> somehow it's all encoded in DNA (only 6 billion bits in humans, which has to also build cells and their ultracomplex machinery)
One has to be cautious to not assume that the only data DNA holds is in base pairs.
We know that secondary factors like inter- and intra-strand interactions or DNA-histone interaction encodes information as well.
A good analogy is a book. While it is made up of individual letters, the combinations build to words, which build to sentences, which build to ideas, which can interact with other ideas (sometimes in other chapters!) to create a complexity beyond just the combination of letters would suggest.
That's not even getting into the temporal aspects of DNA expression.
One has to be cautious to not assume that the only data DNA holds is in base pairs.
We know that secondary factors like inter- and intra-strand interactions or DNA-histone interaction encodes information as well.
A good analogy is a book. While it is made up of individual letters, the combinations build to words, which build to sentences, which build to ideas, which can interact with other ideas (sometimes in other chapters!) to create a complexity beyond just the combination of letters would suggest.
That's not even getting into the temporal aspects of DNA expression.