Metaphors, models and bioinformation

The notion of bioinformation is central to the biosciences. This short paper examines a number of metaphors which are intimately related to this idea. These include metaphors about ‘system’ as well as metaphors associated with biosystem as ‘text’. A framework is presented which allows ideas about biosystems and computer systems to be displaced and a number of specific topics are then discussed. Firstly, information processing in non-neural tissues is given as an example of parallel distributed processing. This is followed with a number of metaphors associated with ‘text’, including ‘glue’, ‘verbs’ and ‘interpretation’. The paper concludes with a proposal on how to integrate general ideas of bioinformation using the idea of the ‘ecology of domains’.