Remarks on the Foundations of Biology

• Main Author: Seán Ó Nualláin
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Cosmos and History Publishing Co-op. 2008-10-01
• Series: Cosmos and History : the Journal of Natural and Social Philosophy
• Subjects: Theoretical Biology; final cause; formal cause; biosemiotics; Peirce
• Online Access: http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/94

p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"This paper attempts, inevitably briefly, aspannbsp; /spanre-categorization and partial resolution of some foundational issues in biology.spannbsp; /spanAn initialspannbsp; /spanground-clearing exercise extends the notion of causality in biology from merely the efficient cause to include also final and formal causality./span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"The HGPspannbsp; /spancan be looked on as an attempt to ground explanation of the phenotype in terms of an efficient cause rooted in a gene.spannbsp; /spanThis notion gives rise to the first section discussing the computational metaphor and epigenesis and suggesting ways to extend this metaphor. The extended notion of causality alluded to above is necessary, but not sufficient, to demarcate a specific explanatory realm for the biological.spannbsp; /spanWhile the universe can ultimately, perhaps,be explainedspannbsp; /spanby quantum fluctuations being computed through the laws of nature, the origin of life remains a mystery.spannbsp;nbsp; /spanThe ground-clearing exercise refers to coincidences that motivate the cosmological anthropic /span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"principle, before raising an alert about the possibility of similar thermodynamic laws facilitating the emergence of life./span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"nbsp;/span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"Life itself seems to involve symbolic operations that can be described by the grammatical rules within tightly -defined limits of complexity.spannbsp;nbsp; /spanThe nascent field of biosemiotics has extended this argument, often in a Peircean direction.spannbsp; /spanYet, even here, the task involved needs to be specified. Is the organism creating proteins to launch an immune counter-attack ?spannbsp;nbsp; /spanAlternatively, is a pluripotent stem cell generating an entire organism?spannbsp; /spanWe consider what these separate tasks might look like computationally./span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"nbsp;/span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"The paper ends with further delimitation of the specifically biological.spannbsp; /spanAt what point in the infinitesimal does life refuse to reveal its secrets?spannbsp; /spanConversely, at what specific levels in increasing size and complexity do boundary conditions emerge with hierarchy becoming immanent? /span/p p class="MsoNormal"span style="font-size: 12pt"nbsp;/span/p