Language-like Signaling and Representation in Biological Systems

Faculty Development Competitive Research Grant Program 2019-2021

Biological systems employ communication at every level, from intracellular regulatory gene networks through intercellular signaling and all the way to human language. From a pre-theoretical perspective it is attractive to liken several of the lower-level communication systems to human language: they function to transmit information; they influence the receivers' behavior; they coordinate the behavior of senders and receivers; they can be correct or incorrect, reliable or misleading; and they often perform their functions by combining signals in a way resembles language. This project will investigate the extent and the degree to which communication in biological systems is language-like.
To this end the project will make extensive use of formal and computational modeling, in order to transfer concepts and knowledge from philosophy and cognitive science to the life sciences.