Skip to main content
Log in

Toward Accommodating Biosemiotics with Experimental Sciences

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Biosemiotics Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Chemical affinity is by itself inclusive of the action of a sign. Naturalization of the action of a sign is latent in the material organization holding its own identity by means of the exchange of material. A concrete experimental example is the citric acid cycle running in the absence of biological enzymes. The carbon atoms to be exchanged round the cycle serve as the signs for holding the cycle as a natural system. The action of a sign operates in the present progressive tense and is also descriptively approachable in the same tense, as implying that a natural system holding its own identity assumes the first-person status acting for its own sake. The action of a sign is thus addressable in first person descriptions on the level of the supporting material system that can recognize the sign as such from within. Furthermore, if the action of a sign happens to precipitate the record registered in the present perfect tense, the record itself will be approachable in third person descriptions in the present tense. When one can relate the record of an earlier event to that of a later one, what is called information will come up. Information to be externalized and objectified is about the completed outcome from the action of a sign that is accessible in third person descriptions in the present tense. Conversely, if the action of a sign is carried by a natural system holding its own identity in a manner to be registered in the present perfect tense after the event, information will appear in a proper form of bookkeeping as relating the memory to anticipation on the part of the material agency. Although information in the present has the capacity of relating the past to future in the present tense as avoiding direct confrontation with the dynamic nature of the present or now head on, the action of a sign facing the present squarely is competent enough to address and decipher the generative capacity of information itself operating in the present progressive tense.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  • Barbieri, M. (2008). Biosemiotics: a new understanding of life. Naturwissenschaften, 95, 77–99.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Cody, G. D., Boctor, N. Z., Filley, T. R., Hazen, R. M., Scott, J. H., & Yonder, S. H., Jr. (2000). Primordial carbonylated iron-sulfur compounds and the synthesis of pyruvate. Science, 289, 1337–1340.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Cody, G. D., Boctor, N. Z., Hazen, R. M., Branders, J. A., Morowitz, H. J., & Yonder, S. H., Jr. (2001). Geochemical roots of autotrophic carbon fixation: hydrothermal experiments in the system citric acid, H2O-(±FeS) (±NiS). Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta, 65, 3557–3576.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Hoffmeyer, J. (2008). Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs, Univ. Chicago IL: Scranton Press.

    Google Scholar 

  • Imai, E., Honda, H., Hatori, K., Brack, A., & Matsuno, K. (1999). Elongation of oligopeptides in a simulated submarine hydrothermal system. Science, 283, 831–833.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Matsuno, K. (1997). A design principle of a flow reactor simulating prebiotic evolution. Viva Origino, 25, 191–204.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Matsuno, K. (2004). Prebiotic organization of fatty acids and amino acids in the interface zone between the hydro and lithosphere. Adv. Space Res., 33, 95–99.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Matsuno, K. (2006). Forming and maintaining a heat engine for quantum biology. BioSystems, 85, 23–29.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  • Matsuno, K. (2008). Molecular semiotics toward the emergence of life. Biosemiotics, 1, 131–144.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matsuno, K. (2009). Interplay between rapid and slow quenching in prebiotic evolution. Viva Origino, 37, 1–6.

    CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Matsuno, K. (2011). Framework of space and time from the proto-semiotic perspective. Biosemiotics, 4, 103–118.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Matsuno, K. (2012). Chemical evolution as a concrete scheme for naturalizing the relative-state of quantum mechanics. BioSystems. doi:10.1016/j.biosystems.2012.04.002.

  • Matsuno, K., & Nemoto, A. (2005). Quantum as a heat engine – the physics of intensities unique to the origins of life. Phys. Life Rev., 2, 227–250.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • McCollom, T. M., Ritter, G., & Simoneit, B. R. (1999). Lipid synthesis under hydrothermal conditions by Fischer-Tropsch-type reactions. Origins Life Evol BioSheres, 29, 153–66.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • McTaggart, J. E. (1908). The unreality of time. Mind: A Quarterly Journal of Psychology and Philosophy, 17, 456–473.

    Google Scholar 

  • Morowitz, H. J., Kostelnik, J. D., Yang, J., & Cody, G. D. (2000). The origin of intermediary metabolism. Proc. Nat’l Acad. Sci. USA, 97, 7704–7708.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Russell, M. J., & Martin, W. (2004). The rocky roots of the acetyl-CoA pathway. Trends Biochem Sci, 29, 358–363.

    Article  PubMed  CAS  Google Scholar 

  • Schrödinger, E. (1944). What is Life?- The Physical Aspect of the Living Cell. Cambridge UK: Cambridge Univ. Press. chapter 6.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sebeok, T. A. (1985). Contributions to the Doctrines of Signs. Press, Bloomington IN: Indiana Univ.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wächtershäuser, G. (1990). Evolution of the first metabolic cycles. Proc. Nat’l Acad. Sci. USA, 87, 200–204.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  • Weber, A. L. (2002). Chemical constraints governing the origin of metabolism: the thermodynamic landscape of carbon group transformations under mild aqueous conditions. Origins Life Evol Biospheres, 32, 333–357.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgments

Thanks are due to Atsushi Nemoto for helping the author with conducting the experiments on the citric acid cycle reported in this article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Koichiro Matsuno.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Matsuno, K. Toward Accommodating Biosemiotics with Experimental Sciences. Biosemiotics 6, 125–141 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-012-9156-2

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-012-9156-2

Keywords

Navigation