Semantic biology

Genetics was born in the first years of the twentieth century with the discovery that hereditary characters are carried by molecules that are physically present in chromosomes. These molecules of heredity -the genes - are responsible for the visible structures of the organisms but do not enter into those structures, which means that in every cell there are molecules which determine the characteristics of other molecules. In 1909, Wilhelm Johannsen concluded that this distinction is similar to the difference which exists between a project and its physical implementation, and represents therefore a dichotomy of the living world which is as deep as the Cartesian dichotomy between mind and body. 

---

Figure 8.2 According to semantic biology, many organic codes exist in life and their appearance on Earth marked the great historical events of macroevolution. The actual number of organic codes is likely to be much higher than the few examples reported above.

As we can see, organic codes can be discovered only if we are looking for them, and we can look for them only if we believe that they can exist. In order to build a semantic biology, therefore, the first step is a new mental attitude towards nature, even if this will probably be possible only with a new generation of molecular biologists. 

When the theoretical climate is favourable, however, priority will necessarily go to experiments. It is important, in fact, to avoid the opposite extreme of believing that everything can be explained by invoking ad hoc codes, or by saying that all biochemical reactions are, more or less indirectly, codified processes. The second step towards semantic biology will be therefore a stage of experiments and discovery. 

Modern biology has already acknowledged that complexity is at the very heart of life, but semantic biology goes further than that. It states that what is crucial to life is not complexity as such, but the ability to produce a convergent increase of complexity. The first principle of semantic biology, in short, is nothing less than a new definition of life. 

The fourth principle of semantic biology, in short, states that there cannot be a convergent increase of complexity without codes. Or, in other words, organic epigenesis requires organic codes. 

The second model of semantic biology, in conclusion, is the idea that An animal is a trinitary system made of genotype, phylotype and phenotype. Another, more detailed, version of the model is the semantic theory of embryonic development Embryonic development is a sequence of two distinct processes of reconstruction from incomplete information, each of which increases the complexity of the system in a convergent way. The first process builds the phylotypic body and is controlled by cells. The second leads to the individual body and is controlled not only at the cellular level hut also at the supracellular level of the body plan. ... 

Such a view may help us to clarify at least two points of some weight. The first is Max Delbriick s question How could mind arise from matter (Delbruck, 1986). The answer from semantic biology is that organic life and mental life are both concerned with reconstructing structures from incomplete information, and so there is no vacuum between them. The materials are different, but the logic is the same. Nature could produce mental codes with the same craft with which she had been producing organic codes for 4 billion years. 

Barbieri, M. 2001. The Organic Codes The Birth of Semantic Biology. Pequod, Ancona. (Italian edition, 2000,1 Codici Organici. La nascita della biologia semantica, Pequod, Ancona.)... 

---