Kalevi Kull
Institute of Zoology and Botany
Tartu University, Estonia

From: Kalevi Kull
To: Marcello Barbieri
Date: 17 April 2001

Dear Marcello,

Below is a part of a review of your book I've prepared recently. I would
appreciate if you'll add it to the Comments.

Thank you very much again for the book and our e-mail conversations.
Your approach is very close to my way in theoretical biology.
And I guess Karl Ernst von Baer himself would have liked your book.
Hope to meet you in the near future.

Best regards,

Kalevi

Organic codes can be discovered only if we are looking for them: A step in semiotic biology

Kalevi Kull

Recently, a fascinating book has called my attention. This is Marcello Barbieri's The Organic Codes: The Birth of Semantic Biology (2001). Barbieri is an Italian developmental biologist from the University of Ferrara, the president and founder (in 1997) of the Italian Association for Theoretical Biology.

Barbieri's book concerns a new wave in theoretical biology, which at least professionals can feel as starting to grow in these days. Indexes of this wave include various studies on functional closure, second order, emergence, autonomous agents, poiesis in itself. This is a change from particles of memory to the reading of a whole (on a general view of the recent history of theoretical biology, see [11]). We find the keywords as 'physics of semantics', 'downward causation', or 'a constructivist companion to the reductionist thesis' [8: 111, 129, 268], and, of course, 'signs' [16]. In one way or other, all this tends to touch the problem of the origins of meaning as a problem of biology. Altogether, this can be called a semiotic turn in biology.

The set of ideas that are used to call biosemiotics (or semiotic biology) nowadays, has been formed during a very long period, with few ideas that can be traced back to Karl Ernst von Baer (for a review, see [9]). Since the semiotic approach in biology comprises a whole biological paradigm, it may include various authors.

Since T. A. Sebeok's reopening of Jakob von Uexküll's old works in late 1970s, and the publication of the English translations of Uexküll's two books on Umwelt and Bedeutung [in Semiotica 42(1), 1982, and 89(4), 1992], the growth of biosemiotics has been remarkable. Many new authors came into the field, special issues of journals appeared [Semiotica 120(3/4), 1998; 127(1/4), 1999; 134(1/4), 2001; European Journal for Semiotic Studies 9(2), 1997, Zeitschrift für Semiotik 8(3), 1986, 15(1-2), 1993, 18(1), 1996], several periodicals paid much attention to biosemiotics [Cybernetics and Human Knowing 5(1), 1998, 7(1), 2000, Sign Systems Studies 27, 1999, and 28, 2000, Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 901, 2000], and a number of books that are dealing directly on biosemiotics, has been produced within a short time (e.g., [5; 6; 7; 12; 13; 14; 15; 17], etc.).

The Organic Codes is a development and extension of Barbieri's earlier book, The Semantic Theory of Evolution [2], which has appeared with René Thom's foreword, and of his several papers [1; 3; 4].

A central idea Barbieri introduces is the triad of phenotype, genotype, and ribotype. The latter is responsible for meaning, it's function is interpretation. The ribotypes (e.g., RNA-s) are 'intermediaries', which are 'more important than instructions and objects' (p. 155). Indeed, one can find a compatibility between this concept and the biosemiotic applications of Peirce's triadic sign concept in cell biology.

Barbieri shows that there are several codified assemblies in the multi-step row of epigenetic processes. According to his characterisation, each code connects two independent worlds, and adds meaning to information. As examples, he gives few details of the RNA splicing codes and the cellular signal transduction codes (pp. 97-106). Other codes noted include the signal integration codes (p. 108), apoptosis codes, cell migration codes (p. 114), cytoskeleton codes (p. 173), etc. He also specifies several organic memories, e.g., the epigenetic cell memory of determination (p. 109). I found it very interesting that he describes the body plan as a supracellular memory, the body's memory (p. 202).

The evolution of coding rules means the evolution of natural conventions, as can be evidently concluded from the general concept of code. Accordingly, 'to the classical concept of evolution by genetic drift and by natural selection, we must add therefore the concept of evolution by natural conventions' (p. 153).

Barbieri does not apply directly a terminology of any linguistic or semiotic theory in his work. His use of common terms like 'meaning', 'context', 'code', 'semantic', etc., and few beautiful comparisons between biological and linguistic phenomena (e.g., p. 107, 232), however, help to build such a bridge by those who will develop this approach further on. Here, the usage of semiotic instead of Barbieri's semantic comes from the understanding that the latter is a natural part of the former.

If there is anything that I may criticise in Barbieri's book, then this is an impression of certain rigidity of the codes as they appear in his discussion and the models supplied. This means, he does not speak about things like redundancy, uncertainty, stochasticity, vagueness, etc. However, since this aspect is not directly stated by the author himself, I take it as a reflection of a practical experience of an embryologist.

Barbieri is a very well-educated biologist and is writing in a good clear style, which allows to use his books as textbooks of general biology for students. As an appendix, his book includes a good collection of 60 selected definitions of life, formulated by biologists throughout the last two centuries (pp. 235-242).

This is a quite usual phenomenon in the history of science that several scientists think in similar lines, without knowing about each other (on another example, see [10]). If they stay so, it often happens that their work will not become acknowledged. In order to get a wider acceptance, certain coherence has to take place between a group of scientists working on the same or similar problems, and between the terminologies they use. In semiotic biology, this is what is going to take place in these days, and I expect that the Gatherings in Biosemiotics which have been initiated by Danish and Estonian biologists will become a fascinating series of meetings in favour of better understanding of life itself.

The next steps in biosemiotics are waiting for open-minded biologists.

References

[1] Barbieri, Marcello 1981. The ribotype theory of the origin of life. Journal of Theoretical Biology 91: 545-601.
[2] Barbieri, Marcello 1985. The Semantic Theory of Evolution. London: Harwood Academic Publishers.
[3] Barbieri, Marcello 1987. Co-information: A new concept in theoretical biology. Rivista di Biologia 80: 101-126.
[4] Barbieri, Marcello 1997. Biological forms as natural conventions. Rivista di Biologia 90: 485-488.
[5] Cimatti, Felice 1998. Mente e linguaggio negli animali: Introduzione alla zoosemiotica cognitiva. Roma: Carocci editore.
[6] Deacon, Terrence 1997. The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain. New York: Norton.
[7] Hoffmeyer, Jesper 1996. Signs of Meaning in the Universe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
[8] Kauffman, Stuart 2000. Investigations. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
[9] Kull, Kalevi 1999. Biosemiotics in the twentieth century: A view from biology. Semiotica 127 (1/4): 385-414.
[10] Kull, Kalevi 1999. On the history of joining bio with semio: F. S. Rothschild and the biosemiotic rules. Sign Systems Studies 27, 128-138.
[11] Kull, Kalevi 2000. Trends in theoretical biology: The 20th century. Aquinas 43(2), 235-249.
[12] Pollack, R. 1994. Signs of Life: The Language and Meanings of DNA. London: Viking.
[13] Salthe, Stanley N. 1993. Development and Evolution: Complexity and Change in Biology. Cambridge (Mass.): The MIT Press.
[14] Sebeok, Thomas A. 1990. Essays in Zoosemiotics. Toronto: Toronto Semiotic Circle.
[15] Sebeok, Thomas A. and Jean Umiker-Sebeok (eds.) 1992. Biosemiotics: The Semiotic Web 1991. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
[16] Solé, Richard and Goodwin, Brian 2000. Signs of Life: How Complexity Pervades Biology. New York: Basic Books.
[17] Ylas, Martynas 1994. O Prirode Zhivogo: Mehanizmy i Smysl (Meaning and Mechanics). Moskva: Mir.