The necessity of biosemiotics
matter-symbol complementarity
pp. 115-132
in: Marcello Barbieri (ed), Introduction to biosemiotics, Berlin, Springer, 2007Abstract
Biosemiotics distinguishes life from inanimate matter by its dependence on material construction controlled by coded symbolic information. This irreducible primitive distinction between matter and symbol is necessary for open-ended evolvability and the origin of life as we know it. This type of subject/object distinction is reestablished at many levels throughout all of evolution. In physics this becomes the distinction between material laws and symbolic measurements and models; in philosophy this is the distinction between brain and mind. These are all emergent epistemic distinctions, not ontological dualisms. The origin of life requires understanding the origin of this symbolic control and how inanimate molecules become functional messages. I discuss the necessary physical conditions that would allow such evolvable symbolic control of matter to arise