The phrase “DNA stores information about an organism” sounds like a literal description of reality, although it combines three different things: physical structure, its causal action, and our interpretation of the correspondences that arise between them. In this way, a model imperceptibly becomes a property of matter itself.
When people say:
DNA stores information about an organism,
they create the image of a description of the future organism lying inside the molecule: a text, a design, a blueprint, an archive, a program. As though the cell subsequently “reads” this text and assembles the body according to the meaning contained within it.
But there is no description in DNA itself. There is no:
- apple tree as a represented object;
- image of the future organism;
- meaning of “build a branch”;
- intention;
- blueprint;
- text that means something in and of itself.
There is a particular molecular structure that enters into particular physicochemical interactions with other structures.
Even a Hard Drive Does Not Store Meaning in Itself
Even a hard drive does not store meaning in itself.
Physical states exist on the drive, such as differences in magnetization or electrical charge. They become a “file,” a “photograph,” or a “text” only within a system of interpretation:
physical state → encoding → format → program → output device → human perception.
The same sequence of bits means nothing specific outside a known format. It does not contain a photograph as a photograph. The photograph emerges only when the physical state passes through a chain of accepted rules of interpretation.
At least in the case of a hard drive, however, there is an externally established encoding system. Humans determined in advance what a byte is, what an encoding is, what the JPEG format is, what the structure of a file is, and how it is decoded.
In the case of DNA, the distinction is even more significant. Nobody sat down and assigned:
this sequence will mean an arm, this sequence will mean an eye, this sequence will mean an apple tree.
DNA is not a text written in a biological language. It is a participant in a causal process.
DNA Does Not Describe the Organism but Participates in Its Becoming
It is therefore more accurate not to say:
DNA contains a description of the organism,
but instead:
a particular DNA structure participates in a reproducible chain of transformations through which particular proteins, cellular states, and forms of the organism arise.
There is no transition here from a symbol to the meaning it denotes.
There is a transition:
structure → interaction → change → new structure → new interaction.
A molecule does not “understand” that a particular segment relates to eye color. A protein does not “read an instruction” in the human sense. Binding, separation, chemical reactions, configurational changes, and the activation or suppression of other processes occur.
What we call “reading” is a human description of a stable sequence of interactions.
The Code Appears from the Observer’s Position
We observe that particular nucleotide sequences regularly correspond to particular amino acids. We then construct a table:
sequence X corresponds to amino acid Y.
And then an almost imperceptible substitution occurs:
corresponds within an observed process
becomes
means.
But “corresponds” and “means” are not the same thing.
A correspondence can be established between any consistently associated states. Smoke corresponds to fire. Tracks in the snow correspond to an animal that passed by. A needle’s position corresponds to pressure. But smoke does not contain the message “there was a fire here” until an interpreting consciousness distinguishes it as a sign.
Likewise, a DNA sequence becomes “information” only after an observer:
- distinguishes the sequence as a separate object;
- compares it with subsequent states;
- discovers a stable dependence;
- represents that dependence in symbolic form;
- calls the resulting correspondence information.
In other words, information is not simply located “in DNA.” It arises within the construction of a relation between distinguished states.
Two Substitutions
The expression “DNA stores information” usually conceals two substitutions at once.
The First Substitution: Causality Becomes Description
A particular structure causally participates in the emergence of another structure.
But this is retold as though the first structure describes the second.
The result is:
cause → code;
transformation → reading;
outcome of an interaction → execution of an instruction.
This is no longer observation, but an imposed computational metaphor.
The Second Substitution: Correspondence Becomes Meaning
We discover a regularity between a nucleotide sequence and the outcomes of a biochemical process.
But then we say that the sequence “carries the meaning” of that outcome.
Yet meaning does not lie inside the sequence. Meaning appears when someone regards one structure as pointing to another.
A Seed Is Not an Archive of an Apple Tree
This is especially clear in the example of a seed.
A seed is not a flash drive on which an apple tree has been recorded. It contains no miniature symbolic model of the future tree.
A seed is the initial organization of a process capable, under certain conditions, of continuing a particular line of transformations.
This can be formulated more precisely:
A seed is not an already completed apple tree in miniature, but an initial state of a living process from which an apple tree can unfold in an appropriate environment.
In other words, an apple tree is not “read” from the seed. It emerges as the continuation of a process that includes not only DNA but also the entire organization of the living cell, the chemical environment, nutrients, water, temperature, and numerous interactions.
DNA separated from the cell does not independently begin “executing the apple-tree program.” Therefore, even the expression “DNA builds an organism” already centralizes one element of the process excessively.
DNA is not a sovereign architect. It is embedded in a broader system of mutual transformations.
“Genetic Program” Is Also a Metaphor
The expression “genetic program” is particularly dangerous because it imperceptibly transfers the computer model onto a living process:
- there is code;
- there is a processor;
- there are commands;
- there is execution;
- there is a predetermined outcome.
But a computer program is first created as a symbolic construction. Its commands mean something within an artificially designed machine.
In an organism, there is no such clear separation between:
the program, the executor of the program, and the product of execution.
The molecules that supposedly “read” DNA have themselves arisen within that same process. They act upon DNA, while the state of the cell influences which regions participate in further reactions in the first place. This is not the one-way execution of a plan, but a circular network of mutual changes.
Thus, the image of a program is useful for a limited technical description, but becomes deceptive when it is accepted as the ontological structure of life.
What, Then, Can Be Called Information?
The word “information” can be retained, but only if it is explicitly defined.
For example:
Genetic information is the stable correspondence, established by an observer, between differences in molecular structure and differences in subsequent states of a biological process.
Then we do not claim that meaning physically lies inside DNA.
We claim only that:
- distinguishable structures exist;
- differences between structures affect subsequent transformations;
- these dependencies can be recorded;
- they can be represented in a symbolic model.
In this sense, “information” is not a substance inside the molecule, but a way of describing distinctions and their consequences.
The Bare Construction
It can be stated in the most uncompromising terms:
DNA does not store meaning, a description of the organism, or a design for a future body. DNA is a physical structure participating in a causal chain of biological transformations. That structure becomes information only within a system of comparison in which certain distinctions are interpreted through others.
And even more briefly:
There is no organism recorded in DNA. There is a structure from which a particular process of form formation continues through interaction with other structures.
The problem, therefore, does not necessarily lie in the technical use of the word “information” itself. The problem begins when we forget that this is a model of a relation and transform it into an independent substance supposedly lying physically inside the molecule.
This is precisely the collapse of distinctions:
structure becomes a symbol;
causality becomes reading;
reproducibility becomes a program;
human interpretation is declared a property of matter itself.
