14 DAY TRIAL // General belief has it that, given that enough complexity is provided, life is probable to arise as a consequence. And, besides living organisms, there's no other system more complicated than the Internet. So, how wrong is it to assume that it may evolve into a living entity?
Even now, you're reading this article via a sophisticated network of millions of routers and billions of end receivers which allow its users, by means of elaborate protocols, to use, alter and resend content and information all across it. Even more, this network and the vast majority of its components show features generally attributed to living beings, evolution included. And, with all the new technology invested in them, it's safe to claim that intelligence, awareness or even life are exclusively organic traits.
Sure, one can say that only chemical builds are known to have been able to develop into life forms. But this kind of statement has constantly been proved wrong in the past. Think about the disputes generated by the ideas of flying, computing machines or devices in motion without human intervention. Man has built all those, and most of them surpass human capabilities by far. However, the exact chemical thing that makes us tick hasn't been discovered yet – some call it soul and solidly claim that, lacking it, soulless machines or inorganic builds will never come to life. But for the most part, these people barely know anything about technology or evolution, so their argument is not quite valid. Actually, we can only imagine life as we know it, based on the principle that we don't even fully understand it. But what if there are (many) other forms of life?
Luke McKinney, who thought of this matter, wrote for Daily Galaxy that he thought of two ways the Internet could come into living. One was that where most of the action takes place, where most data is meddled with – the relentless battle of spammers vs. shielders. Another one would be for the net itself to evolve into a life form, since it's compared to the brain in complexity and the way it relates to the environments, both internal and external.
Still, if this theory is right (although I know you're all skeptical and rather amused), think of what may happen afterwards, putting aside the SF movies about malevolent machines. Just consider the fact that the Internet is made up of 90% spam, 9% adult content and most of the rest out of complaining posts and blogs. Have a nice sleep on this.