Abstract
How does the transition between the proto-semiosic material relation, established between two molecules, and a historical-natural language happen, and what changes does it bring? How much in common do cellular semiosis and human semiosis have? It is necessary to understand how Prodi explains the evolution of semiosis, from its most simple forms to the more complex ones. The problem is how to maintain the continuity of the biological process without underplaying the radical discontinuities it constantly engenders.
The separation between the biological and what is called the “spiritual” […] can be interpreted in two ways. The spiritual could be thought of as too complex to be explained with the vocabulary of the biological, and the biological too rough to be capable to explain that which is spiritual. […] These are, clearly, two formulations of the same proposition. One emphasizes the beauty and the perfection of the spiritual — its non-naturality. The other emphasizes the mechanical character of biology. […] I have preferred to take a different path, one already looking for some kind of intelligence (not of human or anthropomorphic fashion) in the biological, and considering every complication — including logic and rational discourse — as a complication of this intelligence. I called this stance “natural rationalism”, identifying it with the elementary semiotics that lies at the foundation of every biological organization.
(Prodi 1989: 94)
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Notes
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An important antecedent of this stance can be identified in the so-called Baldwin effect : ontogenetic behavioural changes contribute to the modification of the evolutionary environment of a species which, in turn, applies an evolutionary pressure onto the species’ genome. A kind of Lamarckian effect takes place, although without necessarily entailing the inheritance of learnt behaviours. So, the species “cooperates” to the indirect modification of its own genome: “the adaptations made in ontogenetic development which “set” the direction of evolution are novelties of function in whole or part (although they utilize congenital variations of structure). And it is only by the exercise of these novel functions that the creatures are kept alive to propagate and thus produce further variations of structure which may in time make the whole function, with its adequate structure, congenital” (Baldwin 1896: 449).
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Cimatti, F. (2018). The Origin of Language. In: A Biosemiotic Ontology . Biosemiotics, vol 18. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97903-8_7
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