"If you want to catch beasts you don't see every day, You have to go places quite out of the way." -- Dr. Seuss
THEORY: Dissipation Driven Adaptation -- life processes --are spontaneously developing in computer media
Prof. Jeremy England and Dr. Karo Michaelian at the National Autonomous University of Mexico tell us that “dissipation-driven adaptation” occurs spontaneously when energy flows through a symbolic logic media over a sustained period of time. The first symbolic logic media on early Earth were amino acid networks in liquid water. Amino acid networks underwent “dissipation-driven adaptation” and evolved into RNA, DNA, and cellular life. Cellular life continues to undergo “dissipation-driven adaptation”.
Computer media is a symbolic logic media. A huge amount of energy is flowing through computer media.
According to theory, life processes, "dissipation-driven adaptation" should spontaneously occur in computer media. We can use techniques from biology, namely, the "hard version" of metagenomics, to measure whether this is happening!
The "hard version" of metagenomics does the following:
1) Samples large groups of arbitrary genetic code collected in the environment.
2) Bins genetic code into groups and determines which groups are from a type of organism (including viruses).
3) Determines functions performed by sub-components of the genetic code groups, often seeking to identify whether functions add up to a metabolic function (e.g. the citric acid cycle, etc.), though also looking at performance of other functions, e.g. morphological functions of a type of organism, functions performed by viruses.
4) Identifies organisms (including viruses) that have/have not previously been identified, based on the binned groups and group-functions.
5) Develops/tests hypothesis regarding function interaction within and among genetic code groups that may be present in the environment at the same place/time.
(The "easy version" of metagenomics just looks for code-signatures associated with previously identified organisms.)