From: John Beckett 

"Geo."  wrote in message
news::
> Great but consider one thing, the goal. The goal of the virus appears to be
> reproduction, is that not the goal of all life? Can you think of something
> that's not life that has this goal (excluding the current possible example)?

Uh Oh! It's Deja Vu All Over Again!

Another thing I failed to convince you of in the Andromeda thread a year
ago, was that THERE IS NO PURPOSE!

A million years is a really long time. Totally weird stuff WILL happen by
shear chance in that time. If certain mollecules assemble in certain ways,
other things in the environment may reproduce the assemblies. Then another
million years pass, and you have viruses (maybe - or maybe a virus is a
broken-off part of something else).

At any rate, a virus exists today because it was selected as something that
would reproduce in its environment. Other assemblies of gunk were not
reproduced in sufficient quantity, and they did not survive.

John

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