Biosemiotics

(bios = life; semeion(Greek) = Signs)

Biosemiotics is a transdisciplinary science involving theoretical and empirical studies which investigates the use of signs within and between organisms.  Signs may be signals or symbols, most of them chemical molecules, but also physical ones. In the highly developed eukaryotic kingdoms, behaviour of organisms may also serve as a sign (signal and/or symbol), as for example, the dances of bees; or these signs may be phonetic, as in songbirds or humans. The signs used obey semiotic rules of three types. Syntactic rules determine combinatory possibilities - physical, chemical, spatial, temporal, rhythmical. Pragmatic rules determine interactional content. And those which are dependent on pragmatic interactional content are the semantic rules, i.e. the meaning function of signs and sign sequences (e.g. in signaling pathways). Individuals in a population share a common set of signs and a common set of rules. These also apply at the level of cell biology.  Dependent on the situational context of interacting entities, one sign, or sequence of signs, can have different meanings or functions. Therefore it is possible that different cell types are developed from the same genome, by the interpretation of different chromosomal methylation patterns

Zoosemiotics is considered the forerunner of contemporary biosemiotics.  Besides its correspondence within the five taxonomic kingdoms constituting the biotic realm, zoosemiotics has been enlarged to include prokaryotic semiotics (bacteria), protoctist semiotics (eukaryotic microorganisms), mycosemiotics (fungi) and phytosemiotics (plants).

Biosemiotics includes not only sign processes used within cells in the context of their molecular and in cell biology, but also embraces immunological, metabolic, neurological and hormonal sign processes. To many biosemioticians, the origin of life is the starting point of semiosis and vice versa.

So far, biosemiotic terms have been used as metaphors in molecular and evolutionary biology, as well as in genetics and ecology, the conviction being that, they could ultimately be replaced by chemical and physical descriptions.  As a result, the paradigmatic differences between biosemiotic and chemical/physical descriptions are becoming ever more evident and enable biosemiotics to draw a clear distinction between the biotic and abiotic domains: "Life is distinguished from the nonliving world by its dependence on signs" (H. Pattee). Thereby, it is possible to use biosemiotics to vastly expand the perspective of biological processes. Consequently, the decisive aspects for life processes are not just with respect to the states of matter and their corresponding changes based on natural laws, but the communication and information processes within and among cells, tissues, organs, organisms. Their importance determines the success or failure to promote life, growth, development, disease and death in all living beings.

Biosemiotic unites scientists from various disciplines such as biology, philosophy, semiotics, systems theory, communication theory, sociological theory of action, linguistics, hermeneutics as well as physics and mathematics.  Biosemiotics enables a broader understanding of the complexity of life processes which could hardly be achieved by conventional biological methods.  Therefore, biosemiotics holds one of the keys to adequately answer Erwin Schroedinger’s question of "What is life?" but also addresses the challenges posed by the societies of the 21st century.