A semiotic analysis of the genetic information system

Abstract

Terms loaded with informational connotations are often employed to refer to genes and their dynamics. Indeed, genes are usually perceived by biologists as basically 'the carriers of hereditary information.' Nevertheless, a number of researchers consider such talk as inadequate and 'just metaphorical,' thus expressing a skepticism about the use of the term 'information' and its derivatives in biology as a natural science. First, because the meaning of that term in biology is not as precise as it is, for instance, in the mathematical theory of communication. Second, because it seems to refer to a purported semantic property of genes without theoretically clarifying if any genuinely intrinsic semantics is involved. Biosemiotics, a field that attempts to analyze biological systems as semiotic systems, makes it possible to advance in the understanding of the concept of information in biology. From the perspective of Peircean biosemiotics, we develop here an account of genes as signs, including a detailed analysis of two fundamental processes in the genetic information system (transcription and protein synthesis) that have not been made so far in this field of research. Furthermore, we propose here an account of information based on Peircean semiotics and apply it to our analysis of transcription and protein synthesis.

Entropy, Function and Evolution: Naturalizing Peircian Semiosis

“…However, this reduction of information on data processing, even on the most elementary level of quantum states [34], cannot establish any relation between entropy and semantic information, i.e., continues to cut off the meaning of the data from the notion of information, even though a complete definition of information will always include meaning into its scope [35]. From this perspective, reservations about Shannon information and its use across the sciences seem justified, which converges with views in the broader biosemiotics literature [36]. But this also defines the challenge: How to establish a conceptual link between semiosis and entropy?…”

“…The dualism of causality in case of functions reflects the fact that functions can be also analyzed as a fundamental process in semiosis [104]. I use a common diagram to illustrate Peirce's notion of a sign ( Figure 9) [2,36]). Peirce distinguishes between the object, the sign (sign vehicle, earlier 'representamen') and the interpretant.…”

“…But this would only be a static snapshot of the essential dynamic process, and would fail to grasp the increase of complexity that inheres the evolution of functions Z', Z'',….It is then straightforward to see that the embeddedness of functions is equivalent to changing role of signs and interpretants through evolution, that is, an interpretant becomes a sign in the higher level function, which in turn corresponds to a further step in the growing complexity of the dynamical object. I visualize this connectedness of semiotic relations as a chain of Peircian triangles in Figure 10 (compare a related approach in [36]). From this it is evident that the immediate object remains the anchor of the entire process, and that the dynamical object corresponds to the evolving structure.…”

“…In these approaches, the genome is treated as a sign, and the proteins are treated as the object [36]. It seems that this still carries over the old informational misunderstanding about genes, which is otherwise discussed critically in that literature.…”

Objects and processes: Two notions for understanding biological information

“…There have been some theoretical proposals that aim to deal with what we call process-information in a way that tries to account for their open-endedness, such as the innovative views of biosemiotics (see El-Hani et al, 2006;Favareau, 2008;Abel 2009;Barbieri, 2013). This relatively recent field centers fundamental analyses on the relationship between of three elements: an object, a signifying element and an interpretant.…”