Biosemiotics 267“6x9” b2861 The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matterof gnergy, the complementary union of energy (“ergons”) and infor-
mation (“gnons”) that is postulated to be the ultimate cause of, or
ground for, all self-organizing (or pattern-forming) processes in the
Universe [24] (see Section 2.9).
(4) Since all sign processes (semiosis) can be viewed as species of self-
organizing processes, ultimately driven by the free energy of exer-
gonic chemical reactions (e.g., ATP hydrolysis or oxidation of
NADH) or physical processes (e.g., solar radiation, the Big Bang,
etc.), it would follow that gnergons are the ultimate causes (or driv-
ers) of semiosis [24].
(5) According to complementarism [24], a scientific metaphysics rooted
in both contemporary biology and Bohr’s philosophy of complemen-
tarity [47], the ultimate reality is a complementary union of informa-
tion and energy, i.e., gnergy. Since signs are species of gnergons,
it may be concluded that Peirce’s semiotics falls within the domain
of the application of complementarism. This claim may be supported
by the following arguments:
(a) Peirce’s semiotics deals mainly with macroscopic signs, i.e.,
signs with macroscopic dimensions “perfusing” the Universe.
The birth of molecular biology was about four decades away
when Peirce passed in 1914 [287].
(b) Complementarism can be applied not only to Peirce’s semiotics
(as suggested above), but also to molecular and cell biology, as
evident in the formulation of theory of “microsemiotics” based
on the gnergy concept [22, 23]. Microsemiotics can be regarded
as synonymous with the twin theories of the living cell known as
biocybernetics and cell language theory [23] as indicated by Eq.
(6.1). It is also possible to refer to the combination of biocyber-
netics and cell language theory as “molecular information the-
ory” [273]. In other words, “microsemiotics” and “molecular
information theory” are synonymous.
(c) Thus, the following relations suggest themselves:
Complementarism = macrosemiotics + microsemiotics
= Peirce’s semiotics + biocybernetics/cell language
= Peirce’s semiotics + molecular information
theory (6.5)b2861_Ch-06.indd 267 17-10-2017 12:04:13 PM