Biosemiotics is an interdisciplinary field of study that views life as a process of signs and meaning-making, exploring how living organisms and systems use signs, codes, and communication to survive and interact with their environment. It applies semiotic theory (the study of signs and sign processes) to biological systems, examining how life itself involves communication and meaning-making at all levels. And operates on the principle that all living systems engage in sign processes: from the molecular level where DNA carries genetic information, to cellular communication, to complex animal behaviours and human language.
Key concepts in biosemiotics include:
Signs and Codes: These are the basic elements of life, from the chemical codes within cells to larger communication patterns.
Semiosis: The fundamental process of creating and interpreting signs, whereby something (a sign) represents something else (i.e., meaning).
Code-duality: The idea that biological systems operate through both analogue (continuous) and digital (discrete) codes, like the digital genetic code being expressed through analogue protein folding.
Umwelt: Each organism's perceptual world, or the meaningful environment as experienced by that organism is unique; determined by the organisms body conformation and sense capacities.
Biosemiotics examines phenomena ranging from how plants "communicate" chemical distress signals, to how immune systems recognize self from non-self, to how animals develop cultural transmission of behaviours. It suggests that meaning and interpretation aren't uniquely human phenomena but are fundamental characteristics of life itself.