468 The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matterb2861 The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matter “6x9”Based on Figure 10.31, it may be suggested that the version of semiot-
ics that Peirce (1839–1914) developed in his lifetime was mainly focused
on the “informational aspect” of the semiotics triad, although he was
probably aware of the energy/matter aspect of semiosis. It may further be
speculated that the energy/matter aspect of semiotics has been forced
upon the scientific community with the rapid development of molecular
and cell biology and brain sciences in the 20th century.
The contents of Table 10.13 comprise a good part of the human
knowledge extant at the beginning of the 21st century. That human knowl-
edge, viewed as both human and natural phenomena, should divide into
three distinct branches. That should not be too surprising if the “irreduc-
ibly triadic” natures of Peircean phenomenology and ontology are taken
into account.
One of the most important contributions that the 20th-century biology
has made to human knowledge is the discovery that molecules can act as
signs (e.g., DNA, enzymes, hormones, etc.), which fact was unknown to
Peirce and his predecessors. With Watson and Crick’s discovery of DNA
as a molecular sign carrying genetic information, it may be claimed that
the traditional semiotics of Poinsot [281] and Peirce [94–99] bifurcated
into two branches (see Section 6.4):- Macrosemiotics, studying signs of macroscopic sizes (i.e., pictures,
written words, sentences, texts), and - Microsemiotics, concerned with signs of molecular dimensions [22–23].
The unexpected finding [19–23] that cells use a language of their own
that obeys a set of linguistic (or, more generally, semiotic) principles com-
mon with human language (see Section 4.4 and Table 4.4) supports the
thesis that semiotic principles are not confined to human communication
but also extends to communication processes on the molecular level.
Macro- and microsemiotics obey the same set of semiotic principles, just as
macrophysics and microphysics obey the same set of thermodynamic laws.
The concept of energy (the ability of a system to do work) played an
important role in physics in the 20th century, at both the macro- and the
microscales. Similarly, it may turn out that the concept of signs as defined
by Peirce in terms of his triad of trichotomies (qualisign, sinsign, legisign;b2861_Ch-10.indd 468 17-10-2017 12:13:49 PM