Recalling the title of Yoxen’s classical paper on the influence of Schrödinger’s book, I analyze the role that the work of H. Pattee might have played, if any, in the development of Biosemiotics. I take his 1969 paper “How does a molecule become a message?” (Developmental Biology Supplement) as a first target due to several circumstances that make it especially salient. On the one hand, even if Pattee has obviously developed further his ideas on later papers, the significance of this (...) one springs out right from the title, the journal and date of publication and, of course, its content. On the other, this paper in particular has been somehow rediscovered recently and not only within the frame of biosemiotics (eg, in history and philosophy of biology by E.F. Keller). Following the parallelism with Yoxen’s perspective, I contend that Pattee’s work was relatively influential with respect to a good amount of attempts to rethink living systems within theoretical biology around the 70s. This influence diminished together with the decay or even collapse of those attempts under the impact of molecular biology as it was being developed those years. Eventually, Pattee’s work has been taken up again. Notwithstanding, it is quite clear that Pattee himself was not intending to contribute specifically to Biosemiotics and that he was probably unaware of any such discipline, at least until recently. Then, we should as well ask (as Yoxen wonders with respect to Schrödinger) to which extent Pattee’s influence has been a direct one or rather an indication of the relevance of his ideas and the resonance of his hypotheses with those of biosemiotics. For this task I will sketch a few points of convergence and divergence and examine the work of some authors who either address directly this issue or have contributed significantly to build up the history of Biosemiotics. (shrink)

In this paper we address the interrelated questions of why and how certain features of an organism’s environment become meaningful to it. We make the case that knowing the biology is essential to understanding the foundation of meaning-making in organisms. We employ Miguel Nicolelis et al’s seminal research on the mammalian somatosensory system to enrich our own concept of brain-objects as the neurobiological intermediary between the environment and the consequent organismic behavior. In the final section, we explain how brain-objects advance (...) the ongoing discussion of what constitutes a biosemiotic system. In general, this paper acknowledges Marcello Barbieri’s call for biology to make room for meaning, and makes a contribution to that end. (shrink)

A common approach in biosemiotics suggests that semiosis (any activity or process that involves signs) is a natural process embedded in evolution, which entails the production of meaningful processes. As Pattee has argued, a closer look at living systems shows that semiosis is closely related to a very specific and highly functional context of selected constraints. Symbolic control consists in 1) instituting a friction on the novelty, variability and randomness of life processes 2) allowing survival value at all levels of (...) biological organization and 3) enabling self-organization. Then it would be the network of semiotic controls to actually playing a pivotal role in biological organization and evolution. (shrink)

p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"This paper attempts, inevitably briefly, aspannbsp; /spanre-categorization and partial resolution of some foundational issues in biology.spannbsp; /spanAn initialspannbsp; /spanground-clearing exercise extends the notion of causality in biology from merely the efficient cause to include also final and formal causality./span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"The HGPspannbsp; /spancan be looked on as an attempt to ground explanation of the phenotype in terms of an efficient cause rooted in a gene.spannbsp; /spanThis notion gives rise to the first section discussing the computational (...) metaphor and epigenesis and suggesting ways to extend this metaphor. The extended notion of causality alluded to above is necessary, but not sufficient, to demarcate a specific explanatory realm for the biological.spannbsp; /spanWhile the universe can ultimately, perhaps,be explainedspannbsp; /spanby quantum fluctuations being computed through the laws of nature, the origin of life remains a mystery.spannbsp;nbsp; /spanThe ground-clearing exercise refers to coincidences that motivate the cosmological anthropic /span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"principle, before raising an alert about the possibility of similar thermodynamic laws facilitating the emergence of life./span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"nbsp;/span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"Life itself seems to involve symbolic operations that can be described by the grammatical rules within tightly -defined limits of complexity.spannbsp;nbsp; /spanThe nascent field of biosemiotics has extended this argument, often in a Peircean direction.spannbsp; /spanYet, even here, the task involved needs to be specified. Is the organism creating proteins to launch an immune counter-attack?spannbsp;nbsp; /spanAlternatively, is a pluripotent stem cell generating an entire organism?spannbsp; /spanWe consider what these separate tasks might look like computationally./span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"nbsp;/span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"The paper ends with further delimitation of the specifically biological.spannbsp; /spanAt what point in the infinitesimal does life refuse to reveal its secrets?spannbsp; /spanConversely, at what specific levels in increasing size and complexity do boundary conditions emerge with hierarchy becoming immanent? /span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"nbsp;/span/p. (shrink)

Image schemas are mental constructs central to human cognitive psychology. The neurobiological grounding of these structures has been suggested by experimental research both in non-human primates (Rizzolatti and Craighero 2004; Umiltá et al. 2001) and lower animals (Knudsen 2002, 1998). However, their applicability as concrete cognitive products has not been explored yet in zoosemiotics. This study shows that image schemas are highly instrumental to making sense of the impersonations of two animals featured in biology research studies and wildlife documentary films: (...) the mimic octopus (Thaumoctopus mimicus) and the Gibb’s sea spider crab (Pisa armata). In analysing the movements and postures of these animals, it is argued that image schemas underlie recurring patterns of animal bodily experience and response, which ties image-schematic structures to non-human intersubjectivity. In line with the pluralistic view of zoosemiotics (e.g. Maran, Martinelli and Turovski 2011), this paper takes an intermediary position in the continuity–discontinuity debate regarding communication in humans and animals. In this regard, the complexity of the creative behavioural models of the animals examined leaves the door open for the existence of sophisticated mental life in non-human species. (shrink)

InCosmos, Onfray argues in favor of a (re-) conceptualization of communication based on recent scientific discoveries. Similar to many researchers in the field of biosemiotics, the controversial philosopher posits that all life forms engage in constant semiosis. As opposed to being a singular characteristic that only homo sapiens possess, Onfray contends that all organisms are endowed with semiosic faculties that enable them to exchange information in purposeful and meaningful ways. Appealing to scientific logic, the philosopher debunks the common misconception that (...) non-human vocalizations are merely the product of an internal machinery. Onfray offers concrete examples from both the animal and plant kingdom illustrating the astounding complexity of non-human semiosis. Nonetheless, in his reflections about the advent of hyperreality, the philosopher nuances his philosophical position by underscoring what makes the human primary modelling device of “language” the most sophisticated form of semiosis that exists in the biosphere. Although all material beings communicate with each other effectively in order to survive, to relate to each other, and to reproduce, Onfray recognizes that humans appear to have a heightened predisposition for symbolic exchange. The philosopher affirms that the human Umwelt is the richest and most complex semiotic space of all. Due to the pervasive nature of human semiosis in the modern world that threatens the ability of other life forms to create, stockpile, emit, and interpret signs, the philosopher also insists that preserving the fragile semiosic diversity of the “soundscape” is the key to averting the impending, anthropogenic eco-apocalypse. (shrink)

This paper examines the biosemiotic approach to the study of life processes by fashioning a series of questions that any worthwhile semiotic study of life should ask. These questions can be understood simultaneously as: (1) questions that distinguish a semiotic biology from a non-semiotic (i.e., reductionist–physicalist) one; (2) questions that any student in biosemiotics should ask when doing a case study; and (3) still currently unanswered questions of biosemiotics. In addition, some examples of previously undertaken biosemiotic case studies are examined (...) so as to suggest a broad picture of how such a biosemiotic approach to biology might be done. (shrink)

The classical theories of the genetic code claimed that its coding rules were determined by chemistry—either by stereochemical affinities or by metabolic reactions—but the experimental evidence has revealed a totally different reality: it has shown that any codon can be associated with any amino acid, thus proving that there is no necessary link between them. The rules of the genetic code, in other words, obey the laws of physics and chemistry but are not determined by them. They are arbitrary, or (...) conventional, rules. The result is that the genetic code is not a metaphorical entity, as implied by the classical theories, but a real code, because it is precisely the presence of arbitrary rules that divides a code from all other natural processes. In the past 20 years, furthermore, various independent discoveries have shown that many other organic codes exist in living systems, which means that the genetic code has not been an isolated case in the history of life. These experimental facts have one outstanding theoretical implication: they imply that in addition to the concept of information we must introduce in biology the concept of meaning, because we cannot have codes without meaning or meaning without codes. The problem is that at present we have two different theoretical frameworks for that purpose: one is Code Biology, where meaning is the result of coding, and the other is Peircean biosemiotics, where meaning is the result of interpretation. Recently, however, a third party has entered the scene, and it has been proposed that Robert Rosen’s relational biology can provide a bridge between Code Biology and Peircean biosemiotics. (shrink)

With the publication of this inaugural issue of the internationally peer-reviewed journal Biosemiotics, our still-developing young interdiscipline marks yet another milestone in its journey towards adulthood. For this occasion, the editors of Biosemiotics have asked me to provide for those readers who may be newcomers to our field a very brief overview of the history of biosemiotics, contextualizing it within and against the larger currents of philosophical and scientific thinking from which it has emerged. To explain the origins of this (...) most twenty-first century endeavour effectively, however, will require tracing—at least to the level of a thumbnail sketch—how the ‘sign’ concept appeared, was lost, and now must be painstakingly rediscovered and refined in science. To relate this long history, this article will appear in Biosemiotics in three instalments, examining, respectively: (1) The History of the Sign Concept in Pre-Modernist Science, (2) The History of the Sign Concept in Modernist Science, and (3) The Biosemiotic Attempt to Develop a More Useful Sign Concept for Contemporary Science. In this instalment, we begin our introductory ‘stroll through the woods of sciences and signs’ by following the development of the sign concept within the context of scientific inquiry, in necessarily broad outline, from the beginnings of such inquiry in sixth century BCE, through its long development in the Middle Ages, and up unto the onset of modernity. For only within this larger historical context can our contemporary attempt to develop a naturalistic understanding of sign relations be understood. (shrink)

This article focuses on the cultural implications of biosemiotics, considering the extent to which biosemiotics constitutes an “epistemological break” with modern modes of conceptualizing the world. To some extent, the article offers a series of footnotes to points made in the work of Jesper Hoffmeyer. However, it is argued that the move towards ‘agency’ represented in biosemiotics needs to be approached with caution in light of problems of translation between the humanities and the sciences. Notwithstanding these problems, biosemiotics is found (...) to represent the potential for one of the most thoroughgoing shifts that cultural analysis has yet seen. (shrink)