Lila Lee Gatlin is an American biochemist who first defined biology as an information processing system.
"Life may be defined operationally as an information processing
system—a structural hierarchy of functioning units—that has acquired
through evolution the ability to store and process the information
necessary for its own accurate reproduction. The key word in the
definition is information. This definition, like all definitions of life,
is relative to the environment. My reference system is the natural
environment we find on this planet. However, I do not think that life
has ever been defined even operationally in terms of information. This
entire book constitutes a first step toward such a definition."
(Information Theory and the Living System, (1971) Lila Gatlin, p.1)
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