In biosemiotics, “interpretation” is frequently detached from any explicit interpreter.
This move is strategic.
It allows the concept to be extended:
- from human meaning-making,
- to organismic behaviour,
- to cellular processes,
- and, in some formulations, to life as such.
The claim becomes:
wherever there is differential response to a sign, there is interpretation.
At first glance, this appears to generalise the concept without distorting it.
But under constraint, the question cannot be avoided:
what makes something an interpretation, rather than merely a response?
1. The Displacement of the Interpreter
In classical semiotic accounts, interpretation is not free-floating.
It is tied to:
- a semiotic organisation
- within which signs function as signs
This does not require a conscious subject.
But it does require:
a system in which meaning is constituted as meaning.
Biosemiotics removes the need for an explicit interpreter by distributing interpretation across biological processes.
But in doing so, it risks removing the condition that makes interpretation intelligible in the first place.
2. Interpretation as Response
At the biological level, “interpretation” is often defined operationally:
- a system detects a signal,
- and produces a differential response.
For example:
- a receptor activates when a molecule binds,
- a bacterium changes direction in response to a gradient,
- a neuron fires under certain conditions.
These are described as instances of interpretation.
But what is actually present is:
response structured by sensitivity.
This is not yet interpretation in the semiotic sense.
3. The Missing Distinction
To call something an interpretation requires a distinction between:
- what is interpreted (the sign),
- and what it is interpreted as (its meaning).
This distinction is not trivial.
It requires:
that the relation between sign and meaning is itself constituted within a semiotic organisation.
Without this:
- there is no “as”
- no aboutness
- no interpretive relation
Only:
- correlation
- activation
- response
4. Response Without “As”
Biological systems respond.
But they do not, by default, respond to something as something.
A molecule binding to a receptor does not involve:
- the molecule being construed as a sign of something else,
- nor the response being organised around that construal.
Instead:
the response is directly coupled to the condition.
There is no intermediate level at which:
- the condition is taken as meaningful.
5. The Illusion of Distributed Interpretation
Biosemiotics often resolves this by distributing interpretation:
- not located in a subject,
- but in the system as a whole,
- or even across organism–environment relations.
This appears to avoid subjectivism.
But it introduces a new problem:
interpretation becomes so diffuse that its defining features disappear.
If everything that responds is interpreting, then:
- interpretation no longer distinguishes semiotic organisation from biological organisation.
6. Construal as the Missing Condition
What is absent in these accounts is:
construal.
Construal is not:
- response,
- activation,
- or sensitivity.
It is:
the organisation of meaning such that something can stand for something else as such.
This requires:
- internal differentiation within a semiotic system,
- not merely external responsiveness to conditions.
Without construal:
- there is no interpretation,
- only behaviour.
7. Interpretation Without Collapse
To retain interpretation without collapsing it into response, we must be precise:
- interpretation does not require a human subject,
- but it does require a semiotic organisation.
This means:
interpretation occurs only where meaning is already constituted as meaning.
It cannot be inferred from:
- differential response,
- adaptive behaviour,
- or functional organisation alone.
8. Reframing Biological Activity
What biosemiotics describes as interpretation at the biological level can be restated:
- not as meaning-making,
- but as value-based responsiveness.
This preserves:
- the complexity of biological systems,
- their sensitivity and organisation,
without:
- attributing semiotic structure where it is not warranted.
9. The Residual Confusion
The persistence of this confusion stems from a shared intuition:
- that responsiveness implies significance,
- and that significance implies meaning.
But this chain does not hold.
Because:
significance for a system (value) is not the same as meaning within a semiotic organisation.
Closing Formulation
Interpretation is not the mere production of a response.
It requires that something is taken as something—which in turn requires a semiotic organisation in which such “as”-relations hold.Where there is only response,there is no interpretation—only value in operation.
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