 Jablonka (Jablonka 2001, 2002) introduced her discussion of inheritance systems by characterizing them as systems that carry hereditary information, which in turn she defined as “the transmissible organization of an actual or potential state of a system” (cf. the different notion of information and representation favored by Sterelny et. al. 1996). A common framework for discussing hereditary information can then be used to compare and analyze various inheritance systems and expose their differences as well similarities (see  section 3.3).