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FRAGMENT FROM NATURE ruminates on whether there is any evidence that nature operates primarily to increase genetic information. This question is more accessible today due to the large amount of data incoming on sequencing genomes of many taxa, and although very, very, far from complete, early indications give some clues to this question. View in LinkedIn

SIMPLE BREEDS COMPLEX. "It is also instructive to observe how little code is required to achieve seemingly complex strategies. The progenitor organism in Tierra used 80 instructions." https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

GROWING COMPLEXITY. "Given that the instructions and operations of the organisms are those of a simple von Neumann assembly language, the ecologies can be seen as a model of viral evolution, indicating that given sufficient time there is no barrier to viruses spontaneously developing sophisticated behaviour." https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

TIERRA. "The electronic ecologies that eventuated were astounding. The instruction sequences that serve as "organism" analogues spontaneously developed sophisticated behaviours. Among these were complex patterns in memory, flocking, parasitism and immunity, predator-prey relationships and sexual reproduction." https://lnkd.in/g5hUBjg View in LinkedIn

UNPONDERABLE. "Trying to imagine the marvels that pour forth once you've successfully tapped a computer as elaborate as the Net is as futile as trying to map the future of a society, or of a life – or of life itself." https://lnkd.in/edrARjk View in LinkedIn

DNA SELECTIVE PRESSURE. "The only natural selection pressure that DNAs experience directly is the pressure to survive within cells." https://lnkd.in/duMgVnm View in LinkedIn

KEY TO GREY ZONE. "It is only by clearly understanding how chemical systems can transfer and process information that we can hope to understand how self-replication and evolution can occur, and by implication, understand how life might have begun." https://lnkd.in/dhc7k7H View in LinkedIn

DNA MILIEU. "Natural selection does not operate on DNA only through organismal phenotype. Cells themselves are environments in which DNA sequences can replicate, mutate, and so evolve." https://lnkd.in/duMgVnm View in LinkedIn

INFORMATION. "This work suggests that the concept of a self-replicating chemistry is closely related to the concept of a chemistry that can store information and compute." https://lnkd.in/dhc7k7H View in LinkedIn

DNA FIRST PROPOSITION. "The assertion that organisms are simply DNA's way of producing more DNA has been made so often that it is hard to remember who made it first." https://lnkd.in/duMgVnm View in LinkedIn