Abstract
The genetic code has two puzzling anomalies: first, when viewed as 64
sub-cubes of a 4x4x4 cube, the codons for serine (S) are not contiguous;
and there are amino acid codons with zero redundancy, which goes counter
to the objective of error-correction. To make sense of this, the paper
shows that the genetic code must be viewed not only on stereochemical,
coevolution, and error-correction considerations, but also on two
additional factors of significance to natural systems, that of an
information-theoretic dimensionality of the code data, which requires
that the optimum natural code, as opposed to an engineered one, be
characterized by e-dimensionality, and the principle of maximum
entropy. One implication of noninteger dimensionality is self-similarity
to different scales, and it is shown that the genetic code does satisfy
this property, and it is further shown that the maximum entropy
principle operates through the scrambling of the elements in the sense
of maximal algorithmic information complexity. These two additional
considerations explain several aspects of its organization.