How can one deduce the amount of bits of information that make up an organism?

Question

For example: http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/selfRepNASA.html

". . .such as bacteria, have a complexity of about 10 million bits"

My question is strange, I don't know how else I could put it at the moment. How does one measure complexity in bits, or convert complexity to bits?

Answer 1

A rough indication is the number of base pairs in the organism's DNA sequence. It will be a slight overestimate of the organism's complexity because some of the genome is redundant. So since there are 4 different bases and there are 3 billion base pairs in the human genome, and 4=2^2, there are 6 billion bits of information in the human genetic make-up. If it seems incredible to you that the information to create something as complex as a human could easily be stored on a CD, some of the structures in a human body are highly repetitive. Remember, all this information can be condensed into one sperm and one egg. Centuries ago we'd reached the stage where an average person's cultural complexity, that is, their knowledge, language and memories, exceeded their physiological complexity.