The Semiotic Approach to Bacterial Chemotaxis

Abstract

Bacterial chemotaxis is often considered to be a textbook example of the rudimentary semiotic process. As such, it gives an excellent opportunity to better understand both semiosis and biology. Our study reviews this phenomenon in the light of up-to-date scientific knowledge to answer the most basic semiotic questions: what is the sign? What types of signs are there? What is the meaning understood on the molecular level, and by what means can it grow with time? As a case study, the bacterial chemotaxis toward glucose in E. coli species is chosen, and the semiotic framework of Charles Sanders Peirce applied. The analyses provide us with the following results: the sign, in its ultimate nature, is a general process. Bacterial chemotaxis can be understood in terms of Peircean type, symbol, and argument. The meaning on the molecular level is entirely pragmatic and, in this case, reduced to a bacterial response to glucose. A sign can grow through sign generalization, the emergence of different sign categories, the integration of these categories in functional cycles, and the introduction of contextuality. The sign of bacterial chemotaxis extends from the cell signaling pathways up to the population level. The presented results advance our knowledge of sign processing in the context of semiotic evolution.

On thresholds: signs, symbols and significance

“…The “semiotic theory of signification” to which Brier refers is semiotics, the so-called study of signs, which extends from the biosemiotic analysis of bacteria quora employing chemical cues to initiate group movement (Kłóś and Płonka, 2021), to the interpretation by various animal species of environmental signs (Maran, 2017), to the archaeological evidence for Homo erectus showing physical traces of their prelinguistic semiotic activities of 1.75 million years ago (Barham and Everett, 2021), to semiotic structuring of cultural acts of signification in racist encounters (Timmermans and Tavory, 2020), to the increasing influence of computer-mediated semiotic systems on humans (Floridi, 2015).…”