as do rainforests, to the madness of a coral reef, to animals busily building nests and storing food. Living things can respond to contingencies by exercising options, using chance encounters to their advantage. Even the very concept of advantage and disadvantage applies only to living things. Machines do not create conditions suitable for their functioning, do not create themselves, make their own parts, do not self-propagate, do not form communities, do not self-evolve or self-diversify. A more basic difference distinguishes the living. Living things have purpose: to stay alive, to create
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