Neither dead nor alive: the paradox of the virus

It has no body or soul but it spreads.

The virus does not truly live according to our understanding but uses the living to exist.

If it kills them, it disappears. So it must be subtle. Attack, spread, parasitize the host and feed on it without causing too much damage, otherwise it disappears like a lumberjack cutting the branch he is sitting on. We are talking here about natural viruses and not biological weapons manufactured by humans.

The virus is a biological code, a particle of data or information, sometimes encapsulated in a lipid wall, which cannot reproduce on its own. It generally enters through the mucous membranes because they are the highways to the interiors, hacks and reprograms its host who thus becomes an infected person.

As is often the case in nature, it has no moral plan but just seeks to multiply. In this, it follows the teachings of the figures of the living. Like an extreme amplifier, a Loki or a Satan, it shows how vulnerable any system is to what it does not see or has not anticipated.

It also symbolizes the fear of the Other, the invisible invasion, the uncontrollable. And finally, progress that escapes its creator, the bug of the living, toxic information.