The idea that the sequence of base pairs in DNA represents any sort of blueprint for life is nonsensical from an informational theoretical point of view. The sequences are meaningless by themselves and require systems of translation and transcription which themselves require the existence and maintenance of unfeasibly large amounts of information.
This refutation applies to all systems where ‘information’ is regarded as an abstract entity and divorced from any physical function.
The idea of DNA as ‘information‘
Mainstream science tells us that the ordering of the base pairs in a strand of DNA represents some sort of blue-print for living systems. Depending upon who you read it can represent an entire organism or just the structure of proteins in the body. Either way, the idea is unfeasible.
The base pairs of DNA constitute data, not information, and without interpretation they are really meaningless strings of digits. There is no obvious code for a protein written into a DNA strand and no reference to any laws of physics or biology; all we have so far is a stream of ‘bits’.
The storage of data as a stream of DNA base pairs may be appropriate for stable storage and integrity during reproduction but it will not, of itself, lead to the development of a new organism.
To convert this stream of bits to anything resembling organic life, we therefore need to translate the bits from this coding scheme to one that is more representative of the laws of bio-chemistry and then somehow implement these physical instructions to construct a real entity. Scientists know this and refer to these steps as translation and transcription respectively.
Translation
DNA has about 3 gigabytes of stored data but we need to be able to interpret this data and translate it to a series of protein coding schemes or something similar. The question arises then as to how much data is needed for the translation scheme itself.
An analogy is that I want to send a Shakespeare sonnet to someone in China but they don’t speak English so an English-Chinese dictionary needs to be involved. A sonnet contains a mere 24 lines of text but the dictionary needs to contain every single word in the English language, just in case it is present in the sonnet.
The dictionary in this case then must contain vastly more data than the information to be translated.
What size of dictionary is required to translate all the potential data in a genome? ‘Unfeasibly large’ appears to be the answer.
Maintaining integrity of the data
The volume of data isn’t the only problem; we have to ensure that it is stored somewhere, free from corruption and somehow inherited. We need to specify some medium in which this data is embodied.
If we say that the integrity is maintained by error correction then we now need extra data and extra functions to implement the error correction and these themselves must be error free.
The mechanisms for error correction, translation and transcription need to be precisely inherited themselves and again require the presence of extra information.
The embodiment of biological data as a digital system has not solved any problem at all but instead added extra problems to solve with now exponentially larger quantities of data. The whole scheme actually necessitates an infinite regression of encoding and error correction.
Transcription
In addition to a dictionary for translation, we need some mechanism for transcription. The translated information coming from the DNA needs to be input into some physical process which will go on to construct proteins or whatever. So what does this process consist of, how was it constructed, where is the information for this and how was such information inherited? The information cannot be contained in the DNA itself because it was needed to construct the machinery that extracts information from the DNA in the first place.
We have managed to describe another infinite chain of regression, this time for the transcription process.
A generalisation of the problem
The problems above are described with reference to DNA but clearly apply to any digital encoding scheme within biological systems.
The central problem is that digital data is just a string of bits and at some time this will need to be converted to a real entity via the laws of physics. There are no laws of physics in a stream of bits, no feedback systems and no energy to drive the process along. All these must come from somewhere else.
The whole narrative draws attention away from the practical problem of manufacturing a cell and just points to the ordering of base pairs as somehow a great discovery.
The same problem will arise whenever a data stream is regarded as source of ‘information’ and whenever the idea of ‘information’ is regarded as an abstract mathematical entity with no concrete relationship to the laws of physics or bio-chemistry.
The solution in abstract
The solution then is to stop regarding ‘information’ and physical structure as separate entities and acknowledge that within biological systems at least, biological information must consist of ‘functionality’, i.e. it must consist of some concrete physical entity that is capable of getting things done.
Information must be in some sense ‘absolute’ and related to the laws of physics in order to remove the need for both translation and transcription. Biological information cannot therefore be digital or ‘abstract’ in nature.
A concrete solution
Konstantin Meyl, in his book “Scalar waves..”, has stated simply that: “(biological) Information is the structure of a scalar wave.”
A scalar wave in this case is an electromagnetic structure as described by Tesla which is likely found throughout biological systems. See: The nature of the bio-field
This proposal fits all of the requirements for biological information.
- Such structures are inherently self-stabilising
- They have their own motivational force
- Will propagate along appropriate biological conduits
- Have their own intrinsic energy
- Additional energy may be absorbed from the environment
- Energy transduction enables ‘persistence’
- Energy transduction enables ‘function’.
- Specific characteristics enable specific function
- Electromagnetic nature enables direct interaction with the bio-field
- Obviates the need for translation and transcription
These are the requirements that we need in abstract. There may be other physical constructs which implement these features, but scalar waves seem a very good fit.