When I was young and heard people talking about plant spirits, I thought they were superstitious. Now I think they used on old word for “operating system”. Every complex organism implements a complex software that regulates its own dynamics and its relationship to other organisms
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My point is this: Our concept of (computer) SW assumes an abstract machine to run it. Engineering focus is to implement this HW architecture in physics. But in living things this looks inseparable. The physical process has no clear abstraction boundary to take such a distinction.
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When we teach something to a human or an animal, we exploit the fact that they implement an abstract machine to implement what we teach. We use this abstract machine (which is a partial model of their control architecture) to interpret, predict and influence their behavior.
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Yes, there are multiple mechanisms of encoding the regulation of dynamics, I agree in principle. Though, using these computer-centric terms does have the effect to shy away a lot of people. Plus, in biology those two sides are deeper intertwined, by mutually creating each other.
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Shying away a lot of people is often not a bad thing, especially if they don't want to understand what is being said and just try to find a mapping to their preconceptions. And perhaps you could make your implied definition of "create" more water tight and even computer-centric?
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