Any form of observation includes a process of change, in both the observer and in what is being observed. The observer changes itself and the world while observing it. The emergence of life from the stage of the earliest living molecule is at the same time the emergence of its environment. However, the self-awareness of an observer implies as well an awareness of the environment (world) that is not possible without memory.
Memory could be defined as a set of information with an algorithm deployed to store, retrieve and interpret them. Since there is an order of storing information, there is a process of irreversibility that can be associated with acquiring memory, that is the opposite of entropy. It goes from a state of low organization (less information) to one of higher organization (more information). By remembering the initial state (higher entropy), we may compare it with the end state (lower entropy). And it is memory itself that allows us to make this distinction. Thus the entire evolution of life could be interpreted as a process of acquiring memory. It has a direction of change, it is irreversible, and it shifts from simpler toward more complex ways of organizing living organisms. It seems that the evolution of life could be interpreted as an anti-entropic but also irreversible process. Since an observer itself can be understood to be a reflection,
a picture, of its environment, the more complex living organism (observer) is, the more complex image of the world it encodes. The interpretations of the environment that were “impressed” on the earliest living molecule were a very simple ones, most likely binary in their nature. It is reasonable to assume that those first sets of information were about some properties of the environment vital for the living molecule to maintain its integrity, to survive, such as distinctions between hot and cold or dark and light. In order to recognize these properties around itself this first life had to know what is hot and cold, meaning that this knowledge had to be incorporated, stored within its own molecular structure. However, there must have been a moment when for the first time a new combination within a living molecule took place that enabled it to distinguish hot from cold and thus increased its chances to survive. Because there is life today, it is also reasonable to assume that this rudimentary knowledge about the environment, this early picture of the world, acquired by the first life form was vital and accurate enough to be passed through all subsequent stages of life until the present day. It could probably be found embedded in the DNA strands of any living organism today. Understandably, most of the research on DNA has been focused primarily on the biological properties of a certain sequence or strand, or on the functional role it plays in a living organism. In addition to finding out what a DNA sequence does, it might be also interesting to find out if it possesses any form of meaning, and what this meaning might be. The visual method introduced here is intended to provide such a language. It is based on a specific representation of DNA/RNA sequences that are expressed visually with well-established formal relationships derived primarily from the visual properties of its constitutive notions. This method is based on five discrete values of the gray-scale while the sequences are organized in 2D blocks of 3x4 matrices. With these two different kinds of structure, one structure of values and another of positions, it is possible to generate images connected with a set of formal rules that could be understood as syntactical in nature. Furthermore, it is also possible to attach certain meanings to this form of representation that would constitute a certain caste of DNA semantics. Thus the five values on the gray scale are interpreted as five DNA/RNA bases and their relationships are derived from the properties of the corresponding values. For example, all the base-pairs could be defined by a single rule: 50% value difference between the bases.
Altogether, in addition to looking at DNA as a functional (biological) entity, it is possible to approach DNA as a specific living observer with a certain kind of knowledge impressed (stored) on it as a set of information about its environment (world) that can be translated and interpreted through a language with its semantic expressed visually. This approach could enable a very different understanding of DNA, but also of ourselves as its more complex expression, and this strangely familiar world around us.