[adrian_b]

"Genetic material" is memory. Therefore it must have the following properties:

1. It must be able to store any random sequence of symbols belonging to a certain set (e.g. any possible sequence of bases in the case of nucleic acids).

2. There must be a way to make identical copies of it (e.g. nucleic acid replication).

(the previous 2 properties are true both for its own genetic material and for a foreign virus that does not have any use for a living being)

3. There must be a way to use the stored sequence of symbols to direct some process that is useful for a living being.

(for nucleic acids, the better known useful processes are protein synthesis and the synthesis of certain kinds of useful by itself RNA, but there are also some other poorly understood functions of most of the "junk" DNA)

[randallsquared]

I'm not sure defining requirements by analogy is a valid process.

[adrian_b]

I do not understand what you have meant by "analogy".

The 3 requirements that I have listed do not contain any analogy, they just give a precise expression of the conventional meaning of the words "genetic material" as applied to a component of the living beings, now known to consist of nucleic acids for the life on Earth.

While not all biologists would be able to define precisely what they mean by "genetic material", the listed requirements correspond to the actual use of the word, in the most general sense.

[randallsquared]

The actual requirements you listed were beyond my point. You said:

> "Genetic material" is memory. Therefore it must have the following properties:

A more precise wording of my understanding of this line would be:

> "Genetic material" is loosely analogous to memory. Therefore, we can derive what properties it has in physical reality by declaring what properties memory must logically have.

This makes it clearer what I was disagreeing with, I hope.