To explore how molecules became signs I will ask: “What sort of process is necessary and sufficient to treat a molecule as a sign?” This requires focusing on the interpreting system and its interpretive competence. To avoid assuming any properties that need to be explained I develop what I consider to be a simplest possible molecular model system which only assumes known physics and chemistry but nevertheless exemplifies the interpretive properties of interest. Three progressively more complex variants of this model of interpretive competence are developed that roughly parallel an icon-index-symbol hierarchic scaffolding logic. The implication of this analysis is a reversal of the current dogma of molecular and evolutionary biology which treats molecules like DNA and RNA as the original sources of biological information. Instead I argue that the structural characteristics of these molecules have provided semiotic affordances that the interpretive dynamics of viruses and cells have taken advantage of. These molecules are not the source of biological information but are instead semiotic artifacts onto which dynamical functional constraints have been progressively offloaded during the course of evolution.

为了探索分子如何成为符号，我会问：“什么样的过程是必要和充分的，才能将分子视为符号？” 这需要关注口译系统及其口译能力。为了避免假设任何需要解释的特性，我开发了我认为最简单的分子模型系统，它只假设已知的物理和化学，但仍然举例说明感兴趣的解释特性。开发了这种解释能力模型的三个逐渐复杂的变体，它们大致平行于图标-索引-符号层次结构逻辑。这种分析的含义是对当前分子和进化生物学教条的逆转，后者将 DNA 和 RNA 等分子视为生物信息的原始来源。相反，我认为这些分子的结构特征提供了病毒和细胞的解释动力学所利用的符号学可供性。这些分子不是生物信息的来源，而是符号学的人工制品，在进化过程中动态功能限制已逐渐卸载到这些人工制品上。