{"id":18593,"date":"2015-10-20T15:48:28","date_gmt":"2015-10-20T22:48:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/dna-is-multibillion-year-old-software"},"modified":"2017-06-04T20:21:02","modified_gmt":"2017-06-05T03:21:02","slug":"dna-is-multibillion-year-old-software","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2015\/10\/dna-is-multibillion-year-old-software","title":{"rendered":"DNA Is Multibillion-Year-Old Software"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\\'blog-photo\\' href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/dna-is-multibillion-year-old-software.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Nature invented software billions of years before we did. \u201cThe origin of life is really the origin of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigthink.com\/errors-we-live-by\/about:blank\">software<\/a>,\u201d says Gregory Chaitin. Life requires what software does (it\u2019s foundationally algorithmic).<\/p>\n<p>1. \u201cDNA is multibillion-year-old software,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?id=coPZK3GRVAgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=%22DNA+is+multi-billion-year-old+software%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=xQ9VVcCcLonksATI8YHoCw&ved=0CCsQ6AEwAQ#v=snippet&q=%22DNA%20is%20multibillion-year-old%20software%22&f=false\">says<\/a> Chaitin (inventor of mathematical <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books?%20%20id=coPZK3GRVAgC&printsec=frontcover&dq=chaitin+darwin&hl=en&sa=X&ei=TLRUVejIDPaCsQSyqoGoAw&ved=%20%200CCgQ6wEwAA#v=snippet&q=call%20%22metabiology%20%22&f=false\">metabiology<\/a>). We\u2019re surrounded by software, but couldn\u2019t see it until we had suitable thinking tools.<\/p>\n<p>2. Alan Turing described modern software in 1936, inspiring John Von Neumann to connect software <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bigthink.com\/errors-we-live-by\/about:blank\">to biology<\/a>. Before DNA was understood, Von Neumann saw that self-reproducing automata needed software. We now know DNA stores information; it\u2019s a biochemical version of Turning\u2019s software <a href=\"http:\/\/pllqt.it\/hoVG7l\">tape<\/a>, but more generally: All that lives must process information. Biology\u2019s basic building blocks are processes that make decisions.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/bigthink.com\/errors-we-live-by\/dna-is-multibillion-year-old-software\" target=\"_blank\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Nature invented software billions of years before we did. \u201cThe origin of life is really the origin of software,\u201d says Gregory Chaitin. Life requires what software does (it\u2019s foundationally algorithmic). 1. \u201cDNA is multibillion-year-old software,\u201d says Chaitin (inventor of mathematical metabiology). We\u2019re surrounded by software, but couldn\u2019t see it until we had suitable thinking tools. [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":367,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,41],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-18593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-biotech-medical","category-information-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18593","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/367"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18593"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18593\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":69339,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18593\/revisions\/69339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}