Main description:

Building on a range of disciplines - from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics - this book draws on the expertise of leading names in the study of organic, mental and cultural codes brought together by the emerging discipline of biosemiotics. The volume represents the first multi-authored attempt to deal with the range of codes relevant to life, and to reveal the ubiquitous role of coding mechanisms in both organic and mental evolution.

Contents:

Editorial: The new frontier of biology; M. Barbieri.- Part 1: Codes and Evolution. 1. Codes of biosequences; E.N. Trifonov.- 2. The mechanisms of evolution: natural selection and natural conventions; M. Barbieri.- Part 2: The Genetic Code. 3. Catalytic propensity of amino acids and the origins of the genetic code and proteins; A. Kun et al.- 4. Why the genetic code originated: implications for the origin of protein synthesis; M. Di Giulio.- 5. Self-referential formation of the genetic system; R.C. Guimaraes et al.- 6. The mathematical structure of the genetic code; D. Gonzalez.- 7. The arithmetical origin of the genetic code; V. shCherbak.- Part 3: Protein, Lipid and Sugar Codes. 8. Protein linguistics and the modular code of the cytoskeleton; M. Gimona.- 9. A lipid-based code in nuclear signalling; N.M. Maraldi.- 10. Biological information transfer beyond the genetic code: the sugar code; H.-J. Gabius.- 11. The immune self code: from correspondence to complexity; Y. Neuman.-12. Signal transduction codes and cell fate; M. Faria.- Part 4: Neural, Mental, and Cultural Codes. 13. Towards an understanding of language origins; E. Szathmary.- 14. The codes of language: turtles all the way up?; S.J. Cowley.- 15. Code and context in gene expression, cognition, and consciousness; S. O Nuallain.- 16. Neural coding in the neuroheuristic perspective; A.E.P. Villa.- 17. Error detection and correction codes; D.L. Gonzalez.- 18. The musical codebetween nature and nurture: ecosemiotic and neurobiological claims; M. Reybrouck.-