In principle, if something evolves, then I think it’s worth noticing. Also, recent events have shown just how impactful viruses can be. Which is interesting given how little they seem to do of:
‘collecting and organizing evidence to exert flexible influence over the future’
I think it’s fair to characterize them as ‘largely exploiting static features in the world’ - alas, we tend to create/are such things. And given our massive global success, things able to exploit what (weaknesses) we have in common can become quite formidable. For all our ‘immense’ differences, we aren’t so different after all.*
*Though I probably should look into the impacts of cultural variation.
Yes, I would have much less hesitation in viewing a virus species as a multi-bodied agent with evolution as a driving algorithm than a single virion as an agent.
In principle, if something evolves, then I think it’s worth noticing. Also, recent events have shown just how impactful viruses can be. Which is interesting given how little they seem to do of:
‘collecting and organizing evidence to exert flexible influence over the future’
I think it’s fair to characterize them as ‘largely exploiting static features in the world’ - alas, we tend to create/are such things. And given our massive global success, things able to exploit what (weaknesses) we have in common can become quite formidable. For all our ‘immense’ differences, we aren’t so different after all.*
*Though I probably should look into the impacts of cultural variation.
Yes, I would have much less hesitation in viewing a virus species as a multi-bodied agent with evolution as a driving algorithm than a single virion as an agent.