Biosphere as semiosphere: Variations on Lotman

The analogy between semiosphere (world of cultures) and biosphere (world of life), coined by J. Lotman, is a courageous attempt to interconnect two seemingly incompatible worlds. In congruence with his view, I would like to convince the reader that the only possible general definition of life is “a system born, endowed with semiosis, with history”. Such a view requires considering biosphere and semiosphere as coextensive, which requires merging the cultural, scientific, historical, and linguistic approaches into a coherent whole

Mutual understanding and misunderstanding in biological systems mediated by self-representational meaning of organisms

Modern biology gives many casuistic descriptions of mutual informational interconnections between organisms. Semiotic and hermeneutic processes in biosphere require a set of “sentient” community of players who optimize their living strategies to be able to stay in game. Perceptible surfaces of the animals, semantic organs, represent a special communicative interface that serves as an organ of self-representation of organic inwardness. This means that the innermost dimensions and potentialities of an organism may enter the senses of other living being when effectively expressed on the outermost surfaces of the former and meaningfully interpreted by the later. Moreover, semantic organs do not exist as objectively describable entities. They are always born via interpretative act and their actual form depends on both the potentialities of body plan of a bearer and the species-specific interpretation of a receiver. As such the semantic organs represent an important part of biological reality and thus deserve to be contextualized within existing comparative vocabulary. Here we argue that the study of the organic self-representation has a key importance for deeper insight into the evolution of communicative coupling among living beings

A text on biosemiotic themes

What follows is a two-part review of Günther Witzany’s two-part book, The Logos of the Bios (2006, 2007). The first part of the review is written by Sergey Chebanov, and it approaches the text as a source of ideas on biosemiotics and biohermeneutics. The second part is written by Anton Markoš, and it estimates the biological pithiness of the book and the correctness of the reflection of the included data of modern biology

Patterning of mutually interacting bacterial bodies: close contacts and airborne signals

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Bacterial bodies (colonies) can develop complex patterns of color and structure. These patterns may arise as a result of both colony-autonomous developmental and regulatory processes (self-patterning) and environmental influences, including those generated by neighbor bodies. We have studied the interplay of intra-colony signaling (self-patterning) and inter-colony influences in related clones of <it>Serratia rubidaea </it>grown on rich media.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Colonies are shaped by both autonomous patterning and by signals generated by co-habitants of the morphogenetic space, mediating both internal shaping of the body, and communication between bodies sharing the same living space. The result of development is affected by the overall distribution of neighbors in the dish. The neighbors' presence is communicated via at least two putative signals, while additional signals may be involved in generating some unusual patterns observed upon encounters of different clones. A formal model accounting for some aspects of colony morphogenesis and inter-colony interactions is proposed.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>The complex patterns of color and texture observed in <it>Serratia rubidaea </it>colonies may be based on at least two signals produced by cells, one of them diffusing through the substrate (agar) and the other carried by a volatile compound and absorbed into the substrate. Differences between clones with regard to the interpretation of signals may result from different sensitivity to signal threshold(s).</p

In the quest for novelty: Kauffman’s biosphere and Lotman’s semiosphere

The emergence of novelty in the realm of the living remains, despite the long tradition of evolutionary biology, unwelcome, calling for explanation by old, established knowledge. The prevailing neodarwinian evolutionary paradigm approaches living beings as passive outcomes of external (and extraneous, hence “blind”) formative forces. Many teachings opposing Darwinism also take the existence of eternal, immutable and external laws as a necessary prerequisite. Ironically enough, authors who oppose Darwinian theory, and admit that living beings possess a “self”, often accentuate internal, ideal and eternal harmony, which is incompatible with historical changes; moreover such harmony is again imposed by external, atemporal “laws”. I describe here a third approach embodied by the names of two unrelated scholars, Stuart Kauffman (biology, physics) and Juri Lotman (semiotics, culturology). Their approach suggests that the evolution of organisms, minds, cultures — is a continuous negotiation (semiosis) of ‘laws’, driving to ever broader spaces of freedom and constantly larger autonomy of existence

Back to the science of life

We give a survey of epistemological and ontological approaches that have left traces in the 20th-century biology. A common motive of most of them is the effort to incorporate biology into the realm of physical sciences. However, such attempts failed, and must fail in the future, unless the criterion for what science is becomes biologically oriented. This means broadening the realm of classical natural sciences, incorporating at least part of the thesaurus of the “humanities”. We suggest three mutually complementary candidates for further development in this direction: modular biology, the hermeneutics of the living, and the semiotic disciplines

⚘ Life sciences and the humanities ☀ Anton Markoš

Remain up-to-date... and acknowledge the interdisciplinary continuum that semiotics uncovers. This event, chaired by William Passarini (Mansarda Acesa) and to be commented on by Gonçalo Santos (Research Centre for Anthropology and Health), is part of the activities of the 2022 International Open Seminar on Semiotics: a Tribute to John Deely on the Fifth Anniversary of His Passing, cooperatively organized by the Institute for Philosophical Studies of the Faculty of Arts and Humanities of the University of Coimbra, the Lyceum Institute, the Deely Project, Saint Vincent College, the Iranian Society for Phenomenology at the Iranian Political Science Association, the International Association for Semiotics of Space and Time, the Institute for Scientific Information on Social Sciences of the Russian Academy of Sciences, the Semiotic Society of America, the American Maritain Association, the International Association for Semiotic Studies, the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies, the International Center for Semiotics and Intercultural Dialogue, Moscow State Academic University for the Humanities and the Mansarda Acesa with the support of the FCT - Foundation for Science and Technology, I.P., of the Ministry of Science, Technology and Higher Education of the Government of Portugal under the UID/FIL/00010/2020 project. *** Anton Markoš is a theoretical biologist and associate professor at the Department of Philosophy and History of Science of the Faculty of Science, Charles University in Prague. In his writings, he focuses on cell and evolutionary biology and biosemiotics from the hermeneutical, historical and philosophical point of view. Among his many scientific and popular books and articles are Epigenetic Processes and the Evolution of Life (w/ Jana Švorcová; CRC Press 2019), Readers of the Book of Life (Oxford University Press 2002), or Life as its own Designer: Darwin´s Origin and Western Thought (w/ Filip Grygar, László Hajnal, Karel Kleisner, Zdenek Kratochvíl, Zdenek Neubauer; Springer 2009). *** Gonçalo D. Santos is an anthropologist and a leading international scholar in the field of China studies. His research explores new approaches to questions of modernity, subjectivity, and social, technological, and ecological transformation in contemporary China. He is an assistant professor of socio-cultural anthropology in the Department of Life Sciences and a Researcher and Group Coordinator in the CIAS - Research Center for Anthropology and Health at the University of Coimbra. Prior to joining the University of Coimbra in 2020, he held positions at the London School of Economics, the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, and the University of Hong Kong. He is the author of Chinese Village Life Today (University of Washington Press, 2021) and the co-editor of Transforming Patriarchy. Chinese Families in the 21st Century (University of Washington Press, 2017). His research has been published in leading scientific journals in the fields of anthropology, science and technology studies, and Asian studies. He is a member of the Research Group on Culture and Society, an initiative for U.S.-China Dialogue on Global Issues, at Georgetown University, and is the founder and the director of Sci-Tech Asia, a transnational research network that focuses on the relations between technoscience, politics, and society in Asia and around the world. *** Homepage: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s Auditorium: https://www.uc.pt/fluc/uidief/io2s/auditorium *** Technical support assured by Robert Junqueira. The cover image for the video was designed by Zahra Soltani

An epigenetic machine

Review: Marcello Barbieri, The Organic Codes: An Introduction to Semantic Biolog

Variations and heredity in bacterial colonies

Spontaneous variation in appearance was studied in bacterial colonies of Serratia marcescens F morphotype: (i) A defined array of non-heritable phenotype variations does appear repeatedly; (ii) The presence of colonies of different bacterial species will narrow the variability toward the typical F appearance, as if such an added environmental factor curtailed the capacity of colony morphospace; (iii) Similarly the morphospace becomes reduced by random mutations leading to new, heritable morphotypes—at the same time opening a new array of variations typical for the mutant but not accessible directly from the original F morphospace. Results are discussed in context with biphasic model of early morphogenesis applicable to all multicellular bodies