Is Life Essentially Semiosis

Biosemioticians oppose the dominant physico-chemical molecular-biological approach to life. They regard many, if not all, organic processes as semiotic processes, processes involving “signs”, “information”, “representation” or even “interpretation”. I am rather skeptical or critical about their views. Given the growing diversity of their specific views, I can consider only a few of their ideas, some being all-encompassing, others more detailed. I criticize the global idea that “all life is semiosis” and also the view, used to back up this global idea, that the concepts of function and semiosis are coextensive. Among other things, I suggest that such views confuse means and ends. A related and very intriguing idea is that all biological and psychic processes, as teleological processes, have a quasi-semiotic relationship to an “absent content”. I argue that explanations should refer to actual, present factors. Another proposal, which is meant to avoid bothersome questions of where there could be interpretation in “biological semiosis”, is to regard biological processes like protein synthesis as “manufacturing semiosis”. I oppose this view as well as the other biosemiotic views with my own ideas about emergent forms of structural determination and co-determination in biology.