Genome
#Genome A Genome is an ordered collection of genes, and represents the genetic information which controls the development of biomorph bodies. A genome is pure information, conceptually independent of any physical medium in which it might be stored. The genes of which the genome is composed can change, and these changes count as changes to the genome itself: the genome is nothing other than the genes of which it is composed, arranged in a particular order.
In nature, the genome of a living cell is recorded in the cell's DNA: long chains of chemical molecules which store the information of the genome as a sequence of chemical 'letters' drawn from an alphabet of only four. In terms of the binary arithmetic of computer science, since each letter represents a one-in-four choice from the limited chemical alphabet of DNA, each letter encodes two binary 'bits' of information, where each bit represents a yes-or-no choice. (There are four possible combinations of answers to two yes-or-no questions.)
The fact that the genome's information content is fundamentally digital means that it is easy to produce faithful copies of any genome, not only in the form of a copied DNA molecule in a living cell which is about to divide, but in any form whatever, including the storage media and memory of computers.
Though devised by analogy with the genomes of living cells, biomorph genomes are more than analogs of genomes from the living world: the fact that both are comprised purely of information makes a biomorph genomes true cousins of living genomes, in a purely mathematical sense.
In three of the classic watchmaker biomorph species (monochrome biomorph, colour biomorph, and conchomorph), the genomes are fixed-length ordered linear lists of genes. Monochrome biomorphs have 16 such genes, colour biomorphs add 12 for a total of 28 genes, and conchomorphs have 4.
Arthromorphs have an infinitely variable number of genes: individual genes, or whole sequences of them, can be duplicated or deleted by mutations in the genome. Arthromorph genes are called 'atoms', and are arranged in an ordered binary tree where each atom keeps track of its first offspring and its next sibling.