The same holds for the information contained in a strand of DNA: it is correlated with the synthesis of certain proteins in the cell. It is this connection with one configuration of matter (a book or a DNA strand) and something else in the universe (the image of a giraffe, or a useful protein molecule) that lets us talk about the existence of information. Without those correlations—if there isn’t, and never will be, anyone around to read the book, or any RNA molecules that can read the DNA and go off to make protein—there is no point in talking about information.
