genome is an abstract catalyst
However, the genome is not an ordinary catalyst. It has two additional properties: it is information, because it can be copied in the process of DNA replication, and it causes itself to remain instantiated in physical systems over generations because it guarantees that the organism for which it codes can survive in a certain environment. I shall call this type of information an abstract catalyst. ‘Catalyst’, as I said, because it can enable transformations and retain the property of causing them again. ‘Abstract’, because its identity does not depend on the physical systems in which it is embodied—it can be copied from one embodiment to another, without changing its properties: it could be in DNA or in a nanorobot’s computer. According to our criteria in chapter 3, an abstract catalyst is made of information, for it is copiable. Also, it is information that is capable of enabling its own preservation: in the terminology of chapter 1, it contains knowledge.