away from the presupposition that biology can be simplistically reduced to physics and chem-
istry. Concurrently, since a number of decades, there is a developing realization that much can
be gained by introducing the formalizations and implications of semiotics into biological descrip-
tions, with the consequent emphasis not only on syntactical but also on semantic aspects of or-
ganisms and their sub-systems.
The aim of the investigation reported in this paper is the extension of evolutionary biosemi-
otic approaches to all aspects of our surround- ings in a unified manner, from the animate to
the inanimate, and beyond. The specific target of the paper is to describe a self-consistent
framework within which the presence of evolu- tion and complexity mirror their natural appear-
ances, and where the closure of computational relationships between cell, tissue and organism
may be confidently grounded. Rather than di- viding the scheme conventionally into a system-
atically-coupled
hierarchy of
rationality, paradigm and model, we integrate all these
facets into a single complexly-coupled hierarchi- cal integrated real-to-model ‘structure’ which
transcends Rosen’s 1991 Mikulecky, 1999a modeling relation. All of nature may be complex
Mikulecky, 1999b, but we find that the simple models which we derive in ‘explaining’ natural
phenomena are direct matches to those simple entities which nature itself formulates as stabiliz-
ing local approximates to a complex universal background phase space.
2. Initial criteria
We start from a number of bluntly stated ini- tial criteria which are all more or less evident or
disputable This is in any case not a sufficient list, but certainly encompasses a number of nec-
essary conditions for the framework we will de- scribe. These criteria appear to be sufficiently
portrayed for the conceptual level we wish to apply, but it is evident that the view from a less
humanly-scaled starting point may be quite dif- ferent. Evolution is adept at scavenging estab-
lished functional characteristics from previous generations, and re-using them for quite a dif-
ferent purpose. ‘‘What serves for thermoregulation is re-
adapted for gliding; what was part of the jaw becomes a sound receiver; guts are used as
lungs and fins turn into shovels. Whatever hap- pens to be at hand is made use of.’’ Sigmund,
1993.
We must consequently be very prudent in at- tributing temporally ‘permanent’ natures to spe-
cific characteristics of evolution or of its drives: the commonly cited evolutionary goal of sur6i6al
is conceivably the evolutionary product of some precursory evolutionary system, as is evolution
itself as we know it.
As a starting point, we will make an albeit approximate distinction between simple, compli-
cated, and complex as we will use the words. By simple we will mean ‘quick and easy to com-
pute’ and by complicated we mean ‘computable, but slow and inconvenient to do so’. Complex is
quite another beast Edmonds and Mikulecky have both provided rather nice definitions of
complexity, some mutation of which we would provisionally accept, namely…
‘‘Complexity is that property of a language expression which makes it difficult to formulate
its overall behavior even when given almost complete information about its atomic compo-
nents and their inter-relations.’’ Edmonds, 1996,
and ‘‘Complexity is the property of a real world
system that is manifest in the inability of any one formalism being adequate to capture all its
properties. It requires that we find distinctly different ways of interacting with systems. Dis-
tinctly different in the sense that when we make successful models, the formal systems needed to
describe each distinct aspect are NOT derivable from each other.’’ Mikulecky, 1999b.
Gell-Man’s 1994 comment that ‘‘Any defini- tion of complexity is context-dependent, even sub-
jective.’’ also certainly deserves to occupy an important place.
Nature exists in a self-consistent coherent form, whose apparent diversity is not only related to its
own historical development, but also to the in- sufficiency of our current understanding, which is
itself an incompletely evolved relationship. All of nature’s recognizable differentiated features are
related to evolved or emerged signs which mirror in some simple, complicated or complex way its
genesis. Natural diversity provides us with count- less clues to its underlying unity.
As soon as we evoke a segregated parametric description of nature, we are locked into a scheme
of multiple complementarities. Electronic nature, for example, requires extended wave and singu-
lar particulate representations. Differentiation between entities requires not only localization, but
also nonlocality. All the ‘phenomena’ associated with the framework we will describe exist in
analogously complementary forms: wave and photonic optics; diffuse and scale fractalities;
analog and digital complexities; quantum and lin- ear superpositions; internal and external view-
points…
the list
is endless,
or rather
all-encompassing. However, there are two common features of
these complementarities. Firstly, their dimensional extremes are both outside our reality e.g. per-
fectly localized photons and single frequency opti- cal waves. Consequently, the complementarity is
only ‘real’ if there are observable intermediate conditions an apposite example is that of the
wide range of partially-particulate partially-ex- tended photonic characters measured by Mittel-
staedt et al., 1987. Secondly, the region between complementary extremes exhibits complicated
structure which invokes complexity as a diffuse coupling medium between less diffuse semiotic
entities yes, even for complexity itself.
Each complementarity is a reduced ‘model’ of a more general picture, which exhibits an at least
conceptually-continuous bi-directionally-coupled
transitional region between high-dimensional dif- fuseness and lower-dimensional definition. For
example, ‘deterministic’
chaos is
the low-
dimensional appearance of a higher-dimensional ‘causal’ chaos, where each exists near one extrem-
ity of a continuous transition scheme operating between determinism and indeterminism.
In any hierarchical system we must be very careful about the rationality we transfer from one
hierarchical level to another. In a systematically- rational hierarchy this is not an issue, as rational-
ity is consistent whether it is imposed in a top-down, bottom-up, or even inside-out manner
Such is not the case in a complementarity-based hierarchy, where the dimensional extremes are
naturally rationally inconsistent, and it is very easy to inadvertently employ an insufficient ratio-
nality when going between hierarchical levels, es- pecially in top-down descriptions. The distinction
between analog and digital systems that they are ‘completely different’ is a good example, as the
digital nature of ‘completely different’ is insuffi- cient to describe the lower hierarchical level which
includes not only digital but also analog. More to the point, any attempt to describe simple and
complex as being ‘disjoint categories’ Mikulecky, 1999b is subject to the same failing In our
framework, simple and complex turn out to have a diversity of interrelated meanings. It should
however be noticed that this kind of apparently erroneous rationality is fundamental to the stabi-
lization of simple local approximates to a complex phase space and to the development of simply-
computable internal representations or signs in a survivalist context. The corresponding compres-
sion of information associated with ‘natural’ re- ductionism is at the very heart of evolution.
At the basis of the hierarchical framework we suggest lies the idea of perceptional scale. By scale
we refer to far more than size, in that it is more the perceptional access to one descriptive frame
from another which characterizes scale. It is possi- ble to obtain photographs of single atoms in
specific circumstances, but not directly via our own perceptional mechanisms. To ‘believe’ that
these photographs are in fact of single atoms, we make use of an associated transit through a num-
ber of different independent modeling relation- ships, culminating in the scattering relations
attributed to the wave characteristics of quantized entities Acceptance of the validity of this chain of
models corresponds to the presupposition of a systematically-rational scale hierarchy, and is con-
sequently self-fulfilling in the word ‘believe’. Not that this is evidence that an atom does not exist as
a localized entity, just that we must be very careful what we infer from its photograph, which
appears more to support the Thompson plum- pudding model of an atom rather than a quan-
tum-mechanical one.
To be a little more precise, the justifiable use of a scale hierarchy of this kind depends fundamen-
tally on the relationship between the degree of observational definition of a system which we can
obtain and the degree to which the character we observe depends on that system’s distance from
equilibrium in terms of the time scale of our observation. We suggest that the phenomenon of
scale is only relevant in a non-rationally-hierarchi- cal framework, where it is directly related to
differences in observational capacity which exist between specific pairings of locally metastatic
phase space approximates Cottam et al., 1998a.
The stability of a living entity depends on its relations with its surroundings. To remain viable
in a difficult environment it must be at least to some extent isolated from it. However, complete
isolation is at the very least inefficient, as the entity will lose advantages it can gain from its
environment. Consequently, it is likely that the most useful mode of operation is one of partial
enclosure, or of limited autonomy. In any case, if the entity tries to cut itself off completely from its
environment it will lack any means of reaction or defense against external threats; and in any case a
lower limit to its isolationist capacity will be imposed by the relations characterized by inani-
mate physical science. An important class of rela- tionships with the environment consists of process
closures, where the entity has developed depen- dent relationships with its environment through
the acceptance of external sources for internal requirements. The classic form of process closure
is that of the hunger – hunt – kill – eat – satisfaction loop associated with carnivores.
The possibility of environmental change im- poses yet more constraints on a survival-oriented
entity. If it restricts its external contacts to those necessitated by its partial ceding of autonomy
through process closures, it will be yet again effectively isolated, but now with respect to
change, and will lack the capability to adapt to altering conditions. The obvious solution to this
deficiency is to develop a less directed exposure to the environment, particularly with respect to con-
textual aspects which appear currently irrele6ant. This can provide a pool of information to support
future reactive innovation. It has been suggested that this argument provides justification for the
presence of large quantities of apparently ineffec- tive or redundant information in the genome
Root-Bernstein and Dillon, 1997. In even more general terms, any universally-embedded entity
must be exposed to its local environment and indirectly to the universal phase space to maintain
its temporal stability Cottam et al., 1998a.
Another major problem we must confront is that of confusion between internalist and external-
ist representations in a non-systematically-rational hierarchy. Unfortunately, this kind of transposi-
tion will be to some extent unavoidable in a condensed treatment of the subject, and for cur-
rent purposes we will merely attempt to reduce its import.
3. Evolution, symmetry and emergence
