Flipping an individual bit through radiation is extremely easy, which is why we need error corrections, but despite that, we still get errors… Even if the probability of an error bypassing the ECC is extremely low, over a long enough timescale it will happen often enough to evolve. Especially in space where there is no atmosphere or magnetic field to reduce it.
I’m not talking about little tiny robots with batteries and computers, I’m talking about precisely formed, microscopic and deformable chunks of metal. That’s why I brought up proteins- they do not carry any information themselves, and can sometimes form duplicates of themselves, such as in the case of prions.
Flipping an individual bit through radiation is extremely easy, which is why we need error corrections, but despite that, we still get errors… Even if the probability of an error bypassing the ECC is extremely low, over a long enough timescale it will happen often enough to evolve. Especially in space where there is no atmosphere or magnetic field to reduce it.
I’m not talking about little tiny robots with batteries and computers, I’m talking about precisely formed, microscopic and deformable chunks of metal. That’s why I brought up proteins- they do not carry any information themselves, and can sometimes form duplicates of themselves, such as in the case of prions.