Biosemiotics and Self-reference from Peirce to Rosen

This paper continues and extends previous work on the functions of selfreferential relational structures and processes in the articulation of semiotic ideas and hypotheses within biological theory. The inquiry explores the various ways in which self-referential loops are tacitly embedded in the interplay of some of the most basic and foundational notions of biosemiotics — notions ordinarily conveyed through the informal use of such terms as signification, information and purpose. The examination proceeds by proposing a new way of understanding Peirce’s account of the triadic nature of semiosis. The manifold correlations that link representamens to their objects and interpretants are clarified through the disclosure and articulation of the implicit function of self-referential relations in semiotic action. These ideas are initially discussed at the level of human language and are subsequently generalized to the level of biosemiotics. This generalization is reached by considering how the disclosed correlations can be partially extended to the sphere of those basic semiotic transactions that obtain within and between organisms and among organic systems in general. In a separate section there follows a brief account of the explicit role of selfreferential processes in Robert Rosen’s modeling of organisms in terms of nonformalizable circularity, as clarified and expanded in a recent revival of his ideas through the work of several authors. The triadic structures within semiotic transactions and those arising in Rosen’s (M,R)-systems are compared. Finally some realizations springing from the preceding discussions are pointed out. One is the need to integrate the conceptual restructuration sought by biosemiotics into a wider conception of natural philosophy – into a view that is receptive to new epistemic insights disclosed by current physics and mathematics. Another advances a heuristic strategy for reaching that goal.