Semiotic Constraints of the Biological Organization 215associated with the physical time. It serves as a logical saver from paradoxes: the self-
reference softens the notion of equality. Time is precisely that degree of freedom which
allows a thing to change and yet to still be itself. This biological time is an observer‘s time
which brings a relational understanding of the spatiotemporal structure (Molchanov, 1998).
The refrain is not simply a set of states of archetypal merons. It consists also of arrows
defining transitions between merons. These arrows introduce a pattern of temporal
organization for the organizational invariance. We cannot predict the existence of these
particular arrows because they are determined by history and by the internal logic. Refrain is
the complete sequence of alternative states of a meron and of transitions between them at
certain degree of specification. This also assumes that refrains cannot unfold infinitely
because their time is finite. Self-similarity of a system at a particular time during this
unfolding is supported through the maintenance of its organizational invariance.
Ervin Bauer in his monograph ―Theoretical Biology‖ suggested that the main principle
governing the biological evolution is an increase of the external work imposed by an
organism (Bauer, 1982). This can be related to the expansion of the Umwelt. The increase of
external work can explain selective preference of a new structure. It corresponds to the
increase and intensification of the basic properties of living matter, which Bauer called
―stable non-equilibrium‖. The stable non-equilibrium is a physical representation of the
principle of organizational invariance. In Bauer‘s terms, to make a correct comparison of a
living system to waterfall, it is necessary to state that the difference in the levels of water,
which is an indispensable condition for the fall, should be made and maintained by the
waterfall itself. The increase of adaptability is related to appearance of forms with wider
limits of adaptation, but these organisms provide less material and fall behind in evolution as
compared to organisms having narrow limit of adaptation but higher energetic of non-
equilibrium process (Bauer, 1982). Thus the progressive evolution is related to the increase in
complexity of organism‘s structure related to a formation of a new relation (niche) in the
expanding semiotic Umwelt.
The physical approaches to describe evolution of a system towards observability are
based on understanding of the quantum measurement (as opposed to the classical
measurement of external objects) as a measurement of the environment together with the
embedded measuring system, which cannot be separated from it (Igamberdiev, 2002). The
Umwelt is the assimilated part of environment as recognized by the system. Recognition of
new observables during this measurement will generate a simultaneous increase in
complexity of the measuring system itself and its Umwelt and lead to the possibility of
measurement of a newly formed system plus environment (Igamberdiev, 1999, 2001).
Although the measurement itself is not recursive, it will generate enfolded embedding
structures viewed as appeared in the continuous recursive embedding process after it takes
place. This is the difference of the quantum measurement from the classical measurement,
which views the environment as external: the system views itself as embedded into the
Umwelt, the recognized part of environment. The appearance of a new description means that
the system memorizes its optimal state in the concrete environment, i.e. it measures not the
external environment, but itself plus the environment (itself embedded into the environment).
In Bauer‘s terms, it adds its external work to the environment.
The newly generated structure attains the value in changed Umwelt. This means that it is
embedded in a whole system interacting with the environment as a part of new established
harmony. This is possible if a new configuration fits to a certain harmony relation (canon).