Even Wikipedia Acknowledges the Link Between Semiotics and Biology

_{Barry Arrington
February 12, 2013

Intelligent Design

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Intelligent Design}

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Some of the materialists’ comments on both my and UprightBiped’s posts on the relationship between semiotics and the DNA code seem to suggest that this is not even a fruitful field for inquiry. Interesting. I commend to you Wikipedia’s article on “biosemiotics” (as KF likes to say, “testifying against known ideological interest”):

To define biosemiotics as “biology interpreted as sign systems study” is to emphasize not only the close relation between biology as we know it (as a scientific field of inquiry) and semiotics (the study of signs), but primarily the profound change of perspective implied when life is considered not just from the perspectives of molecules and chemistry, but as signs conveyed and interpreted by other living signs in a variety of ways, including by means of molecules. In this sense, biosemiotics takes for granted and respects the complexity of living processes as revealed by the existing fields of biology – from molecular biology to brain science and behavioural studies – however, biosemiotics attempts to bring together separate findings of the various disciplines of biology (including evolutionary biology) into a new and more unified perspective on the central phenomena of the living world, including the generation of function and signification in living systems, from the ribosome to the ecosystem and from the beginnings of life to its ultimate meanings.

Comments

Wiki is unable to indulge its known bias on this subject.
I've posted a couple of papers on the subject of biosemiotics. I managed to track them and others down using Wikipedia. I'm interested to know why you think Wikipedia might wish to suppress the subject. Do you think Biosemiotics has elements that are compatible with "Intelligent Design" ideas?Alan Fox_{February 12, 2013
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PS: That, too, is a significant sign as any air raid planner will tell you. Heavy flak comes out when you are nearing a sensitive target.kairosfocus_{February 12, 2013
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AF: With all due respect, you are missing the point. First, arguments persuade by one or more of three appeals: emotions, authority, fact and reasoning. Emotions may or may not trace to accurate perceptions and sound judgements -- a car is headed your way, JUMP. Authorities are used in 99% of practical argument, starting with the dictionary. No authority is better than the underlying facts, assumptions and reasoning. And of course it is quality of these that gives warrant in the end. In the case of a known biased source, conceding an embarrassing or undesirable fact for that bias, is material. It is to be further evaluated in terms of fact-logic, but it is significant as any judge will tell you. In the case of Wikipedia, I have consistently pointed its biases and where that is likely to make a difference; including recently exposing -- I laid out corrective facts and reasoning -- an outright hatchet job on ID. I have then said that one needs to be better than Wiki on a given topic, and it is wise to know what the no 5 or so web site is saying on a topic. If you will look at the headline above, you will see that BA is arguing that EVEN Wiki is unable to indulge its known bias on this subject. The mods etc could not pull off a hatchet job on this, unlike what happened with the main article on ID. In that context, observe what Wiki concedes:
To define biosemiotics as “biology interpreted as sign systems study” is to emphasize not only the close relation between biology as we know it (as a scientific field of inquiry) and semiotics (the study of signs), but primarily the profound change of perspective implied when life is considered not just from the perspectives of molecules and chemistry, but as signs conveyed and interpreted by other living signs in a variety of ways, including by means of molecules. In this sense, biosemiotics takes for granted and respects the complexity of living processes as revealed by the existing fields of biology – from molecular biology to brain science and behavioural studies – however, biosemiotics attempts to bring together separate findings of the various disciplines of biology (including evolutionary biology) into a new and more unified perspective on the central phenomena of the living world, including the generation of function and signification in living systems, from the ribosome to the ecosystem and from the beginnings of life to its ultimate meanings.
The highlighted obviously in material part speaks to the role of coded, DNA based genetic information in cells. That does not depend on Wiki for its credibility, but so strong is the case that Wiki, even after its hatchet job on ID cannot deny that. That grudging concession is significant. Earlier today, I cited:
David Chandler: >> The concept of the ‘code’ is fundamental in semiotics. Whilst Saussure dealt only with the overall code of language, he did of course stress that signs are not meaningful in isolation, but only when they are interpreted in relation to each other. It was another linguistic structuralist, Roman Jakobson, who emphasized that the production and interpretation of texts depends upon the existence of codes or conventions for communication (Jakobson 1971). Since the meaning of a sign depends on the code within which it is situated, codes provide a framework within which signs make sense. Indeed, we cannot grant something the status of a sign if it does not function within a code. Furthermore, if the relationship between a signifier and its signified is relatively arbitrary, then it is clear that interpreting the conventional meaning of signs requires familiarity with appropriate sets of conventions. Reading a text involves relating it to relevant ‘codes’. Even an indexical and iconic sign such as a photograph involves a translation from three dimensions into two, and anthropologists have often reported the initial difficulties experienced by people in primal tribes in making sense of photographs and films (Deregowski 1980), whilst historians note that even in recent times the first instant snapshots confounded Western viewers because they were not accustomed to arrested images of transient movements and needed to go through a process of cultural habituation or training (Gombrich 1982, 100, 273). As Elizabeth Chaplin puts it, ‘photography introduced a new way of seeing which had to be learned before it was rendered invisible’ (Chaplin 1994, 179) . . . Semioticians argue that, although exposure over time leads ‘visual language’ to seem ‘natural’, we need to learn how to ‘read’ even visual and audio-visual texts (though see Messaris 1982 and 1994 for a critique of this stance). Any Westerners who feel somehow superior to those primal tribesfolk who experience initial difficulties with photography and film should consider what sense they themselves might make of unfamiliar artefacts – such as Oriental lithographs or algebraic equations. The conventions of such forms need to be learned before we can make sense of them. >>
This comes from an intro to semiotics by an academic in the UK. I of course went on to distinguish another use, that traces to e.g. Hippocrates of Cos, where a sign is an observable feature that lets us reliably infer a state of affairs, Hippocrates giving a well known example of a sign of impending death of a patient. Now, and the links between what Chandler has said and what UB has been saying for months is absolutely obvious:
1. A representation is an arrangement of matter which evokes an effect within a system (e.g. written text, spoken words, pheromones, animal gestures, codes, sensory input, intracellular messengers, nucleotide sequences, etc, etc). 2. It is not logically possible to transfer information (the form of a thing; a measured aspect, quality, or preference) in a material universe without using a representation instantiated in matter. 3. If that is true, and it surely must be, then several other things must logically follow. If there is now an arrangement of matter which contains a representation of form as a consequence of its own material arrangement, then that arrangement must be necessarily arbitrary to the thing it represents. In other words, if one thing is to represent another thing within a system, then it must be separate from the thing it represents. And if it is separate from it, then it cannot be anything but materially arbitrary to it (i.e. they cannot be the same thing). 4. If that is true, then the presence of that representation must present a material component to the system (which is reducible to physical law), while its arrangement presents an arbitrary component to the system (which is not reducible to physical law). 5. If that is true, and again it surely must be, then there has to be something else which establishes the otherwise non-existent relationship between the representation and the effect it evokes within the system. In fact, this is the material basis of Francis Crick’s famous ‘adapter hypothesis’ in DNA, which lead to a revolution in the biological sciences. In a material universe, that something else must be a second arrangement of matter; coordinated to the first arrangement as well as to the effect it evokes. 6. It then also follows that this second arrangement must produce its unambiguous function, not from the mere presence of the representation, but from its arrangement. It is the arbitrary component of the representation which produces the function. 7. And if those observations are true, then in order to actually transfer recorded information, two discrete arrangements of matter are inherently required by the process; and both of these objects must necessarily have a quality that extends beyond their mere material make-up. The first is a representation and the second is a protocol (a systematic, operational rule instantiated in matter) and together they function as a formal system. They are the irreducible complex core which is fundamentally required in order to transfer recorded information. 8. During protein synthesis, a selected portion of DNA is first transcribed into mRNA, then matured and transported to the site of translation within the ribosome. This transcription process facilitates the input of information (the arbitrary component of the DNA sequence) into the system. The input of this arbitrary component functions to constrain the output, producing the polypeptides which demonstrate unambiguous function. 9. From a causal standpoint, the arbitrary component of DNA is transcribed to mRNA, and those mRNA are then used to order tRNA molecules within the ribosome. Each stage of this transcription process is determined by the physical forces of pair bonding. Yet, which amino acid appears at the peptide binding site is not determined by pair bonding; it is determined by the aaRS. In other words, which amino acid appears at the binding site is only evoked by the physical structure of the nucleic triplet, but is not determined by it. Instead, it is determined (in spatial and temporal isolation) by the physical structure of the aaRS. This is the point of translation; the point where the arbitrary component of the representation is allowed to evoke a response in a physically determined system – while preserving the arbitrary nature of the representation. 10. This physical event, translation by a material protocol, as well as the transcription of a material representation, is ubiquitous in the transfer of recorded information. CONCLUSION: These two physical objects (the representation and protocol) along with the required preservation of the arbitrary component of the representation, and the production of unambiguous function from that arbitrary component, confirm that the transfer of recorded information in the genome is just like any other form of recorded information. It’s an arbitrary relationship instantiated in matter.
The intensity of resistance to something that should be pretty much uncontroversial in a day and age of layered protocol comms models, is telling. Gkairosfocus_{February 12, 2013
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Anyone can use Wikipedia sensibly by following the links to the primary sources. Anyone had a look at the papers upthread yet?Alan Fox_{February 12, 2013
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Daniel King @6-7: Wikipedia was quoted as a "hostile witness" :) as mentioned in the other post. Wikipedia isn't the only one. There are all kinds of materialistic-minded folks who use design terminology, talk about the design of life in a loose sense, admit that biological systems look designed, etc. They of course go on to proclaim blind faith in the power of matter and energy bumping into each other to produce all life as we know it and argue that the appearance of design is all an illusion. But their design-relevant statements are certainly free game for discussion.Eric Anderson_{February 12, 2013
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KN @4: No. Biosemiotics offers good evidence that we are dealing with a semiotic system. We don't need any panpsychism or anything else. It is also certainly false that an argument for intelligent design would need to show that some designer is not living in our sense. Sober also doesn't know what he is talking about with the need for an alleged regress (assuming you have reflected his opinion accurately). Look, this is very simple. We don't need to get into philosophical discussions about some panpsychism, who designed the designer, non-living designers, etc. It is called an inference to the best explanation and it follows a very simple approach: 1. Semiotic systems are regularly seen to arise from intelligent agents. As a corollary, semiotic systems have never been known to arise from purely natural causes. Indeed, in every instance in which we see a semiotic system and know the provenance, it started with an intelligent agent. 2. There is a semiotic system in biology. 3. Therefore, the most likely explanation is that it came from an intelligent agent. Is this deduction? Of course not. But it is a perfectly appropriate form of inductive reasoning and inferring to the best explanation.Eric Anderson_{February 12, 2013
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The difference, Daniel, is when we disagree with Wikipedia we make an argument as to why they are wrong.Mung_{February 12, 2013
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Sorry, that's "So much for arguments from authority.Daniel King_{February 12, 2013
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How convenient to quote Wikipedia. When it agrees with you, it's fine. When it disagrees, it's wrong. So much for arguments for authority.Daniel King_{February 12, 2013
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A Short History of Biosemiotics (PDF) @ UB: It mentions Howard Pattee!Alan Fox_{February 12, 2013
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Biosemiotics offers good evidence for what's been called "biological panpsychism" (see here, which holds that life and mind are necessarily co-extensive. But to generate an argument for intelligent design, one would need to show that at least some intelligent designers are not necessarily living (in our sense of life, anyway). Indeed, Eliot Sober has taken this one step further and claimed that intelligent design is committed to positing at least one extra-cosmic designer, in order to stop the regress.Kantian Naturalist_{February 12, 2013
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Biosemiotic Entropy: Disorder, Disease, and Mortality includes the magic buzz word in its title. It's available as a PDF to anyone with the time to download and read it.I'd be interested in other people's comments. I'll keep my own council for a while so as not to "poison the well". :)Alan Fox_{February 12, 2013
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...the profound change of perspective implied...
No wonder they are fearful.Mung_{February 12, 2013
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Even they can't deny what's right in front of their eyes.Mapou_{February 12, 2013
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