context capable
of accommodating reproduction.  

Good luck, 

Charlie,

Charles P. McCarthy 
Healthcare Consulting and
   Medical Research
Carmichael, CA, USA

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