Semiotics
The study of signs and meaning reveals how symbols point beyond themselves—and how reality itself is structured by the Logos.
Biosemiotics
Life itself involves sign processes—information, codes, interpretation. Biology is saturated with semiotic concepts that physics lacks.
The genetic code is genuinely a code—nucleotides represent amino acids by convention, not chemistry. This is remarkable. Life involves meaning at its most fundamental level.
- Genetic Code: DNA is a symbolic code—nucleotides represent amino acids by convention, not chemistry. The mapping is arbitrary, like language.
- Cell Signaling: Cells communicate through molecular signals—information processing at the biological level. Hormones, neurotransmitters, and receptors form a semiotic system.
- Semiotic Threshold: Life involves meaning and purpose—categories absent from physics alone. The transition from chemistry to biology is a semiotic threshold.
- Information in Nature: Biology requires information concepts that physics lacks. 'Code,' 'message,' 'signal,' 'error'—these are semiotic, not physical, categories.
The Logos and Sacrament
Semiotics points toward a meaning-structured reality. If meaning is fundamental to life and mind, perhaps it is fundamental to reality itself.
The Christian doctrine of the Logos affirms that reality is structured by divine reason. The world is not meaningless matter but a sign of its Creator—a sacrament.
- Logos: Reality is structured by meaning—the Word that orders all things. 'In the beginning was the Logos.' Meaning is not imposed on reality but intrinsic to it.
- Sacrament: Physical things can signify spiritual realities—the world as sign of God. Creation is a book written by the divine Author.
- Revelation: God communicates through signs—Scripture, nature, history, incarnation. The Word became flesh—the ultimate sign.
- Objective-Symbolic Duality: Reality operates on both objective and symbolic levels. Facts and meanings interweave. The universe is both mechanism and message.