Eli5-If a virus isn’t technically alive, I would assume it doesn’t have instinct. Where does it get its instructions/drive to know to infect host cells and multiply?

Question

Eli5-If a virus isn’t technically alive, I would assume it doesn’t have instinct. Where does it get its instructions/drive to know to infect host cells and multiply?

In: 7067

Answer 1

Think of a water wheel. A water wheel doesn’t *know* it’s turning. It isn’t alive, but it turns. Attach a few gears and such and you have an automatic grain mill. Does it know it’s a grain mill? No, but it will mill grain.

Think of a block of code. A function. If you randomly assembled 1s and 0s, eventually you’d have a block code that works and does something. A virus is basically the 3D version of that, random parts coming together until it does something