Selfduplicating

Selfduplicating refers to the property of a system or object to create exact copies of itself. This phenomenon is observed in various contexts, from biological organisms to abstract computational systems. In biology, self-replication is a fundamental characteristic of life, where organisms reproduce to create offspring that inherit their genetic material. This process can be asexual, resulting in genetically identical clones, or sexual, involving genetic recombination.

In a broader sense, self-replication can also be applied to non-biological entities. For instance, a self-replicating machine is a hypothetical construct capable of building another identical machine using raw materials and its own components. Such concepts are explored in theoretical physics and computer science, particularly in the study of artificial life and self-organizing systems.

The concept of self-replication is closely related to ideas of autocatalysis, where a product of a reaction catalyzes the reaction itself, leading to exponential growth. In computation, self-replicating programs, often called computer viruses or worms, can spread and multiply across networks, executing code and creating new instances of themselves. The study of self-duplication, regardless of the domain, often involves understanding the mechanisms of replication, the conditions required for it, and its potential consequences, whether beneficial or detrimental. The term emphasizes the direct and faithful reproduction of the original entity.