An epigenetic machine: Review of The Organic Codes: An Introduction to Semantic Biology by Marcello Barbieri
An epigenetic machine: Review of The Organic Codes: An Introduction to Semantic Biology by Marcello Barbieri

Summary/Abstract: Attempts to grasp the essence of the living can be grounded in different areas of human knowledge. If we set aside theological or mythical explanations, we are left with two basic approaches. Biology as a natural science prefers assuming pre-existent and well defined entities, subjects of immutable laws and therefore discernible, describable and computable. In contrast, “humanities” (semiotics, hermeneutics, philosophy and the like) stress the historical and contextual aspect of the “lifeworld”, i.e. namely those properties that cannot be covered by constructs of physics. Both approaches are mutually incompatible and the trench dividing them seems to be insurmountable. Perhaps the best difference between them can be perceived in their approach toward concepts like information. Whereas in natural sciences it represents a computable and measurable entity, in humanities it is an entity that, in spite of its immaterial and unquantifiable nature, exerts its influence upon the world.

• Details
• Contents