Do viruses act like simple automata?

Factual Questions
1

I was reading one of Richard Feynman’s memoirs once and he describes taking a vacation in a different field, namely biology. In the lab, he observed some paramecia and noted that they didn’t seem to act like little machines. IIRC, he felt that their behavior set was much richer than he would have imagined. I was reading something that reminded me of the debate about whether viruses are dead or alive and I was wondering if they acted like simple (well, I guess they are pretty complicated, but you know what I mean) automata, just sitting there until conditions were right to do their thing and then cruising along until conditions changed, etc. I was explaining viruses to my four-year-old as being tiny little robots. Am I way off base here?

Thanks,
Rob

2

I wouldn’t say that you are off-base. If anything, a virus is actually too simple to be called a little machine. They are DNA wrapped in a coat. The coat enables the DNA to get into the cells. Once in, the cells’ own system processes it. This can then lead to production of proteins that have all sorts of functions on the cell. The material that is the virus itself hardly does anything.