title: Why do we need signs in biological systems?
abstract: This paper addresses a fundamental question: Why are there sign-mediated interactions in biology? According to Polanyi, biological hierarchies are constituted through boundary conditions. I argue that signs, or more accurately the processes of signification, function as these boundary conditions. Moreover, based on general insights from the physics of computation, I argue that the organism cannot be computed directly from the DNA without the loss of critical information. In this context, signs as boundary conditions mediate the biological construction in a way that prevents the loss of information and destabilization of the DNA.
authors.affiliation: Ben Gurion University, Israel. yneuman@bgumail.bgu.ac.il
authors.forename: Yair
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Neuman
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001695:Biology; D019295:Computational Biology; D004247:DNA / Q000096:biosynthesis; D005815:Genetic Code; D008967:Molecular Biology; D055585:Physical Phenomena; D010825:Physics; D010944:Plants; D014176:Protein Biosynthesis; D012106:Research; D012660:Semantics; D013598:Systems Theory
chemical_list: D004247:DNA