Biosemiotic Entropy: Concluding the Series

Abstract

This article concludes the special issue on Biosemiotic Entropy looking toward the future on the basis of current and prior results. It highlights certain aspects of the series, concerning factors that damage and degenerate biosignaling systems. As in ordinary linguistic discourse, well-formedness (coherence) in biological signaling systems depends on valid representations correctly construed: a series of proofs are presented and generalized to all meaningful sign systems. The proofs show why infants must (as empirical evidence shows they do) proceed through a strict sequence of formal steps in acquiring any language. Classical and contemporary conceptions of entropy and information are deployed showing why factors that interfere with coherence in biological signaling systems are necessary and sufficient causes of disorders, diseases, and mortality. Known sources of such formal degeneracy in living organisms (here termed, biosemiotic entropy) include: (a) toxicants, (b) pathogens; (c) excessive exposures to radiant energy and/or sufficiently powerful electromagnetic fields; (d) traumatic injuries; and (e) interactions between the foregoing factors. Just as Jaynes proved that irreversible changes invariably increase entropy, the theory of true narrative representations (TNR theory) demonstrates that factors disrupting the well-formedness (coherence) of valid representations, all else being held equal, must increase biosemiotic entropy-the kind impacting biosignaling systems.Keywords: agreement condensation; biological signaling systems; biocontrol systems; biosemiotic entropy; Bose-Einstein condensation; cancers; encephalopathies; fit-get-rich network theory; information theory; pathogens; pragmatic information; synergistic effects; true narrative representations (TNRs)OPEN ACCESS Entropy 2014, 16 4061 Background and Introduction to the Central ThesisThis is the closing entry for the special issue on Biosemiotic Entropy [1]. It looks toward the future on the basis of theory and known factors that tend to increase biosemiotic entropy by disrupting biosignaling systems. This twelfth paper of the series highlights critical definitions and explains the theory serving as a ground for the preceding papers and certain spin-offs. It points to salient empirical findings, and gives a telescopic abstract rather than a detailed summary of the entries. Interested readers can get more details from published abstracts and from the entire articles of the series that are all freely accessible. Each one was written and published as if it were an independent contribution to the general stream under the Entropy banner though each paper is plainly marked as an item in the special issue on Biosemiotic Entropy. Also, each one addressed the special problem posed for the series: contributors were asked for an argument (preferably with experimental evidence) "pro, con, or offering any alternative to the idea that corrupted biological messages account for (but, of course, are not limited to) anaphylaxis, preeclampsia, sudden deat...

Aluminum-Induced Entropy in Biological Systems: Implications for Neurological Disease

“…In this paper, we will show that Al is harmful to the CNS, acting in a number of deleterious ways and across multiple levels, to induce biosemiotic entropy [ 17 ]. A countervailing view exists [ 18 – 20 ], but the assertions of safety are invariably based on weak epidemiological designs, ones that overwhelm significant negative signals with irrelevant noise factors.…”

“…The latter in turn are essential to the structure and functions of the whole society of cells [ 49 ], tissues, and organ systems. Formerly, it was thought, following the Crick dogma [ 50 ], that communications were essentially a one-way street from DNA to RNA to protein, but it has more recently been argued [ 17 , 51 , 52 ] that communications involve more complex bidirectional interactions among those macromolecules, such that the genome is informed concerning what is going on in the environment. The dynamical matrix of negative charge densities in heparan sulfate proteoglycans (HSPGs), as modulated in time and space by interfacial water, exchanging between the first few solvation layers and bulk, might prove to be the supramolecular physical basis for informing the genome over distance [ 53 ].…”

From Superficial Damage to Invasion of the Nucleosome: Ranking of Morbidities by the Biosemiotic Depth Hypothesis

“…As already shown, in natural language acquisition, the inequalities of that series define key milestones of the child's growth spiral as discussed in view of a growing body of research reviewed by Oller et al [118], [143]. Perhaps more importantly, they also define a rank order in the severity of the degrees of incompleteness in (or damage done to) genetic, epigenetic, and proteomic messages in biosemiotic systems as described by Oller [66].…”

“…Also, only TNRs can adequately express or enable the association of any intelligible meaning with fictions, errors, lies, nonsense strings, or any degree of degeneracy up to and including a complete erasure of the last vestige of a representation. Therefore, every single TNR refutes the charge that the foundational proposition of TNRtheory is, or that ones derived from TNRs, are tautological [65], [66], [92]. They are not tautological nor do they enter the sort of "vicious circles" leading to the "antinomies" enumerated in the Principia Mathematica by Whitehead and Russell [93]- [95].…”

“…As we seek to understand better how the exceedingly complex interactions in the body's biosemiotic systems work, we are forced to support those who reject the traditional interpretation of the "central dogma" of molecular biology [22]. The dogma was correct in asserting that components of DNA map through RNAs to protein sequences in building organelles, cells, tissues, and the organ systems of our bodies, but it was incorrect in suggesting, as many have understood it, that protein sequences have no power to communicate with DNA [40], [66], [76], [155], [156]. The process of biosemiosis in this regard is now known to be vastly more complex and more dynamic than formerly supposed [23].…”