The Principle of Exheritance: A Conceptual Framework for Biological Information Loss, Functional Discontinuity and Epigenetic Reprogramming

Biological inheritance is commonly discussed in terms of the transmission of genetic material and thecontinuity of regulatory states across generations and cell divisions. Biological systems, however, alsoundergo loss, inactivation, reduction and resetting. Examples include gene inactivation andpseudogenisation, reduction of genome content in some evolutionary lineages, and epigeneticreprogramming during development. These processes are well established, but they are usually studiedwithin separate conceptual and mechanistic settings. This paper proposes the Principle of Exheritance as adescriptive framework for organising selected forms of biological discontinuity: changes in whichpreviously present sequences, functions or regulatory states are lost, reduced, inactivated or reset. Theframework distinguishes three non-equivalent dimensions: genetic sequence or gene-function loss;genomic content reduction; and epigenetic-state resetting. It does not propose a new molecular mechanism,a universal evolutionary law, or a process that is necessarily adaptive. Rather, it offers a vocabulary forcomparing outcomes while keeping their mechanisms and biological levels distinct. The paper defines thescope of the concept, discusses its relationship with inheritance and biological information, identifieslimitations, and outlines questions that could test whether the framework provides explanatory valuebeyond existing terminology.