[hwillis]

> I think this similarity is more than superficial. Energetic systems evolve over time to become tangled, correlated messes, without some other force counteracting this tendency (ie. refactoring).

Well... yes. That's entropy. Any system tends towards disorder.

> I wonder if DNA has analogous mechanisms.

DNA works differently, since there's an advantage to reusing code that naturally leads to spaghetti. Although it's not about minimizing energy- just that it's more likely to get successful code by adding onto existing code than adding a whole new section (unless you transclude it from bacteria/viruses).

[hyperpallium]

There's also abstractions in nature, a non-spaghetti form of code-reuse - a natural outcome in code, when the same thing is reused several times. e.g. cells form the "atoms" of a body. They are very similar, but specialized. Many internal mechanisms are the same. Metabolism. DNA itself and transcription is reused. It's not much, but we may find other abstractions, currently hidden, if they have been reused many times.

[aaronblohowiak]

there are also MASSIVE spans within the human genome that are copies and copies and copies and copies.

[hyperpallium]

Yes, both are true.