Re:First Support for a Physics Theory of Life
by roywiggins on Wednesday July 26, 2017 @04:40PM
(#14860112)
Viruses are completely dependent on the rest of life, and so was their origin. They use the same DNA, RNA and proteins as everything else. They certainly didn't arise independently.
It depends on how you define life. If viruses are a life form then you have one. If self-replicating meta-structures composed of multiple different species interacting such as lichen count as separate life forms made of other life then that might count too.
On the more far-out side of theoretical biology people have proposed culture/memes and the modern high-tech economy as a new form of life that has emerged from previous life. If solar power (or fusion) becomes ubiquitous and it learns to recycle nearly all its waste it will become an ecologically self-sufficient form of life, and if AI ever gets good enough to have machines designing and producing machines it could "fork" and become a completely independent form of life.