[Alamo-Girl]

Er, if I may...

If I may, I suggest that the principle issue here is the word "information." To me, when a biologist uses it in discussions about DNA, he's talking about the arrangement of the molecules, which determines their function. That's all I see, just organic chemistry. The arrangement is the information.

I suspect that you are putting much more meaning into the word "information." If you define it so as to mean that DNA contains some kind of message from somewhere, then you have pre-determined (so to speak) your conclusion that something more than chemistry must be going on. But that conclusion is inherent in the way you define "information," and I really think your definition needs some work.

A dead organism retains its DNA for a very, very long time.

The information is not the DNA - the DNA is the symbolism, the coding, the complexity, the processor. Just like a computer does nothing until it is turned "on" - the DNA is not alive in itself. Life is in the information, the communication. The definition of information is "successful communication" (Shannon).

Once the cell quits communicating, it is dead.

[js1138]

Once the cell quits communicating, it is dead.

Or mostly dead. What about the spore form of bacteria?