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We lack good metaphors here.

Like genes, the following collections of information are plans, as other entities (workers, compilers, cells, etc) can reliably use them to produce larger, more complex objects:

- Blueprint

- Instruction manual

- Recipe

- Code

Unlike genes, they’re all human-designed. The top-down forcing function - the “back” in the feedback loop which shapes them - is human artifice.

I’ll leave it as an “exercise to the reader” to consider the differences in how their environment and execution apparatuses affect the resulting objects.

Genes are like blueprints, but obviously not the same. For one, they haven’t passed the county permitting process! And living organisms are like buildings because you can point to the plan behind them. But I’ll be darned if a house has ever had to struggle for survival.





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