The genome is software and evolution is a software developer

arXiv:1003.0575v1 [q-bio.OT] 2 Mar 2010 The genome is software and evolution is a software developer Jos´e del Carmen Rodr´ıguez Santamar´ıa The genome is software because it a set of verbal instructions for a pro- grammable computer, the ribosome. The theory of evolution now reads: evolution is the software developer responsible for the existence of the genome. We claim that this setting, whose official name is genetic programming, is necessary and sufficient to discuss all important questions about evolution. A great effort has been made to pass from wording to science, i.e., from naive theories to robust models to predictions to testing for falsification. 1 Basic concepts We, human beings, use languages to communicate one with another. A language is composed of verbal instructions, a code of interpretation and a semantic content. A verbal instruction is a string of sounds or letters that belong in an alphabet. Verbal instructions must be deciphered according to a code of interpretation, which appears, say, in a dictionary. The deciphered verbal instructions convey information about the world or about actions that must be undertaken and it is in this way that they acquire semantic content. A computer is a devise that has the potential ability of executing verbal in- structions. A program is a set of verbal instruction, written in a specific pro- gramming language that can be interpreted and executed by a computer. Code is a set of instructions that eventually contain correctly written programs. Software is a set of programs to execute a task. Hardware is the wiring that converts programs into specific actions. The core of the hardware is the microprocessor that contains the central processing unit, which can understand verbal instructions that are written in machine language, which is composed of words whose alphabet is just {0,1}. An operating system is a set of programs specifically targeted to 1 serve the needs of communication between human users and the hardware: it con- tains the know-how of operating the computer to execute a verbal instruction that commands to, say, print a letter on the console; it also produces feedback from the hardware, say, it could communicate that there is no network connected to the computer. Simple microprocessors are not enabled to admit operating systems apart than the one contained in its machine language. A robot is a machine that is operated by a computer that has been programmed to have certain independence. A designer is a person that is committed to the design of software with a specific function, which is defined before beginning but that might be modified along the process. Let us define SOFT as the problem of designing software. Soft has a prelude: if one works in a company and the program must be done for a client, he or she must say what function the program must fulfill. If this is officially done, the function is transcribed to a document that is called spec. More specifically, spec contains the requirements that a system must fulfill: on this input, and under given parameters, the system must answer like this but with this other input the system must be answer like that. For instance, if the user types the name of a client, the system must display desired information such as photo, telephone number and address but the type of music he or she prefers must be displayed only if that is asked in advance. All this might be encoded as a huge table that assigns binary strings to binary strings. The task for the developer is to find an algorithm or procedure that reproduces the correct assignations and to encode it into a convenient programming language. A bug is any error against a goal in programming. It is absolutely sure that the first trial of a code is inviable. But if one manages to produce a viable code, most surely it will not do what one was so eagerly expecting. The process of adjusting the code to the predefined purpose is called debugging. From the linguistic stand, spec is no more than an extended proposition, whose overall form is do this but not that. The sentence do this plays the role of a verb and represents elementary executing actions, while the sentence but not that plays the role of an adverb and represents all the possible regulations that actions may include. In contrast to a software designer, which is a person with a goal, we also have the concept of software developer, which is any process or entity that produces software. The point to be consider in this article is that the genome is software and 2 that evolution is a software developer whose possibilities are worth being studied both to explain the genome and to be used in industrial software design. We highlight the fact that the concept of bug has a meaning in software design but in principle it lacks any meaning in software developing. The reason is that a bug is a fault against a goal, a project, a predefined function, while software developing may run without predefined goals by mere diffusion. N

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