Life requires genetic representation and vice versa - Consequences for ALife

The production of autonomously functioning, integrated, complex networks of physico-chemical processes requires the creation of some mode of informational representation in molecular form (genes), not only as a matter of fact but also as the only plausible way of designing such systems to achieve control with a level of specificity typical of molecular biological processes. Likewise, only through their natural selection as parts of systems which express the information in them could DNA sequences of kilo-, megaor giga-base length attain specific representational meanings of biological significance. Nothing worthy of the designation “Artificial Life” will exist until an information-interpreter/constructor coupling of the sort that emerged at life’s origin on our planet is recapitulated in the laboratory. Attempts to achieve such a goal require very careful scrutiny and the ethics of such endeavours should be discussed within the context of a radical critique of how human agency is constituted and how it is linked to fundamental biological processes.