What is the scope of biosemiotics? information in living systems
pp. 133-148
in: Marcello Barbieri (ed), Introduction to biosemiotics, Berlin, Springer, 2007Abstract
Because biology involves so many scalar levels and entrains so many aspects of Nature, the notion that it is essentially a direct consequence of genetic information is questioned. After discussing some general points about information and semiosis, the hegemony of genetics is rejected on the grounds that: basic cellular phenomena are generic for micellar systems, and that the overall pattern of development is generic for dissipative structures, and that supramolecular information emerges during development, and that closely similar forms and functions can emerge at the scale of organisms and above in distantly related genealogical lineages. During the course of the paper I suggest that various epigenetic systems may be semiotic entities