To claim that:

"without a language, no communication would be possible"

one must be using the term "language" in a highly metaphoric sense.

Is scent marking a language?
Music?
Sexual displays, like a peacock's tail?
How about a smile or frown?
Is the pattern of colors of a flower that attracts bees a language?
Was the evolution of language in humans just more of the same, not
something distinct from a dog's bark?
When a person is depressed, their way of walking often communicates
this fact to others; so is this slight modification of posture part of
a language?
If I get the hiccups after eating is this part of a language that
communicates my indigestion?

Is this usage of the term 'language' simply referring to the necessity
of a shared medium of communication? Is it possible to develop a
general theory of information by simply failing to make distinctions?

— Terry




On 2/12/18, Sungchul Ji <s...@pharmacy.rutgers.edu> wrote:
> Hi FISers,
>
>
> (1) I think language and communication cannot be separated, since without a
> language, no communication would be possible (see Figure 1).
>
>
>
>                                                                f
>                g
>                                              Sender ------->  Message
> -------->  Receiver
>                                                   |
>                                ^
>                                                   |
>                                 |
>                                                   |
>                                 |
>
> |_____________________________|
>
>     h
>
> “Language and communication are both irreducibly triadic; i.e., the three
> nodes and three edges are essential for communication, given a language or
> code understood by both the sender and receiver.”   f =  encoding; g =
> decoding; h = information flow.
>
> Figure 1.  A diagrammatic representation of the irreducibly triadic nature
> of communication and language.
>
>
>
>
> (2) I think it may be justified and useful to distinguish between
> anthropomorphic language metaphor (ALM) and non-athropomorphic language
> metaphor (NLM).  I agree with many of the members of this list that we
> should not apply ALM to biology uncritically, since such an approch to
> biology may lead to  unjustifiable anthropomorphisms.
> (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus) and the anthropocentric theory of
> creatiion.
>
>
> (3) Table 1 below may represent one possible example of NLM.  Although the
> linguistic terms such as letters, words, sentences, etc. are used in this
> table, they  are matrially/ontologically  different from their molecular
> coutner parts; e.g., letters are  different from nucleotides, protein
> domians , etc.,and  words are different from genes, proteins, etc., but
> there are unmistakable common formal features among them.
>
> Table 1.  The formal and material aspects of the cell language (Cellese).
>
> \      Material Aspect
>     \    (Function)
>         \
>             \
>                 \
>                      \
>                         \
> Formal Aspect     \
>    (Function)             \
>                                       \
>
> DNA Language
> (DNese;
> Information transmission in time)
>
> RNA Language
> (RNese;
> Information transmission in space, from DNA to proteins)
>
> Protein Language
> (Proteinese;
> Energy transduction
> from chemical to mechanical; i.e., conformon production)
>
> Chemical Language
> (Moleculese;
> Source of free energy)
>
> Letters*
> (To build)
>
> 4n nucleotides
> n = 1, 2, 3, 4, . . .
> Exons (?)
>
>
>
> Protein domains
>
> Partial chemical reactions
>
> Words
> (To denote)
>
> Genes
>
>
>
> Proteins
>
> Full chemical reactions
>
> Sentences
> (To decide)
>
> cis-Genes (?)**
>
>
>
> Metabolic pathways
>
> Chemical gradients
>
> Texts
> (To reason/compute)
>
> trans-Genes (?)**
>
>
>
> ‘Hypermetabolic pathways’
>
> Chemical waves (?)
>
>
> *I recently proposed that there are n (with n = 1 ~103?) genetic alphabets,
> each containing 4^n letters and each letter in turn consisting of n
> nucleotides.  In this view, the 64 codons are the so-called 3rd-order
> letters , not words as widely assumed.
> **cis-Genes are here defined as those genes covalently linked to each other
> and hence being in the same chromosome, whereas trans-genes are defined as
> those genes that are located in different chromos
>
> (4)  The terms, DNese, RNese, and proteinese were coined by a young American
> biochemist from Mexico City whom I met at the International Workshop on the
> Linguistics of Biology and the Biology of Language held in Cuernavaca,
> Mexico, in 1998, where I had presented the cell language ('cellese') theory,
> prior to the young biochemist’s lecture  which followed mine the next day.
> In his lecture, he surprised me by announcing these neologisms, which I did
> not quite know how to justify.   But it took almost 20 years for me to
> finally realize the utility of these terms for entirely different reasons, I
> am sure, from those of the young biochemist from Mexico City.   I am
> responsible for the coinage of cellese and  chemicalese in Table 1.
>
> (5) If Table 1 is right, the cellese and its sub-languages, DNese, RNese,
> proteinese and chemiclaese, are complemetary unions of form and matter.
>
> If  you have any questions or comments, pleae let me know.
>
> All the best.
>
> Sung
> (My time is out.  I am signing out in a hurry.)
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: Fis <fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es> on behalf of Xueshan Yan
> <y...@pku.edu.cn>
> Sent: Monday, February 12, 2018 6:31 AM
> To: FIS Group
> Cc: 'Jose Javier Blanco Rivero'
> Subject: Re: [Fis] The unification of the theories of information based on
> the cateogry theory
>
>
> Dear Javier and Dear Stan,
>
>
>
> Javier:
>
> 1. I very much agree with you as follows:
>
> “I think that only signals can be transmitted, not information. Information
> can only be gained by an observer (a self-referential system) that draws a
> distinction.”
>
> A Chinese scholar Dongsheng Miao’s argument is: There is no information can
> exists without carrier, i.e. No naked can exists.
>
> I think both of you two are expressing a principle of information science.
>
>
>
> 2. According to Linguistics, the relationship between language and
> communication is:
>
> Language is a tool of communication about information.
>
> Of course, this is only limited to the human atmosphere. So I think that all
> (Human) Semiotics ((Human) Linguistics), (Human) Communication Study should
> be the subdisciplines of Human Informatics.
>
>
>
> ==========================================================
>
> Dear Xueshan,
>
> Thanks for sharing your interesting remarks and references. I think no one
> really wants to deny the crucial role the language metaphor has played in
> the thinking of communication and information models. But I believe the
> crucial point is to distinguish between language and communication. Language
> is for us humans the main communication medium, though not the only one. We
> tend to describe other communication media in society and nature by mapping
> the language-like characteristics they have. This has been useful and
> sucessful so far. But pushing the language metaphor too far is showing its
> analytical limits. I think we need to think of a transdisciplinary theory of
> communication media. On the other hand, I agree with you that we need to
> check the uses of the concepts of signal and information. I think that only
> signals can be transmitted, not information. Information can only be gained
> by an observer (a self-referential system) that draws a distinction.
>
> Best,
>
> Javier
>
> ==============================================
>
> Stan:
>
> According to Peirce, language is only one of the systematic signs. Here we
> consider sign, signal, symbol as the same thing. So, more precisely in my
> opinion:
>
> {signal {information}},   or   {substrate {signal {information}}}
>
> But not
>
> {language {signal {information}}}
>
> If you remember, in our previous discussions, I much appreciate the
>
> The hierarchy idea is very important to our study which is initially
> introduced by Pedro, Nikhil and you.
>
> ===============================================================
>
> Xueshan -- I think one can condense some of your insights hierarchically,
> as:
>
> In a system having language, information seemingly may be obtained in other
> ways as well. It would be a conceptually broader category. Thus (using the
> compositional hierarchy):
>
>         [information [language [signal]]]
>
> Meaning that, when a system has language, all information will be understood
> or construed by way of linguistic constructs.
>
> (Here I am using ‘signal’ as being more specific than Peirce’s ‘sign’,
> where:
>
>         [sign [information [...]]] )
>
> Then, more dynamically (using the subsumptive hierarchy):
>
>         {language {signal {information}}}
>
> Information in a languaged system is derived by way linguistic formations,
> so that, even though it is an extremely broad category, information
> (informing) only emerges by way of linguistically informed transformations.
>
> STAN
>
>
>
> Best wishes to all,
>
> Xueshan
>
> ===============================================================
>
> El feb 10, 2018 5:23 AM, "Xueshan Yan"
> <y...@pku.edu.cn<mailto:y...@pku.edu.cn>> escribió:
>
> Dear Colleagues,
>
> I have read the article "The languages of bacteria" which Gordana
> recommended, and has gained a lot of inspiration from it. In combination
> with Sung's comparative linguistics exploration on cell language and human
> language, I have the following learning feelings to share with everyone:
>
> In this article, the author recognized that bacteria have evolved multiple
> languages for communicating within and between species. Intra- and
> interspecies cell-cell communication allows bacteria to coordinate various
> biological activities in order to behave like multicellular organisms. Such
> as AI-2, it is a general language that bacteria use for intergenera
> signaling.
>
> I found an interesting phenomenon in this paper: the author use the concept
> information 3 times but the concept signal (signal or signaling) 55 times,
> so we have to review the history and application of “information” and
> “signal” in biology and biochemistry, it is helpful for us to understand the
> relationship between language, signal, and information.
>
> The origin of the concept of signal (main the signal transduction) can be
> traced back to the end of the 1970s. But until 1980, biochemist and
> endocrinologist Martin Rodbell published an article titled: “The Role of
> Hormone Receptors and GTP-Regulatory Proteins in Membrane Transduction" in
> Nature, in this paper he used the "signal transduction" first time. Since
> then, the research on signal transduction is popular in biology and
> biochemistry.
>
> As for any information transmission system, if we pay more attention to its
> transmission carrier instead of its transmission content, we are used to
> employing "signal transmission" instead of "signal transduction". From the
> tradition of the early use of information concept, the signal transduction
> study of cells is only equivalent to the level of telecommunications before
> 1948. Outwardly, before the advent of Shannon's information theory, the
> central issue of telecommunications is "signal" rather than "information".
> After that, the central issue of telecommunications is "information" rather
> than "signal".
>
> According to the application history of information concept, nearly all the
> essential problems behind the concepts of communication, messenger, signal
> and so on may be information problems. Just as the language problem what we
> are discussing here, our ultimate goal is to analyze the information.
>
>
>
> For the same reason, I recommend another two papers:
>
> 1. Do Plants Think?  (June 5, 2012, Scientific American)
>
> (http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/do-plants-think-daniel-chamovitz/#rd?sukey=fc78a68049a14bb24ce82efd8ef931e64057ce6142b1f2f7b919612d2b3f42c07f559f5be33be0881613ccfbf5b43c4b<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.scientificamerican.com%2Farticle%2Fdo-plants-think-daniel-chamovitz%2F%23rd%3Fsukey%3Dfc78a68049a14bb24ce82efd8ef931e64057ce6142b1f2f7b919612d2b3f42c07f559f5be33be0881613ccfbf5b43c4b&data=02%7C01%7Csji%40pharmacy.rutgers.edu%7Cd21bd1ad9ddf46d01a3e08d5720c681d%7Cb92d2b234d35447093ff69aca6632ffe%7C1%7C0%7C636540320007030420&sdata=2buOZeZpeC9UCNIIuY6bVfAr%2B4yOET6l35UU6ZwMhdU%3D&reserved=0>)
>
> 2. Plants Can Think, Feel and Learn  (December 3, 2014, New Scientist)
>
> (http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22429980-400-root-intelligence-plants-can-think-feel-and-learn<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2Fmg22429980-400-root-intelligence-plants-can-think-feel-and-learn&data=02%7C01%7Csji%40pharmacy.rutgers.edu%7Cd21bd1ad9ddf46d01a3e08d5720c681d%7Cb92d2b234d35447093ff69aca6632ffe%7C1%7C0%7C636540320007030420&sdata=zfHmH3VG30OLHtjwoFmaVX2OVlwZRaxqdOXRIo69GMc%3D&reserved=0>)
>
> From which we can judge whether or not a plants informatics can exists.
>
>
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Xueshan
>
>
>
> From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es>
> [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es>]
> On Behalf Of Sungchul Ji
> Sent: Thursday, February 8, 2018 9:10 PM
> To: Francesco Rizzo
> <13francesco.ri...@gmail.com<mailto:13francesco.ri...@gmail.com>>; Terrence
> W. DEACON <dea...@berkeley.edu<mailto:dea...@berkeley.edu>>
> Cc: Fis, <fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:fis@listas.unizar.es>>
> Subject: Re: [Fis] The unification of the theories of information based on
> the cateogry theory
>
>
>
> Hi Terry,  and FISers,
>
>
>
> Can it be that "language metaphor" is akin to a (theoretical) knife that, in
> the hands of a surgeon, can save lives but, in a wrong hand, can kill?
>
>
>
> All the best.
>
>
>
> Sung
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Francesco Rizzo
> <13francesco.ri...@gmail.com<mailto:13francesco.ri...@gmail.com>>
> Sent: Thursday, February 8, 2018 2:56:11 AM
> To: Terrence W. DEACON
> Cc: Fis,; Sungchul Ji
> Subject: Re: [Fis] The unification of the theories of information based on
> the cateogry theory
>
>
>
> Caro Terry estensibile a tutti,
>
> è sempre un piacere leggerTi e capirTi. La  general theory of information è
> preceduta da un sistema (o semiotica) di significazione e seguita da un
> sistema (o semiotica ) di comunicazione. Tranne che quando si ha un processo
> comunicativo come il passaggio di un Segnale (che non significa
> necessariamente 'un segno') da una Fonte, attraverso un  Trasmettitore,
> lungo un Canale, a un Destinatario. In un processo tra macchina e macchina
> il segnale non ha alcun potere 'significante'. In tal caso non si ha
> significazione anche se si può dire che si ha passaggio di informazione.
> Quando il destinatario è un essere umano (e non è necessario che la fonte
> sia anch'essa un essere umano) si è in presenza di un processo di
> significazione. Un sistema di significazione è una costruzione semiotica
> autonoma, indipendente da ogni possibile atto di comunicazione che
> l'attualizzi. Invece ogni processo di comunicazione tra esseri umani -- o
> tra ogni tipo di apparato o struttura 'intelligente, sia meccanico che
> biologico, -- presuppone un sistema di significazione come propria o
> specifica condizione. In conclusione, è possibile avere una semiotica della
> significazione indipendente da una semiotica della comunicazione; ma è
> impossibile stabilire una semiotica della comunicazione indipendente da una
> semiotica della significazione.
>
> Ho appreso molto da Umberto Eco a cui ho dedicato il capitolo 10. Umberto
> Eco e il processo di re-interpretazione e re-incantamento della scienza
> economica (pp. 175-217) di "Valore e valutazioni. La scienza dell'economia o
> l'economia della scienza" (FrancoAngeli, Milano, 1997). Nello mio stesso
> libro si trovano:
>
> - il capitolo 15. Semiotica economico-estimativa (pp. 327-361) che si
> colloca nel quadro di una teoria globale di tutti i sistemi di
> significazione e i processi di comunicazione;
>
> - il sottoparagrafo 5.3.3 La psicologia genetica di Jean Piaget e la
> neurobiologia di Humberto Maturana e Francesco Varela. una nuova
> epistemologia sperimentale della qualità e dell'unicità (pp. 120-130).
>
> Chiedo scusa a Tutti se Vi ho stancati o se ancora una volta il mio scrivere
> in lingua italiana Vi crea qualche problema. Penso che il dono che mi fate
> è, a proposito della QUALITA' e dell'UNICITA',  molto più grande del
> (per)dono che Vi chiedo. Grazie.
>
> Un saluto affettuoso.
>
> Francecso
>
>
>
>
>
> 2018-02-07 23:02 GMT+01:00 Terrence W. DEACON
> <dea...@berkeley.edu<mailto:dea...@berkeley.edu>>:
>
> Dear FISers,
>
>
>
> In previous posts I have disparaged using language as the base model for
> building a general theory of information.
>
> Though I realize that this may seem almost heretical, it is not a claim that
> all those who use linguistic analogies are wrong, only that it can be
> causally misleading.
>
> I came to this view decades back in my research into the neurology and
> evolution of the human language capacity.
>
> And it became an orgnizing theme in my 1997 book The Symbolic Species.
>
> Early in the book I describe what I (and now other evolutionary biologists)
> have come to refer to as a "porcupine fallacy" in evolutionary thinking.
>
> Though I use it to critique a misleading evolutionary taxonomizing tendency,
> I think it also applies to biosemiotic and information theoretic thinking as
> well.
>
> So to exemplify my reasoning (with apologies for quoting myself) I append
> the following excerpt from the book.
>
>
>
> "But there is a serious problem with using language as the model for
> analyzing other
>
> species’ communication in hindsight. It leads us to treat every other form
> of communication as
>
> exceptions to a rule based on the one most exceptional and divergent case.
> No analytic method
>
> could be more perverse. Social communication has been around for as long as
> animals have
>
> interacted and reproduced sexually. Vocal communication has been around at
> least as long as frogs
>
> have croaked out their mating calls in the night air. Linguistic
> communication was an afterthought,
>
> so to speak, a very recent and very idiosyncratic deviation from an ancient
> and well-established
>
> mode of communicating. It cannot possibly provide an appropriate model
> against which to assess
>
> other forms of communication. It is the rare exception, not the rule, and a
> quite anomalous
>
> exception at that. It is a bit like categorizing birds’ wings with respect
> to the extent they possess or
>
> lack the characteristics of penguins’ wings, or like analyzing the types of
> hair on different mammals
>
> with respect to their degree of resemblance to porcupine quills. It is an
> understandable
>
> anthropocentric bias—perhaps if we were penguins or porcupines we might see
> more typical wings
>
> and hair as primitive stages compared to our own more advanced
> adaptations—but it does more to
>
> obfuscate than clarify. Language is a derived characteristic and so should
> be analyzed as an
>
> exception to a more general rule, not vice versa."
>
>
>
> Of course there will be analogies to linguistic forms.
>
> This is inevitable, since language emerged from and is supported by a vast
> nonlinguistic semiotic infrastructure.
>
> So of course it will inherit much from less elaborated more fundamental
> precursors.
>
> And our familiarity with language will naturally lead us to draw insight
> from this more familiar realm.
>
> I just worry that it provides an elaborate procrustean model that assumes
> what it endeavors to explain.
>
>
>
> Regards to all, Terry
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 7, 2018 at 11:04 AM, Jose Javier Blanco Rivero
> <javierwe...@gmail.com<mailto:javierwe...@gmail.com>> wrote:
>
> In principle I agree with Terry. I have been thinking of this, though I am
> still not able to make a sound formulation of the idea. Still I am afraid
> that if I miss the chance to make at least a brief formulation of it I will
> lose the opportunity to make a brainstorming with you. So, here it comes:
>
> I have been thinking that a proper way to distinguish the contexts in which
> the concept of information acquires a fixed meaning or the many contexts on
> which information can be somehow observed, is to make use of the distinction
> between medium and form as developed by N. Luhmann, D. Baecker and E.
> Esposito. I have already expressed my opinion in this group that what
> information is depends on the system we are talking about. But  the concept
> of medium is more especific since a complex system ussualy has many sources
> and types of information.
> So the authors just mentioned, a medium can be broadly defined as a set of
> loosely coupled elements. No matter what they are. While a Form is a
> temporary fixed coupling of a limited configuration of those elements.
> Accordingly, we can be talking about DNA sequences which are selected by RNA
> to form proteins or to codify a especific instruction to a determinate cell.
> We can think of atoms forming a specific kind of matter and a specific kind
> of molecular structure. We can also think of a vocabulary or a set of
> linguistic conventions making possible a meaningful utterance or discourse.
> The idea is that the medium conditions what can be treated as information.
> Or even better, each type of medium produces information of its own kind.
> According to this point of view, information cannot be transmitted. It can
> only be produced and "interpreted" out of the specific difference that a
> medium begets between itself and the forms that take shape from it. A medium
> can only be a source of noise to other mediums. Still, media can couple
> among them. This means that media can selforganize in a synergetic manner,
> where they depend on each others outputs or complexity reductions. And this
> also mean that they do this by translating noise into information. For
> instance, language is coupled to writing, and language and writing to print.
> Still oral communication is noisy to written communication. Let us say that
> the gestures, emotions, entonations, that we make when talking cannot be
> copied as such into writing. In a similar way, all the social practices and
> habits made by handwriting were distorted by the introduction of print. From
> a technical point of view you can codify the same message orally, by writing
> and by print. Still information and meaning are not the same. You can tell
> your girlfriend you love her. That interaction face to face where the lovers
> look into each others eye, where they can see if the other is nervous, is
> trembling or whatever. Meaning (declaring love and what that implies:
> marriage, children, and so on) and information (he is being sincere, she can
> see it in his eye; he brought her to a special place, so he planned it, and
> so on) take a very singular and untranslatable configuration. If you write a
> letter you just can say "I love you". You shall write a poem or a love
> letter. Your beloved would read it alone in her room and she would have to
> imagine everything you say. And  imagination makes information and meaning
> to articulate quite differently as in oral communication. It is not the same
> if you buy a love card in the kiosk and send it to her. Maybe you compensate
> the simplicity of your message by adding some chocolates and flowers. Again,
> information (jumm, lets see what he bought her) and meaning are not the
> same. I use examples of social sciences because that is my research field,
> although I have the intuition that it could also work for natural sciences.
>
> Best,
>
> JJ
>
> El feb 7, 2018 10:47 AM, "Sungchul Ji"
> <s...@pharmacy.rutgers.edu<mailto:s...@pharmacy.rutgers.edu>> escribió:
>
> Hi  FISers,
>
>
>
> On 10/8/2017, Terry wrote:
>
>
>
> " So basically, I am advocating an effort to broaden our discussions and
> recognize that the term information applies in diverse ways to many
> different contexts. And because of this it is important to indicate the
> framing, whether physical, formal, biological, phenomenological, linguistic,
> etc.
>
> . . . . . . The classic syntax-semantics-pragmatics distinction introduced
> by Charles Morris has often been cited in this respect, though it too is in
> my opinion too limited to the linguistic paradigm, and may be misleading
> when applied more broadly. I have suggested a parallel, less linguistic (and
> nested in Stan's subsumption sense) way of making the division: i.e. into
> intrinsic, referential, and normative analyses/properties of information."
>
>
>
> I agree with Terry's concern about the often overused linguistic metaphor in
> defining "information".  Although the linguistic metaphor has its
> limitations (as all metaphors do), it nevertheless offers a unique advantage
> as well, for example, its well-established categories of functions (see the
> last column in Table 1.)
>
>
>
> The main purpose of this post is to suggest that all the varied theories of
> information discussed on this list may be viewed as belonging to the same
> category of ITR (Irreducible Triadic Relation) diagrammatically represented
> as the 3-node closed network in the first column of Table 1.
>
>
>
> Table 1.  The postulated universality of ITR (Irreducible Triadic Relation)
> as manifested in information theory, semiotics, cell language theory, and
> linguistics.
>
>
> Category Theory
>
>    f            g
>    A -----> B ------> C
>     |                           ^
>     |                            |
>     |______________|
>    h
>
>
>
> ITR (Irreducible Triadic Relation)
>
>
> Deacon’s theory of information
>
>
> Shannon’s
>
> Theory of
>
> information
>
>
> Peirce’s theory of signs
>
>
> Cell language theory
>
>
> Human language
> (Function)
>
>
> A
>
>
> Intrinsic information
>
>
> Source
>
>
> Object
>
>
> Nucleotides*/
> Amion acids
>
>
> Letters
> (Building blocks)
>
>
> B
>
>
> Referential information
>
>
> Message
>
>
> Sign
>
>
> Proteins
>
>
> Words
> (Denotation)
>
>
> C
>
>
> Normative information
>
>
> Receiver
>
>
> Interpretant
>
>
> Metabolomes
> (Totality of cell metabolism)
>
>
> Systems of words
> (Decision making & Reasoning)
>
>
> f
>
>
> ?
>
>
> Encoding
>
>
> Sign production
>
>
> Physical laws
>
>
> Second articulation
>
>
> g
>
>
> ?
>
>
> Decoding
>
>
> Sign interpretation
>
>
> Evoutionary selection
>
>
> First and Third articulation
>
>
> h
>
>
> ?
>
>
> Information flow
>
>
> Information flow
>
>
> Inheritance
>
>
> Grounding/
>
> Habit
>
>
> Scale
>
>
> Micro-Macro?
>
>
> Macro
>
>
> Macro
>
>
> Micro
>
>
> Macro
>
>
>
>
> *There may be more than one genetic alphabet of 4 nucleotides.  According to
> the "multiple genetic alphabet hypothesis', there are n genetic alphabets,
> each consisting of 4^n letters, each of which in turn consisting of n
> nucleotides.  In this view, the classical genetic alphabet is just one
> example of the n alphabets, i.e., the one with n = 1.  When n = 3, for
> example, we have the so-called 3rd-order genetic alphabet with 4^3 = 64
> letters each consisting of 3 nucleotides, resulting in the familiar codon
> table.  Thus, the 64 genetic codons are not words as widely thought
> (including myself until recently) but letters!  It then follows that
> proteins are words and  metabolic pathways are sentences.  Finally, the
> transient network of metbolic pathways (referred to as "hyperstructures" by
> V. Norris in 1999 and as "hypermetabolic pathways" by me more recently)
> correspond to texts essential to represent arguement/reasoning/computing.
> What is most exciting is the recent discovery in my lab at Rutgers that the
> so-called "Planck-Shannon plots" of mRNA levels in living cells can identify
> function-dependent "hypermetabolic pathways" underlying breast cancer before
> and after drug treatment (manuscript under review).
>
>
>
> Any comments, questions, or suggestions would be welcome.
>
>
>
> Sung
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Fis mailing list
> Fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:Fis@listas.unizar.es>
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flistas.unizar.es%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Ffis&data=02%7C01%7Csji%40pharmacy.rutgers.edu%7Cca4905ddbcb943df537b08d56ec96c4c%7C927347c284584fde99b9ca9ba94d96e0%7C1%7C0%7C636536733755726637&sdata=ir%2FcgnTkNiV8YXWkbn3T4FULEtrqVHFhg%2FFFVuDc9IA%3D&reserved=0>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Fis mailing list
> Fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:Fis@listas.unizar.es>
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flistas.unizar.es%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Ffis&data=02%7C01%7Csji%40pharmacy.rutgers.edu%7Cca4905ddbcb943df537b08d56ec96c4c%7C927347c284584fde99b9ca9ba94d96e0%7C1%7C0%7C636536733755726637&sdata=ir%2FcgnTkNiV8YXWkbn3T4FULEtrqVHFhg%2FFFVuDc9IA%3D&reserved=0>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
>
> Professor Terrence W. Deacon
> University of California, Berkeley
>
> _______________________________________________
> Fis mailing list
> Fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:Fis@listas.unizar.es>
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flistas.unizar.es%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Ffis&data=02%7C01%7Csji%40pharmacy.rutgers.edu%7Cca4905ddbcb943df537b08d56ec96c4c%7C927347c284584fde99b9ca9ba94d96e0%7C1%7C0%7C636536733755726637&sdata=ir%2FcgnTkNiV8YXWkbn3T4FULEtrqVHFhg%2FFFVuDc9IA%3D&reserved=0>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Fis mailing list
> Fis@listas.unizar.es<mailto:Fis@listas.unizar.es>
> http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis<https://na01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=http%3A%2F%2Flistas.unizar.es%2Fcgi-bin%2Fmailman%2Flistinfo%2Ffis&data=02%7C01%7Csji%40pharmacy.rutgers.edu%7Cd21bd1ad9ddf46d01a3e08d5720c681d%7Cb92d2b234d35447093ff69aca6632ffe%7C1%7C0%7C636540320007030420&sdata=JTnL%2BthMsdQUEzTx%2F9UKr5xzKQom6%2FINA8VkaDyPI80%3D&reserved=0>
>


-- 
Professor Terrence W. Deacon
University of California, Berkeley

_______________________________________________
Fis mailing list
Fis@listas.unizar.es
http://listas.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis

Reply via email to