Reproduction, Rosen's Paradox and Computer Viruses

Reproduction, Rosen's Paradox and Computer Viruses

Abstract

Reproduction is a common phenomenon. Biological life was once thought to be the only area in which reproduction could be observed, but many other complex systems have apparent reproducing structures. For example, reproduction can be observed in many artificial life systems, such as cellular automata and digital organism simulators. There are even more exotic forms of reproduction, including computer viruses, memes (in psychology), firms (in economics) or even photocopies.

In this talk we describe various examples of reproduction, and show that reproducers can be viewed as being assisted, or unassisted, by other entities in the environment. However, Rosen's paradox precludes the existence of unassisted reproduction. How then, can we reconcile apparently-unassisted reproduction with Rosen's paradox? We give an answer to this question using formal models of reproduction based on Gibson's affordance theory, and show how the same models can be applied to the real-life problem of computer virus detection.