The following is something I found on-line and I'm in the process of crediting it to the appropriate source.... TP, 9/10/25 ...(it's over my head but I'm fascinated and will try to learn more....)
.......ScienceDirect.
- Isomorphism and Human Languages
Biosystems
Abstract
The concept of cell language has been defined in molecular terms. The molecule-based cell language is shown to be isomorphic with the sound- and visual signal-based human language with respect to ten out of the 13 design features of human language characterized by Hockett. Biocybernetics, a general molecular theory of living systems developed over the past two and a half decades, is found to provide a physical theory underlying the phenomenon of cell language. The concept of cell language integrates bioenergetics and bioinformatics on the one hand and reductionistic and holistic experimental data on the other to account for living processes on the molecular level. The isomorphism between cell and human languages suggests that the DNA of higher eucaryotes contains two classes of genes—structural genes corresponding to the lexicon and `spatiotemporal genes' corresponding to the grammar of cell language. The former is located in coding regions of DNA and the latter is predicted to reside primarily in noncoding regions. The grammar of cell language is identified with the mapping of the nucleotide sequences of DNA onto its 4-dimensional folding patterns that control the spatiotemporal evolution of gene expression. Such a mapping has been referred to as the second genetic code, in contrast to the first genetic code which maps nucleotide triplets onto amino acids. The cell language theory introduces into biology the linguistic principle of `rule-governed creativity,' leading to the formulation of the concept of `rule-governed creative molecules' or `creatons.' This concept sheds new light on molecular biology, bioinformatics, protein folding, and developmental biology. In addition, the cell language theory suggests that human language is ultimately founded on cell language.
Introduction
Language is a means of communication (Martinet, 1960 p. 29; Lyons, 1993 pp. 32–41). Since cells in multicellular organisms must communicate with one another for survival, development, and normal functioning, they must possess a language of their own, here called cell language. Kordon (1993) may be the first to suggest the possible existence of cell language in his book, The Language of the Cell, where he discussed the major experimental findings on cell communication that have accumulated in the literature during the past several decades. These findings provide an empirical basis for postulating the existence of cell language (see Section 4). The main objectives of this paper are three-fold: (1) to establish the concept of cell language by demonstrating the isomorphism between cell and human languages; (2) to introduce biocybernetics as a physical theory of cell language; and (3) to apply the theory of cell language to select problems in molecular biology, bioinformatics, protein folding, developmental biology, and linguistics.
Section snippets
Human language
Language is generally acknowledged as the most complex phenomenon that has ever emerged in the human society. Because of its complexity, no simple definition of human language can be complete. The following are some of the diverse definitions of human language to be found in the literature (e.g. see Lyons, 1992b, pp. 3–8):
- Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas, emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols (Sapir, 1921).
- A language consists
Cell language—A definition
The definition of language given by Saussure (Hawkes, 1977, Culler, 1991, Saussure, 1994) motivated the following conceptualization of cell language:
Cell language is a self-organizing system of molecules, some of which encode, act as signs for, or trigger, gene-directed cell processes.
The key alterations that have been made to transform the Saussurean definition of human language into that of cell language are:
1. Substitution of signs with molecules,
- Replacement of concepts with gene-directed cell..
Cell language—Experimental basis
Cell language can be identified with the totality of the regularities found in the cell-to-cell communication and associated intracellular processes. These regularities may be grouped into several categories using linguistics as a model. Human language consists of: (1) lexicon (vocabulary); (2) grammar (rules that define the way the basic units of a language are combined to form words, phrases, clauses, and sentences.); (3) Phonetics; (study of speech sounds as physical entities) and phonology.
The isomorphism between human and cell languages
In the systems theory pioneered by Bertalanffy (1968), two systems are regarded to be isomorphic, if similar concepts or principles are found to operate in both of them. In this sense, there exists an isomorphism between human and cell languages at two levels—at the level of global structure (Lyons, 1992a, pp. 53–54), and at the level of design features (Hockett, 1960).
As mentioned previously, the structure of human language can be characterized in terms of two planes (Expression or Form versus..)
Biocybernetics as the physical theory of cell language
Cell language is a biological phenomenon exhibited by living cells. This phenomenon requires a physical theory to be accounted for, just as the phenomenon of human language requires a linguistic theory to explain it, such as Saussure's theory of language.. (Culler, 1991, Saussure, 1994) and Chomsky's generative grammar.. (Chomsky, 1995, Lyons, 1992b, pp. 228–237; Harris, 1993). Biocybernetics, which has been developed during the past two decades as a general molecular theory of life.. (Ji, 1991),
Molecular biology
If cell language is isomorphic with human language as suggested in this paper, it is reasonable to assume that, like human language, cell language possesses a lexicon and a grammar. It was suggested elsewhere (Ji, 1996, Ji, 1997a, Ji, 1997b) that the lexicon of cell language can be identified with the set of protein-coding and associated genes that are transcribed into RNA, while the grammar of cell language can be identified with the rules by which nucleotide sequences of (most likely TKTKTK
/Conclusion
The existence of cell language is supported by the isomorphism found between cell and human languages. In The Language of the Cell, Kordon (1993) provided a convenient summary of the major experimental observations on cell communication, from which a set of 14 regularities in biological information processing was formulated. These regularities served as the major experimental basis for postulating the existence of cell language. The phenomenon of cell language finds its underlying theory in......
Acknowledgements
I thank Ms. Jaehyun Lee for stimulating discussions and for her insightful comments and encouragement.
