replicator n.
Any construct that acts to produce copies of itself; this
could be a living organism, an idea (see meme), a program (see quine, worm, wabbit, fork
bomb, and virus), a pattern
in a cellular automaton (see life,
sense 1), or (speculatively) a robot or nanobot. It is even claimed by some that Unix and C are the
symbiotic halves of an extremely successful replicator; see Unix conspiracy.