The Organic Codes

The genetic code appeared on Earth with the first cells. The codes of cultural evolution arrived almost four billion years later. These are the only codes that are recognized by modern biology. In this book, however, Marcello Barbieri explains that there are many more organic codes in nature, and their appearance not only took place throughout the history of life but marked the major steps of that history. A code establishes a correspondence between two independent 'worlds', and the codemaker is a third party between those 'worlds'. Therefore the cell can be thought of as a trinity of genotype, phenotype and ribotype. The ancestral ribotypes were the agents which gave rise to the first cells. The book goes on to explain how organic codes and organic memories can be used to shed new light on the problems encountered in cell signalling, epigenesis, embryonic development, and the evolution of language.

The “Re-Inventing Organic Metaphors for the Social Sciences” is a volume with the specific goal: to challenge psychological understandings by connecting psychological approaches with multidimensional perspectives of various other scientific streams, meanwhile imbedding the generated knowledge in metaphors that allows researchers to follow phenomena into a deeper and more (w)holistic understanding of its appearance. This is particularly important when the humankind faces challenges due to systemic biological changes, as the phenomenological dynamics bonded to those challenges can be conserved in appropriated context. For this purpose, the organic metaphors are introduced. A tool that has central advantage over mechanical metaphors as it can capture the complex and open-systemic nature of biological, psychological, and social phenomena. For example—the widely used notion “mind as a computer” may be more productively replaced by “mind as a membrane”—with implications (e.g. focus on borders in-between, or in systems in themselves- exosystemic realities in our world). There are many other fertile opportunities not yet explored in the realms of psychology and other sciences. Furthermore, the contributors operated also as cross-reviewers for each other’s. In this occasion a new dimension, in chapter construction, will be introduced. Beside the traditional reviewing of another paper the reviewer has been asked to add a small list of extending questions toward the reviewed paper. These added questions have been introduced as potential questions that the authors were demanded to add into a final sub-chapter of their contribution. The subchapter has been titled as “Dialogue” (the author was free to select between the questions and ideas on those they believe could inhabit an especially worth for the future readers).

This book is the study of all codes of life with the standard methods of science. The genetic code and the codes of culture have been known for a long time and represent the historical foundation of this book. What is really new in this field is the study of all codes that came after the genetic code and before the codes of culture. The existence of these organic codes, however, is not only a major experimental fact. It is one of those facts that have extraordinary theoretical implications. The first is that most events of macroevolution were associated with the origin of new organic codes, and this gives us a completely new reconstruction of the history of life. The second implication is that codes involve meaning and we need therefore to introduce in biology not only the concept of information but also the concept of biological meaning. The third theoretical implication comes from the fact that the organic codes have been highly conserved in evolution, which means that they are the greatest invariants of life. The study of the organic codes, in short, is bringing to light new mechanisms that have operated in the history of life and new fundamental concepts in biology.

This book develops an original theoretical framework for understanding human-technology relations. The author’s approach, which he calls technoanalysis, analyzes artificial intelligence based on Freudian psychoanalysis, biosemiotics, and Latour’s actor-network theory. How can we communicate with AI to determine shared values and objectives? And what, ultimately, do we want from machines? These are crucial questions in our world, where the influence of AI-based technologies is rapidly growing. Unconscious dynamics influence AI and digital technology and understanding them is essential to better controlling AI systems. This book’s unique methodology— which combines psychoanalysis, biosemiotics, and actor-network theory—reveals a radical reformulation of the problem of the human mind. Technoanalysis views the mind as a hybrid network of humans and nonhuman actants in constant interaction with one another. The author argues that human unconscious dynamics influence and shape technology, just as technology influences and shapes human unconscious dynamics. He proceeds to show how this conception of the relationship between the unconscious and technology can be applied to social robotics and AI. Unconscious Networks will appeal to scholars and advanced students interested in philosophy of technology, philosophy of artificial intelligence, psychoanalysis, and science and technology studies.