What do you think of the concept? Does it make more sense than treating the virion as the "true" virus or is it just meaningless recategorization?

>>16693191 (OP)
Nah, a non infected cell made all the complex machinery
The viron is the true form

>>16693283
Just because a cell made it doesn't entitle it to ownership. Property is a human concept.
All your cells are up for grabs unless you have a immune system that protects your bodily interests.

>>16693191 (OP)
>What do you think of the concept?
BS made up with graphics because the imaging is highly disputable.

We have single celled organism and multi-celled organism.
What if viruses are just non-celled organism or zero celled organisms?

>>16693191 (OP)
So you'd look as virions as the spores of the infected form of the cell.
Kind of interesting.
It would make more sense if you could trace back an evolutionary lineage of a species of cell evolving different infected forms and thus different virions
A virus being able to infect a cell of a several different species argues against this though.

>>16693191 (OP)
viruses are such a muddy topic its hard to pin down because they range from viroids (literally a piece of RNA) to giant viruses (some studies suggest very basic metabolism)
standard viruses are not and never will be alive, it is a self replicating molecule. the host cell does not lose its individuality it is just parasitised

>>16693684
every post on this godforsaken board is semantic nonsense
GO FUCK YOURSELF

>>16694795
/thread
honestly even the /thread for all of /sci/

>>16693191 (OP)
I like this view as well, but the problem with it is that the same virus can often infect a pretty wide variety of host cells. Cells of very different animals, and cells of different tissues in the same animal. The thing they all have in common is the virion, whereas the virocell is infinitely variable. This makes interpreting the virocell as the true virus lifeform a not so very useful viewpoint.

>>16693191 (OP)
my opinion on the matter of whether viruses are life forms is something along this line:
in nature, even outside of biology, there is no single unit of anything in the universe. if you have one element or isotope, there's always more than one atom of it, if you have a molecule, for sure there are more than one unit of it. similarly, in biology, it's impossible to have one (01) unit of a cell/species. if you have an animal species, there's more than one individual. likewise, if you annihilated all but one species from the planet, it wouldn't survive. life is a network. not an individual, nor an species, not even an ecosystem, it is the whole biosphere. the entire earth biosphere is the "unit" for life on earth. and viruses are part of that, they're absolutely essential in all ecosystems, life would be radically different without them, and I'd wager that if you could make all forms of viruses vanish instantly, that life on earth wouldn't survive or, at least, it would cause a mass extinction event. so, from these optics, I'd argument that viruses are indeed part of the lifeforms of earth.

>>16694795
New banner candidate

>>16694795
Imagine being this fucking new.

>>16693191 (OP)
the virus particle is the infective form of the organism. all other stages are parasitic and not viable without already being inside its host. but none of this really matter, not even your query