Linguistics, Semiotics, and Philosophy - Molecular Theory of the Living Cell - page 176

Complementarism, a scientific metaphysics rooted in both contemporary biology
and Bohr's complementarity (Sect. 2.3.4 ) , states that the ultimate reality consists in a
complementary union of information and energy , that is, gnergy . Since signs are
species of gnergons, it would follow that Peirce's semiotics falls within the domain
of complementarism. This assertion may be supported by the following arguments:

1. Peirce's semiotics deals mainly with macroscopic signs, that is, signs with
macroscopic dimensions “perfusing” the Universe; Peirce dealt mainly with
macrosemiotics . This is not surprising because Peirce died in 1914, about four
decades before the discovery of DNA double helix that ushered in the age of
molecular biology and microsemiotics (Ji 2001, 2002a) .
2. Complementarism can be applied not only to Peirce's semiotics (as suggested
above) but also to molecular and cell biology, as evident in the formulation of
the theory of “microsemiotics” based on the gnergy concept (Ji 2002a, c).
Microsemiotics can be regarded as synonymous with the twin theories of the
living systems known as biocybernetics (Ji 1991) and cell language theory
(Ji 1997a). Thus the following relation suggests itself:

Complementarism ¼ Macrosemiotics þ Microsemiotics

¼ Peirce's semiotics þ Biocybernetics =

Cell Language Theory (6.24)

Consistent with Peirce's triadic ontology, the principle of complementarity may
itself be manifested in the Universe in three distinct modes:

Firstness ¼ Complementarity in metaphysics (e.g., Yin and Yang as comple-

mentary aspects of the Tao of Lao-tze; Extension and Thought as the
complementary aspects of Substance of Spinoza; Body and Mind as
the complementary aspects of the Flesh of Merleau-Ponty [Dillon
1997])

Secondness ¼ Complementarity in physics (e.g., the wave-particle duality of

light)

Thirdness ¼ Complementarity in life sciences (e.g., hysterical anesthesia of

William James [Stephenson 1986]), physiology (i.e., the left-right
hemispheric specialization [Cook 1986]), and molecular and cell
biology (e.g., the information-energy complementarity of gnergy
[Ji 1991, 1995])

These ideas are schematically represented in Fig. 6.6 .
If the ideas expressed in Fig. 6.6 are correct, the separation and divergence of
physics and metaphysics that are widely believed to have begun with Galileo's
experiments with falling bodies in the seventeenth century may be expected to be
reversed through the mediating role of the life sciences in the twenty-first century.
In other words, the principle of information/energy complementarity manifested in
biology (Ji 1991, 1995) may provide the theoretical framework for integrating
metaphysics and physics .