In biosemiotics, the concept of the sign plays a central role.
Drawing on semiotic traditions often associated with Charles Sanders Peirce, biosemiotics extends the notion of the sign beyond human language to include:
- cellular signalling,
- chemical gradients,
- behavioural cues,
- and organism–environment relations.
At this level, a sign is typically defined as:
something that stands for something else to a system.
This definition appears sufficiently abstract to apply across domains.
But it conceals a critical ambiguity.
1. The Classical Semiotic Structure
In its strict form, a sign relation involves:
- a sign
- an object (what the sign is about)
- an interpretant (the effect or understanding produced)
Crucially, this structure presupposes:
a semiotic organisation in which “standing for” is meaningful.
The relation is not causal.
It is not mere correlation.
It is a relation of meaning.
2. The Biosemiotic Extension
Biosemiotics extends this structure to biological systems.
For example:
- a molecule “signals” the presence of nutrients,
- a receptor “interprets” a stimulus,
- a behavioural response “follows” a sign.
Here, the triadic structure is mapped onto biological processes:
- signal → stimulus
- object → environmental condition
- interpretant → response
At this point, the sign appears to function as a bridge:
connecting biological processes to semiotic relations.
3. The Critical Shift
The problem is not the extension itself.
It is the shift in what counts as:
- interpretation
- and therefore, meaning.
In biological contexts, “interpretation” is typically understood as:
- differential response,
- sensitivity to conditions,
- or functional adjustment.
That is:
the system responds differently depending on the stimulus.
But this is not yet semiotic.
It is:
organised selectivity.
In other words:
value.
4. Correlation Is Not Signification
At the biological level, what we observe is often:
- reliable correlation between a condition and a response.
For example:
- a bacterium moves toward higher nutrient concentration,
- a plant grows toward light,
- a cell activates a pathway in response to a molecule.
These can be described as:
- stimulus → response relations.
Biosemiotics redescribes them as:
- sign → interpretation.
But this move requires justification.
Because:
correlation, even highly structured correlation, is not the same as signification.
5. Where Equivocation Enters
The key equivocation occurs here:
- “interpretation” is used in two senses simultaneously
- Biological sense:
- response to conditions
- functional adjustment
- selective sensitivity
- Semiotic sense:
- construal of meaning
- relation of “standing for”
- internal differentiation within a semiotic system
These are not equivalent.
But biosemiotics often moves between them without marking the transition.
6. The Missing Condition: Construal
For a sign relation to hold in the semiotic sense, something more is required:
construal.
That is:
- the organisation of meaning such that something can stand for something else as such.
Without construal:
- there is no “aboutness,”
- no differentiation between sign and object,
- no interpretant in the semiotic sense.
Biological systems exhibit:
- sensitivity,
- responsiveness,
- and selectivity.
But none of these, by themselves, establish construal.
7. The Sign Without Drift
If we are to retain the concept of the sign without collapsing value into meaning, we must be precise.
A sign cannot be:
- a stimulus that triggers a response,
- a signal that correlates with a condition,
- or a functional cue within a biological system.
Instead:
a sign is a relation within a semiotic organisation in which something is construed as standing for something else.
This excludes:
- purely biological processes from being treated as semiotic by default.
8. Reframing Biological “Interpretation”
What biosemiotics calls “interpretation” at the biological level can be restated more precisely:
- not interpretation as meaning-making,
- but sensitivity as value-based differentiation.
This preserves:
- the complexity and organisation of biological systems,
without:
- projecting semiotic structure onto them.
9. Coupling Without Collapse
This does not require separating biology and semiosis into unrelated domains.
Instead:
biological organisation (value) and semiotic organisation (meaning) can be coupled without being identical.
This allows:
- biological processes to constrain semiotic activity,
- and semiotic activity to be realised within biological systems,
without:
- reducing one to the other.
Closing Formulation
Not every difference that makes a difference is a sign.
Biological systems differentiate in terms of value—what matters for their continuation.Semiotic systems differentiate in terms of meaning—what is construed as such.To treat all differentiation as semiosisis not an expansion of the semiotic.It is the loss of its specificity.
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