tripleC 7(2): 172-178, 2009 ISSN 1726-670X http://www.triple-c.at
Biosemiotics: Communication and Causation (Information included)
Juan Ramón Álvarez
Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science, Universidad de León, Spain
Abstract: Pretensions of Biosemiotics as a unified approach to biological information are critically scrutinized within the study of different projects of semiotisation of nature and naturalization ot cultural processes. Main textual references and arguments are presented and critically pondered.Biosemiotics is here presented as an analytical method to study communication as founded in causality.
Keywords: Biosemiotics, semiotisation, communication, causation, information, biology.
1. The Thing remembers that a biochemist, Marcel Florkin, “coined the term „biosemiotics‟ for the study of irst of all, thanks to the Organising semiosis (the production of signs) at the Committee for inviting me to participate in molecular level” (2008, p. 1.). He also notes this round table. My talk deals with and narrates how, from the side of linguistics, Biosemiotics, a trend in biological thought that Thomas Sebeok, after discovering the works has been steadily attracting attention and of the Estonian biologist Theodor von Uexküll, securing an institutional place, at least in the became convinced that he “had already world of scientific publications. A good provided abundant evidence of semiosis in reference thereof is a journal thus named and the animal world, and had been in fact the edited by Marcello Barbieri, a well known unintentional founding father of zoosemiotics” biologist, who has been developing a theory (Ibid.). And he finally concludes that the of the organic codes proper to living systems. biological and linguistic lines plus the line However, its place in biological academic followed in Physics by Howard Pattee curricula has not yet attained parallel converged at the turn of the century into a significance. unified, though pluralistic, discipline I thought it right to talk about Biosemiotics encompassing different schools that, in spite here because, as its supporters argue, the of the differences, share “the idea that idea of communication permeates and even semiosis is fundamental to life, that all living define the world of life. In a Congress about systems are semiotic systems.” (Ibid. p. 2) information in very different contexts a brief The Danish molecular biologist Jesper presentation of the semiotics of life, as it is Hoffmeyer provided at the beginning of the construed by biosemioticians, may contribute development of Biosemiotics the sharpest ideas of interest in the domain of Biology, expositions of this view‟s pretensions towards where the idea on information has been so a unified biological theory that would integrate fruitfully employed, and this employment very the two main trends of the Twentieth Century. vehemently discussed. They are, as Hoffmeyer see them in their Biosemiotics is a field where different uneven coexistence, the prevailing molecular traditions both from the natural and human and genetic reductionism and an underground sciences converge. In his editorial of the first less known trend, but at the long run of equal number of the anew founded journal, Barbieri
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importance, “the semiotisation of nature” communication- are proper of all living beings. (Hoffmeyer, 1997). He is right for sure on the The conversion to this conviction of a semiotic latter, because von Uexküll‟s Umwelt theory scientist is eminently instantiated by the remained outside the main trend by virtue of Hungarian linguist Thomas Sebeok, who its founder antievolutionism and the great expressed his position in the following text at development of Molecular Biology that lead in the beginning of his article “Communication”: the Fifties to the discovery of the molecular structure of the units of heredity. Thus, on the “All living things -whole organisms as sidelines of evolutionary theory and molecular well as their parts - are interlinked in a genetics, this underground and marginal highly ordered fashion. Such order, or semiotisation of nature that ends up called by organization, is maintained by the name „Biosemiotics‟ does not emerge until communication. […]In the broadest way, the last quarter of the century was passing communication can be regarded as the away. transmission of any influence from one The biosemiotical tradition, as a part of a living system to another part, semiotisation of nature, gets its inspiration thus producing change. It is messages from the works of von Uexküll, who developed that are being transmitted. … .The the theory that every organism has its own process of message exchanges, or surrounding world (its own Umwelt) semiosis, is an indispensable dependent so much upon its environment as characteristic of all terrestrial life forms. It on its body plan. The Umwelt is twofold: it is this capacity for containing, replicating, includes a set of meaningful elements (the so and expressing messages, of extracting called Merkwelt) as well as a set of causal their signification that, in fact, elements (contrastingly called Wirkwelt). This distinguishes them more from the theory was formulated in the early Twentieth nonliving - except for human agents, Century -in fact in Uexküll, (1909) - and was such as computers and robots that can developed in successive works. Its impact and be programmed to simulate acknowledgement in biology and philosophy communication - than any other traits did not take place until the recovery, by a often cited. The study of the twin biological thought that had adopted (in its processes of communication and methodology and even in its ontology) signification can be regarded as semiotic sciences‟ basic concepts such as ultimately a branch of the life science, or information, code, transmission, etc. John as belonging in large part to nature, in Deely (2004a) has profiled von Uexküll as a some part to culture, which is, of course, cryptosemiotician who was rescued when the also a part of nature. (Sebeok, 1994, time was ripe. When the time came for the Web). adoption of semiotic elements in biological No wonder that the same John Deely sciences, which are different from, but are not (2004b) who considered von Uexküll a disconnected of the semiotic sciences, it is cryptosemiotician, calls Sebeok a biologist easy to understand that the underground manqué. current, hitherto not recognised at all, got at least a minimum of attention from biologists 2. The Thought trained in the prevailing trend, such as Emmeche, Sharov, Kull, and Hoffmeyer The process of communication –an himself. exchange of messages from a transmitter to a Yet, Biosemiotics did not gain recognition receiver- understood as the transmission of only because of the leaning of some biologists any influence from one system to another one and philosophers toward the principles and (or from a part of a system to another one concepts of semiotic sciences, but also, to a within the system) identifies, in its basic form, good extent, by the conviction of distinguished communication and causation (and, thus, scholars of the semiotic sciences who saw, message transmission and causal influence). across the kinds of sciences, that certain Sebeok‟s turn does not go from causes to processes –especially those of signs, but rather from signs to causes. The
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semiotisation of nature brought to attention by need to biologically naturalise the relation of Hoffmeyer is, at the same time, a semiosis (Álvarez, 2007). naturalisation of semiosis (and, by extension, As Vehkavaara (1998) has convincingly of culture as a system of symbolic forms in shown, the dominant wing –and in particular Cassirer‟s sense). I have dealt in detail with Hoffmeyer- has misconstrued the Peircean this subject in Álvarez (2007). triad confusing interpretant (effect produced in The ground of this semiotisation of nature is the interpreter) with the interpreter (the the assimilation, in its basic and simplest subject), generating a different triad that form, of communication to causation in living seems to bear a great similarity with Morris‟ systems. In Sebeok‟s own words - semiotic set {signs, objects subjects}. “communication can be regarded as the Vehkavaara (1998, 2003) means to correct transmission of any influence from one part of the confusion and at the same time to a living system to another part, thus producing introduce the interpreter, taking as a better change” (see quotation above). However, scheme the one sketched by Sharov, and there is a concept of communication as causal modified by himself (1998). Two examples are influence of general extension, the change of illustrated in the following table 1: state produced in a system S2 by the change A of state in a system S1. In this assertion I am Object ..…………………………. Representant taking the “realist” interpretation of the relation Ancestor…………………………. ADN S1(e1 e2) S2(e1 e2) as causation. The elementary form of communication is plain Descendant (Interpretant) physical causation: there is no communication Cell (Interpreter) without an underlying causal connection. This suffices to apply the same criterion to B biological contexts. Object ………………….……….. Representant Traditional Biosemiotics has been most of Environment…………Differential reproduction all a Peircean semiotics of the living, at least in what Vehkavaara (2003) calls “the Genic frequency (interpretant) dominant wing‟ or „Copenhagen interpretation‟ Lineage (interpreter) of Biosemiotics: Hoffmeyer and Emmeche leading the movement. It is well known that All the same, and despite some qualms, he Peirce understood semiosis as a triadic and takes Sharov modified sketch as quite “genuine” (that is, irreducible) relation of a clarifying “[…].First of all, the difference sign or representamen, an object, and an between the interpreter and the interpretant is interpretant. Later, Charles Morris sketched clear: -the interpretant is the result from the his project of a general theory of signs, named interpretative act of the interpreter. Secondly, Semiotics, as a three-dimensional discipline, as materially existing entities, all three parts of with three different approaches linked to three the sign are temporally ordered so that the distinctive relations: syntactic, semantic, and object must exist before the representamen pragmatic relations, each one of them giving starts to represent it, and that representation rise to the subdisciplines of Syntax, is further manifested by the formation of the Semantics, and Pragmatics. This sketch has interpretant.” (Vehkavaara 1998). been, in general, more successful than Although not wholeheartedly, Vehkavaara Peirce‟s irreducible triad adopted by most of sees here the inverse translation, that is, the the biosemioticans. Consequently, the one that goes from the analogical problem posed, in each context of (phenotypic) code to the digital (genotypic) communication (physical, chemical, biological, code. This code duality is the paramount linguistic, etc.), is to identify the terms which opposition in Biosemiotics, where organisms play an analogous role in Peircean semiosis are considered as systems with a dual causally understood. In order to semiotise codification that should provide the ground for biological contexts in the Peircean fashion we the constitution of a unified theoretical biology.
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Indeed, Biosemiotics is an effort to unify, in Introduction to Semantic Biology (2003). It is one single general theory, evolution and enough to remark that codes are defined as development –and, in the latter, genetics and conventional set of rules that establish a epigenetics, by means of the idea of correspondence between two independent communication, where information is worlds. Codes are conventions. Barbieri‟s transmitted and expressed in the form of conclusion reads as follows: “we must messages. The focal point of this view is the conclude that biological evolution was principle of code duality, which is considered produced by two different mechanisms; by the essential character of living beings. This is natural selection and by natural conventions” the idea that the genome is digitally codified (Ibid.) and contains a (re)description of the organism where it resides; an organism, by contrast, 3. The three … which is analogically codified. Hoffmeyer (1997) puts the point as clearly as follows: Biosemiticians, from the first or the second round, are all followers of Peircean semeiotic, “What all this amounts to is a simple but insofar as they adopt the triadic relation as crucial fact DNA does not contain the irreducible. However, if we do not follow their key to its own interpretation. In a way the lead in this matter, and take instead Morris molecule is hermetic. In the prototype three-dimensional analysis of Semiotics, we case of sexually reproducing organisms ultimately land in a better field of analysis. only the fertilised egg „knows‟ how to Here the distinction of the three approaches - interpret it, i.e., to use its text as a syntactic, semantic and, and pragmatic- manual containing the necessary enables us to make some pertinent remarks instructions for producing the organism about the information conveyed by the (Hoffmeyer, 1987; Hoffmeyer, 1991; messages. Let me, in order to be economical Hoffmeyer, 1992). The interpretant of the in my presentation, to schematize along the DNA message is buried in the three axes of Morris‟ Semiotics what may be cytoskeleton of the fertilised egg (and the thought of information in biological contexts, growing embryo), which again is the the ones Biosemiotics takes into account product of history, i.e., of the billions of inasmuch as it is a semiotics of living beings. molecular habits having been acquired Since 1948 we have at our disposal through the evolution of the eukaryotic Shannon‟s (1948) measure of the quantity of cell (Margulis, 1981) […-] Thus, life information of a given source with n possible shows a non trivial, that is, semiotic messages and the definition of the basic units interaction between two states, the state of information, both things irrespective of the analogically codified of the organism linguistic meaning or information content of itself and its redescription in the digital the messages. What Shannon achieved has code”. been ever since a syntactic constraint for any The code duality theory of organisms, as semantic or pragmatic approach to well as the theory of the twofold articulation of information whether biosemiotical or not. the linguistic sign, in the Saussurean tradition, There is information when there are two or is a clear cut and substantive distinction. more possible messages: when there are two However, in the last decade a new theory of equally likely messages we have the bit the code multiplicity in organisms is elbowing expressed as log2 (2) = 1. In the case of only its room into biological theory, as featured in one possible message the informational value the Semantic Biology of Marcello Barbieri, would be log2 (1) = 0. Thus, there is non-null conceived as a theory of the different organic or positive information for n > 1, that is, at codes that fill the space in between the oldest least there must be two possible messages. of all codes –the genetic code- and the latest- Mario Bunge (1981) has stated that a real the linguistic code of human language. system is one that may be at least in two I will not dwell on this second round of different states. If we assimilate such a real multiple code Biosemiotics, brilliantly written in system to a source, and its messages to the Barbieri‟s book The Organic Codes. An states of the system, a real system must have
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positive information, the value being 1 if the have both linguistic meaning and states are equally likely. information proper. That Shannon´s formalism is a syntactic What does this show? To put it simply, that requirement for any semantic or pragmatic a distinction can be drawn between linguistic approach can be illustrated by the way meaning and information content, redeeming Frege‟s theory of proper names (names semantics –in fact Frege and his followers- of proper and proper definite descriptions) is the original sin that Wettstein (1991) put on constrained in connection to the opposition their backs some years ago: the confusion of between linguistic meaning and information linguistic meaning with information content. content. Let‟s suppose that a proper name A But it also serves another purpose. It is associated to a finite set of proper definite supports the idea that information, in the description D = {di}, i = 1,2,….,n, each one of syntactic sense, implies duality, diversity, them satisfying the condition of truth multiplicity. If we take Biosemiotics in the preservation for any substitution of A by any three-dimensional format of Morris, di. Let us continue supposing that we can information is related to biodiversity. Darwin organise all the actual knowledge about A in (1859) did not stop stressing that natural the form of a list of elementary definite selection needs variation. But „variation‟ is a descriptions. I have called idiography of an term referring both to the diversity of forms individual A (in remembrance of Windelband‟s and to the process of change of those forms idiographic sciences as descriptive of or, as he could only vaguely suspect and as individuals) the set D of elementary proper later was disclosed, the change in the causal definite descriptions that may substitute the factors behind the forms, those backseat proper name preserving the truth of the drivers: genes, selfish or not. corresponding propositions in a natural Now we must turn to semantics and language L. We can make the following pragmatics in this biosemiotic outlook. It is distinction: easier to deal with pragmatics, because information in the pragmatic sense is the inner 1. The cardinal of D is 1, that is, there is only form of communication proper. As we saw one proper definite description for A that before, communication processes are causal satisfies truth preservation. A competent processes where information is transmitted. speaker of L surely understands what the But it is also expressed. Bearing in mind that only description means. But, in the absence of a second proper and truth-preserving tomorrow there will be a round table about the definite description that may substitute A, pragmatic aspects of information, I will limit the idiography of A has null information: my remarks to a distinction made by Griffiths log2 (1) = 0. Here we have linguistic (2000) between intentional and causal meaning, but no information at all. Of information in biology. I do not agree with course this does not happen at all. It is just Griffiths in equating causal information with a thought experiment, but we are used to syntactic information as he clearly does: tolerate and even to develop such kind of “Causal conceptions of information derive fictions. I am well aware, to speak in the from the mathematical theory of terminology of Saussurean functional communication (Shannon and Weaver 1949).” linguistics, that there is a paradigmatic axis where that description would not be alone, Only to the extent where Shannon is but opposed to a good number of rivals. mathemathically analysing communication is his approach a causal one, but only indirectly. 2. The cardinal of D is n, greater than 1. The Causal information should be connected to competent speaker will understand each gene transmission from parents to offspring and every proper and truth-preserving definite description that may substitute A. and to gene expression in developmental Linguistic meaning is assured. Now, processes, where once more the opposition instead of the null information above we between genetic determinism and epigenetic can measure the information of D with constraints is a revival of longstanding Shannon‟s formula for (n) > 1. We now controversies with different names.
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If information is seen from the syntactic not contain the key to its own interpretation standpoint as a formal constraint and from the [and that] only the fertilised egg „knows‟ how pragmatic view as the causal inner form of to interpret it, i.e., to use its text as a communication, what is the semantic status of handbook containing the necessary information in this context? I think semantic instructions for producing the organism” information in Biosemiotics –at least in the fist (Hoffmeyer, 1997, Web), is aligned with the semiotasion- has not been the princess at the semantic closure relation between the ball, but rather the ugly duckling of the story. material and symbolic aspects of organisms Let‟s go back to the Peircean triads as supposedly self-referential systems translated into biology that figure in table 1 capable of open ended evolution. And I say above. The interpretant, in the cell interpreter “supposedly”, because the prefix “self-” is example, is the descendant, being DNA the unmanageable, except when it is transformed, representamen and the ancestor the object. In not into the relation of a system with itself (an the lineage interpreter example, the evident circularity), but of a part of the system, interpretant is the genic frequency, being consisting of a set of instructions for the differential reproduction the representamen production of another system of the same and the environment the object. The tune up kind, with the system as a whole. that Vehkavaara made on Hoffmeyer‟s non I see the pretended semantics of Peircean equation interpreter = interpretant, Biosemiotics as a collection of vague was Pierceanly correct, because Hoffmeyer allusions, that do not go beyond analogies or was inadvertently relapsing into Morris‟s basic metaphors “in search of a theory”, as Griffiths set, {signs, objects, subjects}. On behalf of (2001) wrote once about genetic information. Peircean fidelity the task was accomplished, Time will tell whether another way may be but the semantic question remained unsettled. found to develop a better account. Nowadays Morris‟ Semiotics has no place either for we are entering a second semiotisation, in the Saussurean signifiés, or for Fregean senses. manner of a theory of the various codes that, The same applies to Peircean interpretants. from the genetic code to the linguistic code, One cannot hold the “genuine” nature of the have been produced and preserved. Barbieri, triadic relation of semiosis and at the same who is a leading figure of this second time disaggregate it into three binary relations. semiotisation, asserts that biological evolution This inconsistency underlies Hoffmeyer‟s is the product of two different mechanisms: equation. natural selection and natural conventions. Yet, what seems to be the salient trait of Allow me just one question to finish. If they the semantic relation, in this biosemiotic are natural, can they be conventions? Or the approach, is the convergence of Hoffmeyer‟s other way around, if they are conventions, can code-duality and Pattee‟s semantic closure. they be natural? If the answer is yes, the Hoffmeyer‟s idea that the genome is digitally ancient opposition between phýsis and nómos codified and contains a (re)description of the should be thrown away forever. organism where it resides, but that “DNA does
References
Álvarez, J.R. (2007). Semiotización de la naturaleza y naturalización de la cultura: un quiasmo en el pensamiento biológico. In Coca, J.R. (Coord.) (2007): Varia biológica: filosofía, ciencia y tecnología, León: Universidad de León, 221-260, [Online]
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Hoffmeyer, J. (1997). Biosemiotics: Towards a New Synthesis in Biology. European Journal for Semiotic Studies, 9 (2), 355- 376, [Online]
About the Author
Juan Ramón Álvarez Bautista Doctor (Ph. D.) in Philosophy by the University of Oviedo. Professor of Logic and Philosophy of Science at the University of León (Spain), where his teaching and research broadly ranges from Methodology of Science to Philosophy of Biology and the Social Sciences, including the History of Science and Technology.
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