DNA is a machine. It encodes information, but it also lives and breathes through interaction with various TFs, methylation events, packing, etc. There many types of epigenetic "state information".

We've known this for a looong time, it's just that it's so damned complex that we have trouble grappling with it.

And let's not forget the rest of the cell and all of the information encoded at the protein/messenger level.