Relation between semiotics and physics

When considering the relation between semiotics and physics, it is helpful to begin with Kalevi Kull’s article, “Biosemiotics and Biophysics: The Fundamental Approaches to the Study of Life” [1] and the article by Kull, Emmeche and Favareau, “Biosemiotic Questions” [2], both of which are available at Kalevi Kull’s cademia.edu site . As evident in the following quotation from [2], Kull, Emmeche and Favareau view semiotics and physics as complementary to each other:

“. . . while the purposes of this article are to contrast a semiotic approach to biology with non-semiotic one, we see these not as alternative, but as complementary, approaches instead. Only by using both can we reach a more complete understanding of the phenomena and processes of life. . . “

I concur with the view expressed here by Kull et al., since it would be consistent with the principle of information-energy complementarity that I formulated in [3, 4], if we can define ‘semiotics’ primarily as the study of information processing in living systems, consistent with Barbieri’s code biology [5-8], and ‘physics’ primarily as the study of energetic (i.e., energy and entropy-dependent) processes in living systems, although no clean separation between semiotics and physics is possible because of the minimum energy requirement of information processing as demanded by Shannon’s channel capacity equation [9].

The principle of information-energy complementarity [3, 4] may afford a broader perspective than that of Kull et al. [1, 2] on the relation between semiotics and physics as indicated in the following quotation from [10]:

“. . . It appears reasonable to recognize two distinct approaches to biology —
i) the PC paradigm based on the view that physics (P) and chemistry (C) are necessary and sufficient to account for life, and
ii) the PCL paradigm asserting an alternative view that, in addition to physics and chemistry, linguistics (L) is needed in order to explain biological structures and processes. The PCL paradigm is deemed synonymous with what is here called the semiotics paradigm, since the study of signs on the molecular level . . . entails a simultaneous study of the physical, chemical, and linguistic aspects of living phenomena . . . ”

I am here assuming that semiotics can be divided into “macrosemiotics” of Peirce [11] and “microsemioitcs” of the post-Molecular Biology Revolution [12]. According to the gnergy (also called information-energy complementarity) postulate [3, 4, 14], both macrosemiosis (e.g., philosophical discourses mediated by macroscopic sounds and symbols) and microsemiosis (e.g., intercellular communication inside our brains mediated by chemical concentration gradients) are driven by gnergons, discrete physical entities carrying gnergy. Gnergy is defined as the complementary union of information (gn-) and energy (-ergy). The ‘biological’ model of the universe known as the Shillongator [14] postulates that all other-organized and self-organizing processes in our Universe are driven by gnergy, including the Big Bang, the formation of galaxies and living systems on the earth, and the neuronal firing patterns in our brains [3, 15]. If the Shillongator model is true, it would follow that gnergons would be responsible also for semiosis, a species of self-organization, and hence that Peircean signs can be identified (or associated) with gnergons [16, 17].

References:
[1] Kull, K. (2007). Biosemiotics and Biophysics: The fundamental Approaches to the Study of Life. In: Introduction to Biosemiotics (M. Barbieri, ed.), Springer, Berlin. Pp. 167-177.
[2] Kull, K., Emmeche, C., and Favareau, D. (2008). Biosemiotic Questions. Biosemiotics 1: 41-55.
[3] Ji, S. (2004). Semiotics of Life: A Unified Theory of Molecular Machines, Cells, the Mind, Peircean Signs, and the Universe Based on the Principle of Information-Energy Complementarity. In: Reports, Research Group on Mathematical Linguistics, XVII Tarragona Seminar on Formal Syntax and Semantics, Rovira i Virgili University, Tarragona, Spain, April 23-27, 2003. Available for free download at conformon.net under Publications > Proceedings & Abstracts.
[4] Ji, S. (2012). Complementarity. In: Molecular Theory of the Living Cell: Concepts, Molecular Mechanisms, and Biomedical Applications. Springer, New York. Section 2.3, pp. 24-52. Available for free download at conformon.net under Publications > Book Chapters.
[5] Barbieri, M. (2003). The Organic Codes: An Introduction to semantic biology. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
[6] Barbieri, M. (2008a). The Code Model of Semiosis: the First Steps Towards a Scientific Biosemiotics. Am. J. Semiotics 24 (1-3): 23-37.
[7] Barbieri, M. (2008b). Introduction to Biosemiotics: the New Biological Synthesis. Springer, New York.
[8] Barbieri, M. (2008c). Biosemiotics: a new understanding of life. Naturwissenschaften, DOI 10.1007/s00114-008-0368-x.|
[9] Ji, S. (2012). Molecular Theory of the Living Cell: Concepts, Molecular Mechanisms, and Biomedical Applicaitons. Springer, New York. P. 101.
[10] Ji, S. (2002). Microsemiotics of DNA. Semiotica 138 (1/4): 15-42. Available for free download at conformon.net under Publications > Refereed Journal Articles).
[11] Short, T. L. (2007). Peirce’s Theory of Signs. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
[12] Ji, S. (2001). Isomorphism between cell and human languages: micro- and macrosemiotics. In: Semiotics 2000: “Sebeok’s Century”, pp. 357-374. Legas, Ottawa. Available for free download at conformon.net under Publications > Proceedings & Abstracts.
[13] Ji, S. (2012). Principle of Self-Organization and Dissipative Structures. In: Molecular Theory of the Living Cell: Concepts, Molecular Mechanisms, and Biomedical Applications. Springer, New York. Section 3.1, pp. 69-78.
[14] Ji, S. (1991). The Shillongator. In: Molecular Theories of Cell Life and Death (S. Ji, ed.), Rutgers University Press, New Brunswick, Section 1.11.2 and Appendix 1.F, pp. 157-163, 230-237. Available for free download at conformon.net under Publications > Book Chapters.
[15] Ji, S. (2012). Micro-Macro Coupling in the Human Body. In: Molecular Theory of the Living Cell: Concepts, Molecular Mechanisms, and Biomedical Applications. Springer, New York. Section 15.12, pp. 571.
[16] Ji, S. (2012). Peircean Signs as Gnergons. In: Molecular Theory of the Living Cell: Concepts, Molecular Mechanisms, and Biomedical Applications. Springer, New York. Section 6.2.3, pp. 176-180.
[17] Ji, S. (1997). Gnergons as Quanta of Semiosic Actions. Abstract submitted to The Third International Conference on Semiotics, Victoria College, University of Toronto, October 17-19. Available for free download at conformon.net under Publications > Proceedings & Abstracts.

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