Heredity as an Encoded Communication Process

Heredity is relevant to information theory as a communication process. The conservation of genomes over intervals at the geological timescale and the existence of mutations at shorter intervals can be conciliated assuming that genomes possess intrinsic error-correction codes. The better conservation of old parts of genomes leads to assume that these codes are organized as a nested system set up during geological times, which protects a genomic message the better, the older it is. These hypotheses imply that: genomes are redundant, discrete species exist with a hierarchical taxonomy, successive generations are needed, evolution is contingent and saltationist; it trends towards increasing complexity. These consequences match features of the actual living world but their experimental confirmation needs a still lacking collaboration of biologists and information-theorists. It is suggested that genomic error-correcting codes could consist of "soft codes" where mutual dependence of symbols results from physical-chemical and linguistic constraints, not only mathematical equalities. The constraints incurred by DNA molecules moreover result in a nested structure. Guesses about genomic error-correcting codes are made.