• all (I'll repeat it: ALL) of them concern exclusively this molecule.

Citation from the article "Gene" at wikipedia.org:

This (reference to "genetics") increases a little bit the value of the reasoning we made above (before the citation), so let's come back and provide a little of substantiation to it, especially the ones which should make obvious the case with "genetics".

Let's provide analogies which can be considered as some kind of proof:

• Two (working) hard drives can store more information than only one of them.
• (Amount of) Information contained in one molecule + (amount of) information contained in other molecule  ≠  (amount of) information contained in only one of them.
  
• One component from a set of (non-empty) components of a cell is  ≠  to the whole cell.
  
  And, more strict proof... ))
• 1 + 1  ≠  1
  
  Another variant:
• chromosomes + the rest of the cell  ≠  chromosomes
  
  
• ... and you can compose a lot more.
  

• All molecules matter and define properties of an organism, especially the ones which constitute the structure of a cell and of its components.

• It's impossible to restore the whole cell from chromosomes/"genes" alone (in usual environment at earth where biological organisms exist).
  They simply do not contain the information about the whole cell, and only about themselves.
  

1. Cell exposed to fire (or pretty high temperature) will not be developed to the whole organism, or its part,
   as it should be expected according to "encoded genetic information" inside of some components of a cell,
   and most probably will burn or dissipate in other way.
2. Gametal cell (of multicellular organism) transferred to Mars or Moon and exposed to open "air" will not develop to the whole organism, or its part,
   as it should be expected according to "encoded genetic information" inside of some components of a cell,
   and most probably will die and dissipate over some period of time.
3. .....

• There's no program in a cell on how to grow. There are no additional atoms inside of atoms of a cell which would expand to the whole organism.
  Environment interacts with a cell and supplies molecules and atoms to the cell (be it unicellular organism in environment, or one particular, and maybe growing, cell of an organism).
  The cell interacts with these molecules and changes accordingly to supplied atoms and molecules (and may provide some output to environment).
• All of the (structure of a) cell holds heredity information (for specific environment).
  

Citation from the article "Cellular differentiation" at wikipedia.org:

Citation from the article "Dominance (genetics)" at wikipedia.org:

• And this was what defined the great success of "genes" and "genetics" in general.

Citation from the article "Inactive genes still produce RNA" at arstechnica.com:

< ...... >

Citation from description of the article      "A Chromatin Landmark and Transcription Initiation at Most Promoters in Human Cells" at cell.com:

• atoms,
• simple molecules,
• liquids,
• amorphous substances with simple structure, or simplest molecules involved,
• crystalline structures,
• vaporization, condensation,
• and other basic processes with simple basic components.

• There are very simple organisms and very complex organisms.
• (A lot of) organisms can reproduce themselves.
• There is large variety of organisms, usually called species.
• Some of the organisms/species can grow, usually from more simple forms, like one cell, to something (much) more complex, like multicellular organism.
• Organisms live, change, and eventually die.
• Organisms have very similar basic elemental base: all consist of atoms, at the basis is used some limited amount of atoms from all of the variety of atoms, the basic molecules used in organisms are very similar for a lot of species, more complex species usually have complicated or changed parts of more simple ones and may add something new (usually in bounds of generally used basic elemental base).
• Organisms have some level of complexity of behaviour and of (physiological) changes (during interaction with environment).
• And some other stuff....
  (And, all of this still is the same reality that we consider in other areas, the same basic components, the same basic physical laws.)

• It's absolutely not obligatory to have complex forms of life exactly on the elementary base we have at Earth, with preference of exactly of the chemical elements that are used in [biological] organisms at Earth.
  

1. There should be some motion of atoms and molecules,
   so that they mix/diffuse and interact and there's some probability that complex compounds appear.
   
2. There must be some minimum diversity of elements,
   since similar atoms and molecules would create only uniform structures, like crystalline or similar.
3. There should be source of "quick" energy, so that the process could be fuelled and supported.
   It may be thermal energy of a planet, or the energy that goes from stars, etc.
   At Earth the beginning stage of evolution it could be thermal and solar energy, which was stored in form of bonds in molecules, and then these molecules were used to power other processes/reactions/changes.
   At later stages of evolution at Earth it was mostly solar energy, and a lot of organisms use stored solar energy indirectly, by consuming other organisms, which stored it or in turn consumed other organisms which stored it.

Image from the article "Life" at wikipedia.org:

"An aerial photo of microbial mats around the Grand Prismatic Spring of Yellowstone National Park."

• Beginning stage has, as we described above, atoms, simple molecules, liquids, crystalline structures and similar basic stuff.
  Or, in the other words, primitive forms of life.
• With some probability may appear more complex molecules.
• In environments rich by diversity of atoms and molecules, more complex molecules have ability to be replicated by environment.
• And.... the flame begins...
  With some probability they encounter changes which complicate their structure,
  and with some probability they survive... and... the result we may observe around.
• The more complex molecule or organism, the lesser probability that it can appear from very simple components, like single atoms and very primitive molecules.
• At some point there was one/several/some number of most successful samples of complex molecules.
• These most successful (which also cold be most complex and most functional) samples (or threads of development of organisms, as in picture below) gave the beginning to all of the modern diversity of organisms, by (a) reproducing/replicating themselves, and (b) mostly suppressing possible parallel evolutionary threads, which are less functional/suitable, because of limitations of resources.
• And the next phase was creation of large diversity of species mostly on this widely used most successful (and may be complicating and changing) elemental base,
  what includes most successful/useful basic molecular, cellular etc. developmental solutions.

One of the standard definitions of mutation is like the following (from wikipedia.org):

1. Mutation may happen at any part/molecule of a cell.
2. To be passed to offspring, it has to happen in a cell (or one of the cells) that will become new organism.
3. Mutations are exclusively random, and do not concern any high-level stuff/views like usefulness and similar.
4. They are pretty common, and can lead to some defects in organs/skin, and may represent (or become) a disease or may remain "neutral".
5. Mutation may happen because of
   • non-standard outer influence,
   • or as unsuccessful/unfortunate coincidence of molecular interactions inside of a cell, what creates abnormal changes.
6. Mutations are main, and the only basic force of biological evolution.

1. In general, process of Natural Selection is (wide, but still) special case of biological evolutionary process, and it may be absent at all with biological evolution taking place.

   In such a case there has to be two main characteristics: (1) species should appear with only useful features, and (2) bio-system is (in changing, but) in dynamical equilibrium (concerning presence of all of ever appeared species).
   

   Such special case has very low probability for complex evolutionary processes, but (a) it is still probable, and (b) it clearly shows that (strictly speaking) Natural Selection is not inalienable characteristic of evolution,
   and thus it cannot be put to THE VERY basis of causes (or forces) of biological evolution.
   
2. Natural Selection (in general case) is temporary characteristic of dynamical system.

   Mutations provide diversity.
   Then Natural Selection operates with this diversity.

   As basic trait of this period of evolution, we can introduce such basic generalized characteristic as "mixing" of components of cells of different individuals with distinct traits. It can be sexual reproduction, or some other means.
   This produces some new resulting forms, (in bounds of more basic changes provided by mutations).

   This period of mixing of structural parts should be included in the term, or process, of Natural Selection.

   And, without subsequent mutations, obviously, it can be considered at some point as complete.
   What means that all possible permutations happened and the once which could survive survived, and the eco-, or bio- system is in dynamical equilibrium, (or in some kind of cycling dynamical equilibrium).

   And this is where natural selection ends.
   It may appear (as characteristic of evolution after mutation happened), acts for some period, and may disappear.

   It depends on the rate of mutations. If it's too high, then Natural Selection is (almost) always present. If the rate of mutations is low, then over some period equilibrium is established (and, thus, Natural Selection disappears, and = at this point biological evolution stops) until next mutation(s) happen, which introduces disbalance and next iteration of selection.

• mutations are random,
• and the fact remains:     Natural Selection actually defines the exact way, or direction, of biological evolution,
  (selecting exact samples with exact features from all of the variety of random features, and thus defining later, after mutations, the exact direction).

  Biological Evolutionary Development = f(Mutations)
    f'(Mutations) = Natural Selection

1. "non-standard" outer influence (radiation, different food/air/etc),
2. self-sustaining mutations.
   Complex organisms are far far imperfect and there can be large variety of coincidences in interactions of molecules which can create non-desirable outcomes of reactions and affect structure of a cell, and further organism or its part.

• Quick (earthbound) biological evolutionary development is caused by some level of imperfection (or instability) of complex organisms, what provides high rate of self-sustaining mutations (or caused by very weak outer non-standard influences).
  This pretty high level of imperfection, or vulnerability, or instability is (and now goes pretty long term, but it's pretty fundamental trait of earthbound evolution) force of evolution embodied in organisms.
  Organisms could be more stable and internal processes more accurate, but obviously evolution would be much much slower and billions of years wouldn't be enough to develop organisms to millions and billions and trillions of cells (to the complexity we observe around).

"HMT is any process in which an organism incorporates (persistent) structural molecular material from another organism without being the offspring of that organism. By contrast, vertical transfer occurs when an organism receives (persistent) structural molecular material from its ancestor, e.g., its parent or a species from which it has evolved."

1. Internal environment of a cell.
   Cell may have pretty complex structure with lots of internal components, internal liquid, they carry out different process and interactions.
2. External environment.
   It should have (a) physical conditions to supply consistency of a cell and (b) lots of different components (atoms and molecules) to support cell's growth and life.
3. Molecular diffusion.
   Molecules diffuse through membrane to and from environment and between cells.

    supply of different basic components from environment (what may be surrounding cells) to a cell causes different dynamics of reactions and, thus, different outcomes of these reactions:

1. the structure of a cell may change after appearance of new molecules or of different concentrations of existing molecules,
2. the outcome of replication may be different with usage (or presence) of different molecules, or of different concentrations of previous molecules.

The following factors create and increase differences between intracellular solutions across the mass of cells,
and are the reasons of further differentiations:

1. Growth.
2. Presence of edge cells with drastically different surrounding environment.
3. Membranes slowing down and filtering diffusion.
4. Intracellular processes (constantly changing components in solution).
5. (and some others...)

And here are two defining things:

1. Points, or sources of introduction and/or sustention of asymmetries (in distribution of molecules over cells). (optional)
2. Redirection of the way of development of surrounding cells by differentiated one(s).
3. [And slow speed of running of (chemical and diffusive) processes is implied.]

	This is the beginning stage of development of embryo. Central cells have higher concentration of some molecules, and more outer and edge cells have a little differing solutions, but cells are still of the same type. Then (with growth, of flow of time) the difference increases and reaches some critical point, and (in this case) most outer cells are about to differentiate. With some probability any cell near edge can differentiate. From the other hand, less likely that solution is distributed absolutely equally (along the edge), and this tiny deviations (can) define the exact place of differentiation.
	So in this picture we see that one random cell differentiated. Processes, and outcomes of reactions change for this cell, and this differing solution is being distributed to other cells. And, here we see basic crucial point, which is REDIRECTION of way OF DEVELOPMENT of SURROUNDING cells. Previously, there was the solution of type A, with some gradient. Now, around cell (or cells) B, there is the solution of type A+B. The conditions (chemical background) around cell B now are different from the ones they were previously there. And thus we see that now around cells of type B, the cells of type A cannot differentiate to cells of type B, because cells of type B changed conditions around, and for cells A to differentiate to cells B is required solution of type A, but now there's solution of type A+B. Cell of type B can divide and grow, but around this new tissue cells of type B already do not appear. (This does not mean that they cannot differentiate at all, but the type of new cells will be different, since concentrations of basic components already differ.) But, beyond some radius around the cells of type B, concentration of the solution of type B may be negligible, or in some cases more correctly: may be still negligible, and cells of type B can (and after critical change of quality of solution, do) appear in other places.
	In other places of this organism appear cells of type B.
	Speed of (1) chemical processes, (2) of diffusion, and (3) random (or caused by outer influence) differences in concentrations between cells and areas define the number of possible points of differentiation of cells of type A to cells of type B.
	And, there are no more places where differentiation to the cells of type B from the cells of type A can happen. But the processes of internal changes and interaction with environment are continues. Depending on quality of changes and molecules cells B produce (and characteristics of their interactions with solution of type A, or with solution of all the other types of cells, which are present and reach areas with solution B and A+B) new differentiations may start immediately, or after some critical threshold of raise of concentration of new components.

And... the process continues.

Picture from the article "Starfish" at wikipedia.org:

We can select the following key factors of formation of spatial form of a body:

1. Size and rate of division of (each type of differentiated) cells.
2. Firmness (or elasticity) of the structure of (each type of differentiated) cells.
3. (and others)

this starfish appeared from basic cell (or cells) not because atoms and molecules were coming out of chromosomes,
but because environment supplied all this mass of (new) atoms and molecules and by the quality of this supplies directed exact extension of basic cells to multicellular organism,
and the process of extension was dependant on the whole structure of the basic cells.

In this case let there will be two of them:

1. Gravitation (or some other upper constraint), which causes mass of cells to be laid along the ground,
   and possibly vertical gradient of distribution of chemicals, (where lower layers may have more dense solution).
2. Difference in quality (in this case gradual) of outer solution from different sides of embryo.

Picture from the article "Newt" at wikipedia.org:

A red-spotted newt (eft stage).

The two pictures of caterpillar below are from the article      "The Spicebush Swallowtail. The Amazing Snake-Mimicking Caterpillar" at www.marietta.edu:

"In humans and other animals, cellular senescence has been attributed to the shortening of telomeres with each cell cycle; when telomeres become too short, the cells die. The length of telomeres is therefore the "molecular clock," predicted by Hayflick."

1. the reason of aging for exact individual is:
   non-coordination of pace of development and of functionality of parts of a body beyond reproductive period,
2. and from point of evolutionary development of this trait the reason is:
   absence of necessity to carry out selection in this respect, or beyond reproductive period.

Cells don't have such complex stuff like mind or consciousness, and they just go from one organism to another, if have luck,
but the fact remains: each unicellular or pre-cellular organism or any cell of multicellular organism has period of life equal to the length of ALL biological evolution for its line of development,
and:

1. it was either replicated from that exact (changing) pattern along the way, or
2. it was replicated from that exact (changing) pattern along the way + still carries some of the original atoms,
   and thus may be not only directly physically replicated, or prolonged from that ancestor organism,
   but also still may physically contain exactly that same cell, or it's part with some additional complications.

"In humans and other animals, cellular senescence has been attributed to the shortening of telomeres with each cell cycle; when telomeres become too short, the cells die. The length of telomeres is therefore the "molecular clock," predicted by Hayflick."

It could happen that along some period of development that cell could gradually substitute all of the traits of previous forms by small portions of other changes and get very different traits (and for sure there were such organisms who unintentionally, driven by random mutations, tried to do this, and a lot of them did not survive), but it did not happen (at least for us), and the reasons are the following:

1. To consume food organism: (a) has to have similar elemental, or molecular base to effectively use similar basic components of a food, and (b) it has to keep some of the organs of at higher level to decomposition the food to basic components.
2. To survive and pass natural selection organism has to keep organism tools adequate for protection and getting food,
   and this did not allow to deviate far from effective stuff used in mainstream.
3. After growing for pretty long cellular structure very severely restrict possibility of quick deviation from this gained complexity.
4. (and, maybe something else...)

It's like to fill plate with water, and then to put glass, or some other object into the water.
Now this substituted volume of water can be considered as lost part of an organism.
And then if to remove the glass (quickly) the water can actually have this space as void (the state of organism with lost part)
and the processes will run in the directions to form more optimal general interactions and water will fill this empty space.

Picture from wikipedia.org:

And some of the known facts about newts, and from the picture above:

• They have very bad sight, and (at least some of them) can distinguish only moving prey.
  (What clearly implies that they have very poorly structurally developed eyes).
• Limbs are yet not very well functional, as we see by the way they move above,
  and fingers are like in embryo state.
• and so on..

This, in turn, provides two main advantages required for effective (natural) regeneration:

1. The difference of concentrations of chemicals between young and adult stages (in general over organism and in exact places) is not big,
2. ease of carrying out required transformations to change differentiation of edge cells (either through transitioning to more basic and less differentiated stage first, or directly by making both changes in parallel),

In complex species, like human, natural effective regeneration is almost impossible because of high complexity of an organism, what provided highly developed organs,
but at the same time it's almost impossible for such complex machinery to make big maneuvers in changing significantly chemical background in tissue specifically for regeneration of its part, since a lot of the interconnected complexity in organism cannot be reverted back easily, and such means were not developed.

So, basically, at adult stage complex species usually have growth or restoration of parts, which not require involvement of processes which were taking part at previous stages of development, since such conditions in such complex and interconnected organism in most cases cannot be restored (since a lot of parts should take exact path of development several or many steps back), and cells of required intermediate stages of differentiation (at current moment) may not exist already (as that parts could differentiate to something different, by reverse influence of newly developed parts).


It was found long ago, that for regenerative purposes in many cases very well fit non-differentiated cells of an embryo.
But basically it is very limited special case.
Direct usage of basic non-differentiated cells is far far oversimplified approach, and actually in most of the cases (for carrying out, or correcting some processes of high precision) it can be plain not applicable, since in most cases is required not the very basic non-differentiated cell, but a cell which already has some specific required level of changes, (and thus cell with difference in changes backward along the path of differentiations may be as inapplicable as any other cell with significant changes in structure).
To be more exact chemically: you can perform string reactions to have something more complex, but there's low probability that this exact complex structure will appear if you will just mix at one moment all of these components (which could give something special if applied in exact order with exact conditions of reactions), or the result will be far different.
And this is actually what can happen with basic non-differentiated cell if it is put to highly differentiated environment, since all of those cells obtained that exact complexity by going through chain of reactions and gradually making exact changes in exact order in exact environment.

And a little more about the role of evolution.

There was a compromise between preservation of regenerative abilities and complications which provide other useful for survival features.
And the goal, or driving force of these processes was positive statistics of overall survival of population or of species, as we already considered this point, and the rest did not interest natural selection.
Basic (molecular) behaviour of bodies of species beyond necessity to survive in a lot of respects is "undefined".

It's not that it's impossible at all to do such things, it's just that during earthbound evolution of complex species in points of compromises concerning regeneration vs complexity, accents were shifted towards complexity, as in this environment it provided better abilities to survive to species.

But, as in the case with aging, or resisting to ongoing mutations, or to other problems of biological organisms,
most of these abilities can be obtained (or the direction of development of body can be changed) in artificial way,
by changing influence of environment, since body of exact construction during interaction with this exact environment cannot fix itself,
or, to be more exact:

Picture of "Hybrid pink and white camellia", and picture of its enlarged leaf on the right:

So, let's make the conclusions about importance of influence of permutations inside of DNA:

1. For extreme cases of un-fitness of basic components (which yet were not removed by natural selection), or in case of rough errors, influence of permutations of parts of DNA may be vital.
2. For pretty stable outcomes, permutations of (and inside of) basic components define minor traits of an organism.
3. And, from point of consideration of basic principles of structural (relatively stable) development of organisms, these permutations are almost completely negligible.

Citation from the article "Cellular differentiation" at wikipedia.org:

Citation from the article "Evolutionary developmental biology" at wikipedia.org:

[24] Gerhart, John; Kirschner, Marc (1997). Cells, Embryos and Evolution. Blackwell Science. ISBN 978-0865425743.

Life is a period of consistency of the essence of representation and/or processes.

Note:

The essence (or main, or the most significant part) of representation or processes of something is not obliged to be uniform and is relative to perception of observer.
(One can choose and consider life of different aspects of something.)

If there's no description of observable complexity of reality at the basis (at least to some level of acceptable completion),
then to model reality by these incomplete basic essences, you need to use more of them (with different properties) than the actual amount of them is used in reality in correspondent phenomenon.

Citation from description of the article      "A stochastic method for the reconstruction of protein structures from one-dimensional structural profiles"      at www.sciencedirect.com:

Correct results =

• correct description of chemical interactions
• + basic configuration of atoms and molecules of a cell or cells (with ordinary earthbound biological environment implied)
• + massive computations.