Midhun on Information

[Roy (34-year veteran)]

@Tim

The second link defines “digital data” as “information represented as a string of discrete symbols, each of which can take on one of only a finite number of values from some alphabet, such as letters or digits.” The problem being that DNA is not comprised of abstract symbols, but of chemicals – purines or pyrimidines. That, after millions of years, humans decided to assign letters to them, in order to simplify analysis, does not change this. Their function is the same as all biochemistry, to interact with other chemicals within living organisms, not to be “read” in any non-metaphorical sense.

Yes, that’s exactly why I don’t count DNA/RNA ‘information’ as digital data. It’s physical, not symbolic. Our conversion of the ‘information’ to symbolic strings of ACGTUs produces digital data, but that’s not the original.

This is analogous to converting non-digital audio - which @Midhun agrees is non-digital - into digital recordings.^[1]

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1. Insert pedantry about early recordings being non-digital here. ↩︎