John H Woods

UK

IT

Hey, gizza job!

Your work sounds fascinating, and your article is extremely interesting. I do take issue with a couple of your points, however.

On a pedantic note, I think that 'this statement is false' is paradoxical, not undecidable. I think you need something like 'this statement is true but not provable' to demonstrate undecidability. (email argument welcome!)

Whilst I agree that it is impossible to determine whether a given piece of code is a virus, it is perfectly possible to observe the /behaviour/ of pieces of code and determine which of them are viruses.

It's pretty much the same story with DNA -- you can only tell genetic material is from a virus because it is similar to genetic material that is known to be from (other) viruses. But the behaviour of the organism/entity in the environment makes it easy to classify it as a virus or not.

I just wish I had an opportunity to apply my original biological knowledge more effectively to IT. I'm sure that as the complexity of IT systems increases, a biological approach (such as an ecological networks analysis) becomes more and more appropriate to manage and understand the complexities and the emergent behaviours.

...John