Are computer viruses alive? The answer to that question is a resounding no. My conclusion is based on the fact that a computer virus does not meet the current biological characteristics of living things.
The biological requirements for a living being or organism include the ability to respond to internal changes which are internally controlled; therefore, a living being must have homeostasis. Another requirement for life is the ability to respond to metabolism that would involve responses to chemical reactions within a cell. Computer viruses, according to me, cannot be considered as living things since they do not have hereditary traits and cellular compositions that are mandatory for a living thing to exist. Another thing that computer viruses lack is the ability to reproduce. This is because it lacks the cell composition that is required for a living being to be able to create life. A cell forms the basic composition of the building blocks of human bodies. A computer virus is a code program, and it has to attach itself to a host document or computer for it to continue existing and it cannot achieve the organizational structure required for them to be termed as living. A computer virus, instead of growing, just moves to other computers without changing its form. This makes it a non-living thing. Living things grow. Growth means that they can change in form and exist on their own. Computer viruses, however, do not show growth as they only exist in files while attaching themselves to new files. Such attachment cannot account for growth as a virus does not change in size or shape.
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Therefore, concluding that a computer virus is not alive would be correct as the arguments above show that a living being has to have the ability to reproduce, ability to grow, react to various metabolisms and a living being must have a cell composition as a cell is the basic unit of a living organism.
