MAN AS PARTICIPANT TO NATURAL CREATION
             ENLOGUE AND IDEAS OF HERMENEUTICS IN BIOLOGY


                        Sergei V.CHEBANOV

   Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry,
          Russian Academy of Sciences, St.Petersburg, Russia

                        Rivista di Biologia, vol.87-1, 1994, pp.39-55.

      1.HERMENEUTIC STUDIES IN BIOLOGY
        a) Introduction
        b) Biohermeneutics
        c) Hermeneutics of biology
      2.ENLOGUE AS QUASIPERSONAL INTERACTION
        a) Enlogue as reciprocal projection
        b) An enlogue participant as a being
        c) Enlogue and non-enlogue
      3.ENLOGY AND ITS FUNDAMENTAL PROPERTIES
        a) Enlogy as a morphological category
        b) Enlogy as intensional aspect of information
        c) Enlogical processuality as intensional time
        d) Enlogy and multiformity of truth
      4.ENLOGUE'S PLACE IN BIOLOGY
        a) Enlogue and biology
        b) Enlogue and hermeneutic approach to biology



                          Abstract

    Now, that the hermeneutics is coming into being again, there are
sufficient reasons to determine the set of interpretation processes in
organisms as biohermeneutics and the field of interpretation of
biologists' activity as hermeneutics of biology. The basic category of
biohermeneutics and hermeneutics of biology is enlogue (cf. dialogue
in M.Buber sense). Enlogue is quasipersonal interaction between Living
Beings or Living Being and Sensible Being when one enlogue's

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participant is projecting his organization into organization of other
participant(s). On this reason a concept is developed of the world as
a net of actual and potential enlogues, instrumental investigation as
reduced enlogues, biological interaction as special type of enlogue,
etc.


1. HERMENEUTIC STUDIES IN BIOLOGY
*a) Introduction.*
    It has been shown in earlier works (CHEBANOV, MARTYNENKO, 1990a,b)
that there exist five different types of approach to language:
hermeneutic, philological, linguistic, semiotic and pragmalinguistic.
At present, one of them - namely, the hermeneutic approach: is coming
into being again as development of pragmalinguistic one.
    Central category of hermeneutics is interpretation. We can
interpret texts, things, actions etc. But when anyone makes some
interpretation, he believes there is something, which exists beside
visibility and we can know this invisible reality by investigation of
visibility. If we deal with language, our capability of such
interpretation is based on nonarbitrary language sign, its motivation
and, as a consequence, unlimited fullness of sense.
    Now, while the hermeneutization of humanitarian disciplines is
being developed and some domains of biosemiotics (SEBEOK, 1979,
STEPANOV, 1971) appear to be involved in it, I find sufficient reasons
to call this trend `biohermeneutics` sensu lato (CHEBANOV, MARTYNENKO,
1990a, b).

*b) Biohermeneutics.*
    The object of biohermeneutic studies is the semiotic aspect of
Living Being as centaurus-object (after G.P. Tshedrovitski;
centaurus-object is characterized by heterogeneity, heterohierarchity,
and heterochronity, i.e. has many semantic dimensions reflected in
interdisciplinary descriptive pictures - CHEBANOV, 1988). The semantic
dimensions describe the centaurus-object as a unity of substratum
(semantophore) and its sense. In this light, somatic and physiological
organization of Living Being is functioning as semantophore, i. e. as
an exponent of semiotic means, whose nature of the substratum is
important for its semiotic performance.
    The most vivid example of biohermeneutic conception is that of
genetic code. Being semiotic in its essence and enriched by linguistic
and philological ideas, it has acquired some hermeneutic features
(CHEBANOV, 1993).

                                 -41-

    Many other biological concepts develop in a similar way, thus
modifying the ideas about intracellular and intraorganism recognition
of mediators and hormones (i.e., endosemiotics after (SEBEOK, 1979)),
and about interorganism interaction by means of pheromones, postures,
odors, coloring, etc.(i.e., zoo- and phytosemiotics), including the
physiological aspect of verbal communication in man(cf.BODEN,1985).
    General trend in phenomenology is to be described by linguists,
and mechanisms by biologists. Thus, biologists consider, so to speak,
a text together with its author, printing-press, and reader (SHAROV,
1990), while among philological disciplines only hermeneutics takes
all these into its scope, other branches considering the text out of
its broad actual context.

*c) Hermeneutics of biology*
    Processes of hermeneutic interpretation exist not only in living
being but biologist interprets this living being too. I claim that the
analysis of such interpretation is the object of the hermeneutics of
biology (see examples of the analysis in CHEBANOV, 1993).

2. ENLOGUE AS QUASIPERSONAL INTERACTION

*a) Enlogue as reciprocal projection.*
    The essence of all the above mentioned biohermeneutic situations
can be treated as being of enlogical nature.
    The starting point of the conception of enlogue has been an
attempt to draw attention to the internal form of the term
`information` (= en-logy, cf. CHEBANOV, 1984), which implies that a
`form` is brought into something inherent in another thing (which is
the source of the form). Here, enlogue is an introduction of a logos
into something (en-log-ation), a projection of the form of one thing
into another.
    The notion of enlogy was proposed by Ilya S. Dvorkin at the annual
(1980) meeting of the Workshop on Theoretical Biology, where I claimed
that the consideration of Living Being in terms of information was
always preceded by the objectivation of Living Being. The new term
allows to avoid undesirable connotations and interferences with the
notion of information in communication theories.
    As it has been noted by I.Dvorkin and then by other scientists,
the concepts of enlogue and enlogy have much in common with the
M.Buber's ideas about dialogue (BUBER 1970). In dialogue, however,
physical substratum becomes unimportant because of general
sense-directedness of the process, whereas in enlogue, a content-full
form is embodied
                                 -42-

in substratum (cf. the notion of semantophore). In enlogue there can
neither be "objects", nor "I" inherent to a dialogue and this is the
reason to qualify enlogue as quasipersonal interaction.
    Let us, take as an illustration the question whether a dog is
ferocious or not. There can be no general answer to this question
since the dog is aggressive against some people, being quiet and
gentle with others. I.e., it can be said that against certain person
the dog more often shows its aggression than against another one (or
that some people provoke aggression more often than others).
    In similar situations a projection of one participant`s
organization onto that of another is characteristic. The projection is
reciprocal (two-directional). Thus, the organization of each of the
participants depends on the interaction the participant takes part in,
and it is impossible to imagine a participant as such apart from its
interaction; - it would be simply senseless, because every enlogue
creates in him a definite image, the `enlogy` of the participant. The
enlogy is defined a) by the participant`s nature, b) by the nature of
other participant(s), c) by the character of the enlogue (CHEBANOV,
1993).
    To make clear the notion of enlogy we suggest color and taste.
Neither color nor taste are properties inherent in electromagnetic
waves or molecules, they are sooner characteristics of human
perception, which doesn't prevent them from being regarded as
important properties of substances (cf., however, saying like `De
gustibus et coloribus non est disputandum`, where the enlogical nature
of taste and color is made explicit).
    The above mentioned features of enlogue suggest that it should be
treated as a basic notion to describe the cognition of reality - and,
hence, as the foundation of reality. So the universe can be considered
as a network of potential and actual enlogues.
    The notion of enlogue can be compared with that of feedback in
cybernetics; but enlogue is something more than interaction because of
its projective character.
    Enlogue and enlogy have common features with noesis and noema in
phenomenologists` conceptions; however, enlogue can be carried out not
only by means of reason (rationally), which makes it possible to
discuss enlogues other than rational.
    Enlogies are comparable with `intensional objects` by Husserl. The
more so, that the intensional objects occur in non-rational acts (like
fantasies, dreams, memories, desires, etc.). But enlogy is inherent in
the very being, it isn`t a product or a property of mind,
consciousness or psyche. Some similarities can be observed between
enlogy and interpretation in phenomenological aesthetics. The main
difference is that there is no enlogy apart from an enlogue by which
an enlogy is formed and therefore always preceded.

                                 -43-

    Full-scale enlogue is close to Jaspersian notion of communication,
though this closeness is but relative, since it is only in the concept
of enlogue that the transformation of participants is emphasized.
    The same problems were studied by Ricoeur, but from a different
point of view, and the results sharply diverge: `distantiation` and
objectivization cannot be accepted within my approach.

*b) An enlogue participant as a being*
    Formally, a being can be defined as an enlogy of a participant of
a given enlogue (cf. Dasein as a correlate of an interpretation of
Sein, according to Heidegger). It implies a being's high degree of
flexibility and activity, its great receptive and assimilative
abilities. A being-partner interaction often has a typological and
even individual, not universal, character and that is why a being can
have individual (`personal`) features.
    A participant can be involved in more than one enlogue at one
time. The participant, hence, is presented by a different being in
every enlogue. Thus, an electron appears as two different beings
(enlogies): wave and particle. This feature of the activity of
physical beings (especially in quantum mechanical systems) has been
reflected in the notion of corpuscular-wave dualism, as well as in the
Copenhagen interpretation of quantum mechanics and in the idea that
physical objects can resist researching them.
    Much more evident are the features of a being in microorganisms,
plants and animals (which are Living Beings). Among them, higher
animals and humans are endowed with psyche, and furthermore, some of
them are Sensible Beings endowed with reason. In certain situations
humans can also be psychic or mystic beings.
    By treating cognitive enlogue participants as beings it is
possible to avoid the shortcomings of extreme views on the nature of
interpretation. Thus, within the framework of this approach, the
forming of a personality cannot be treated as a projection of the
object`s organization into an unstructured subject, and, at the same
time, it is impossible to see the external world as an external
projection of man`s internal organization (Cf. RICOEUR, 1975).
    Thus, in European philosophy, reality is traditionally regarded as
an ensemble of things-in-themselves not opposed to one another. If an
opposition is introduced of `active agent vs something to which the
activity is directed`, then the pair of things is viewed as being a
subject and an object, while the ensemble of objects is viewed as
forming an ontology (the picture of reality in the subject`s mind).
    However, it is senseless to speak about a thing as such or a thing
in itself when discussing enlogue because the `objects` turn out too

                                 -44-

complicated by the qualities of `subject`, and vice versa (`subjects`
complicated by `objects' qualities). In cognitive enlogue both
participants (if they are two) are equally important to their
quasi-dialogue, but one of them has its reason as a source of
cognitive activity(Sensible Being), whereas the other can be, say,
Living Being (CHEBANOV, 1988).

*c) Enlogue and non-enlogue.*
With the notion of enlogue being so wide, an important distinction
should be made between that which is enlogue and that which is not.
Although, strictly speaking, every interaction is an enlogue, it would
be of low heuristic value to qualify as enlogues the degenerated
cases, especially those which can get an exhaustive description in
terms of a number of invariant parameters or those which are products
of algorithmic procedures, or those having universal (not individual
or typical) character.
    Such `non-enlogical` processes are not very numerous, but their
number is increasing since our technological civilization requires
greater standardization not only in technosphere, but also in human
education and communication, which means that more interactions become
non-enlogues. In technocratic societies, there is a domination of
orientation on the superficial level of reality, and therefore the
world is becoming governed by `objective laws` in a greater degree,
any alteration of these laws being beyond human power. The domain of
enlogue is thus being reduced.
    This situation gives rise to a mass urge for inverted enlogues,
such as extrasensory and psychedelic practices, or the use
depersonalized sex as a sport. In extreme cases, all these lead to
generating enlogies isomorphic to one of the participants (CHEBANOV,
1988): mechanistic world picture, for instance, is isomorphic to a
subject possessing no more than reason, vision and a simple
manipulation capacity (cf. in Persian poetry: a sage in love moving
apart the curls of his Beloved-truth to see her face, sees only a
mirror with his own reflection in it).
    In the cases when the enlogical character of a process is beyond
any doubt, the processes are given a marginal status of something like
parapsychology or mystics. But in spite of all this cultural pressure,
the more pronounced is the individuality of a man, the deeper he
transforms the things he gets in touch with, the more he animates and
enlogizes them. The macrostructures complementing the natural language
(SEBEOK, 1979) play a considerable role in these processes.
    Such a transfiguration of things and animals is regarded as
something quite natural by spiritually oriented people, whose enlogue
with a stone or, say, with a star isn't more uncommon to them than any
other enlogue (take, for instance, the sermon to birds by St.Francis
of Assisi, or Russian anchoret's intercourse with bears). Here the
difference between enlogue and

                                 -45-

dialogue disappears. Unfortunately, the enlogues in physics and
chemistry (e.g., in crystals or in quantum mechanic systems) are out
of the scope of this paper. But the fact of their existence itself is
thought provoking.
     Much more common are the enlogues in human activity and in Living
Beings.

3.ENLOGY AND ITS FUNDAMENTAL PROPERTIES

*a) Enlogy as a morphological category.*
    The internal form of the words `en-log-y` and `in-form-ation`
implies that there is certain relation of these concepts with
morphology. And this is really so. Enlogy, in this respect, should be
defined as an entelechial unity of form and steresis (the term of
Aristotle). I mean by 'form' in this case a set of internal
distinctions of a thing, while steresis is the absence of form (form`s
own "His Other" (Sein Andere, after I.Kant, cf. CHEBANOV, 1984)).
Although several kinds of steresis were mentioned by Aristotle, he
gave no detailed explanation of the source of steresis. In the
conception I have been trying to present here, steresis appears to be
a projection of the second participant`s form, whereas enlogy should
be regarded as a result of the reciprocal projection of the
participants` organization.
    It must be noted that enlogy is provided by the activity of at
least one participant. That is why the unity of form and steresis is
entelechial. Up to now this interpretation proposed by A.V. Goguin
proved to be most fruitful (ROUSSO, CHEBANOV, 1985,1988).

*b) Enlogy as intensional aspect of information.*
    In spite of the fact that the internal form of the terms is
quasi-synonymous, it would be better to oppose the two concepts,
because enlogy can be treated as a qualitative aspect of information:
enlogy is that which is being projected from one thing onto the other,
but not the amount of what is projected. This feature is indispensable
for approaching a qualitative information theory.

*c) Enlogical processuality as intensional time*
    Time can be treated as an aspect of changeability in a given
individual (according to the morphological conception of time, see
MEYEN, 1989:170-185). Given that every individual is a sort of enlogy
(CHEBANOV, 1984), it is possible to qualify the intensional time as
enlogical processuality (cf. crystallodynamic time, in ROUSSO,
CHEBANOV, 1985). It should be taken into account that time is an
attribute not of the individual itself, but of a definite enlogy of
the individual; that is to say, every individual exists in many
different times, each of which is defined

                                 -46-

by a corresponding enlogue and its participants. Thus, time turns out
to be defined not only by the matter investigated, but also by the
investigator himself and, consequently, both individuals taking part
in the interaction are heterochronous in their nature (after
G.P.Tshedrovitsky). As to the extensional time, it is similarly
related to information, the amount of which is defined through the
notion of entropy. In some special cases of enlogue (`degenerated`
enlogues discussed below) the course of time depending on the
participants` properties should be described, for instance, in the
special theory of relativity (such phenomena as the slowing down of a
clock). The enlogical processuality can be metrically and
topologically various (e.g., non-eudoxean).

*d) Enlogy and the multiformity of truth.*
    By the logical status of enlogy, every enlogy of given participant
has the same predicates as truth. There can be no marked enlogies able
to pretend, with more reasons than other, to be truth. The categories
of enlogue and enlogy are not identical with the existing
phenomenologists' notions primarily due to the general objectivist
orientation of European culture. Abandoning this tradition allows to
discover the value of enlogies per se, with their dependence on the
particular features of Man, whatever the nature of these features may
be: individual features of constitution (like the sensibility to
phenylalanine), or supposedly pathological (like daltonism), or
typological (like Sensible Being's mental organization). Since
enlogies are extremely various, building up their typology appears to
be quite a complicated task. That is why any attempt to draw up a
comprehensive and exhaustive typology of enlogues seems to be an
unrealizable enterprise. Some enlogues involve more than two
participants. Thus, e.g., praying before icon is an enlogue of a
prayer, an icon, and Holy Spirit; the icon, in its turn, is the result
of an enlogue involving Holy Spirit, the icon-painter, and the person
represented in the icon, while the individuality of the icon-painter
is a fruit of his enlogues with other people and circumstances. The
idea of a holy image as a sort of enlogy is crucial for understanding
the nature of enlogue (though, in this case distinction between
dialogue and enlogue is disappeared), and it is in iconoclastic
controversies that this idea has been formed.

4. ENLOGUE'S PLACE IN BIOLOGY

*a) Enlogue in biology*
    There is a great variety of enlogues and enlogies in biology. To
begin with, umwelt is an enlogy (UEXKULL, 1909): the environment of an

                                 -47-
organism is different to every two organisms in the same locus of
space, due to the different transformations of space by each of the
two organisms creating their umwelts with their own relevant features.
Thus, umwelt proves to be an enlogy of space as a result of an
organism-space enlogue (if the enlogue is regarded from the point of
view of the organism). It is remarkable that umwelt is treated as one
of the key categories of biosemiotics (STEPANOV, 1971; SEBEOK, 1979).
    Of course, biologists are also concerned with enlogues in living
beings, where semiotic means are involved. The studies of these
enlogues are subject of hermeneutics of biology. A biological research
can often be present as an enlogue, though purely operational or
instrumental investigation also occur.

*b) Enlogue and hermeneutic approach in biology*
    A biologist (Sensible Being), in his work, comes across a
surprising variability of organisms. This variability is considered as
an attribute of life, as is the substances high flexibility which
depends on the state of the organism. The classical morphology in the
spirit of Goethe attempted to grasp organic forms (distinguishing a
form implied in figures, cf. gene as idea CHEBANOV,1984). Old biology,
born of the conception of the world as a Book, regarded the form as
full of sense, and every organism as a text component. This outlook
has been rejected in the course of the futile fight against
anthropomorphism in biological conceptions, and later only higher
animals` behavior was acknowledged as eventually having a certain
sense. However, modern ethology though carefully avoiding
anthropomorphism, cannot help using a semantic approach in the
description of non-hominal umwelts (SEBEOK, 1979).
    The study of umwelt forming mechanisms reveals that only those
features of environment - and of other beings - can be perceived by
Living Being, whose perception is predetermined by Living Being`s
organization (i.e., a set of the invariants of perception is
genetically determined). When describing enlogies, all this should be
taken into account.
    In the middle of the XX century, one more discipline emerged which
can do nothing without the notion of semiosis: it was molecular
genetics. The matter of this domain has proved to have the same
mechanisms that have been found out in ethology and neurophysiology,
and it is on this basis that biosemiotics is being formed. Bringing
into a system the evidences emerging from biosemiotic studies leads to
the revival of hermeneutic ideas some of which were already quite
obvious to biologists (such as the importance of semantophore, the
non-arbitrary, though not strictly definite, character of the relation
between an organism and its sense, the plurality of interpretations of
every organism, etc.).
                                 -48-

    There is an alternative way to comprehend Living Being: Sensible
Being can occupy the position of another Living Being in the enlogue.
But in this case Sensible Being turns out to be on the razor-edge,
facing two dangers: one to step out of anthropomorphic conceptes, the
other to be carried away by the temptation of infernal mysticism of
parapsychological enlogue violating natural limits of beings. At the
same time, if Sensible Being is consciously using his position as a
human being, this can allow him to reveal a genuine pious enlogue with
Living Being; but biologists are not very much welcome this kind of
knowledge, they are still unable to be conscious that a man is the
principal actor in a biological research, where he does not merely
discover the laws of nature, but takes part in the Creation of the
world in his creative enlogue which is one of the kinds of hermeneutic
activity.

*Acknowledgments* The conception of enlogue is a fruit of collective
thought. I am extremely grateful to my colleagues for their
cooperation, especially to Valery D. Dymshits and Ilya S. Dvorkin who
have given some valuable hints on the text.

 St. Petersburg, July 1992

     pp. 49-54 Italian translation

                                 -55-

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