Presentation
Content or correlation? In defence of a richer view of biological signals

Biological signals include, among many other examples, alarm calls, threat displays and sexual signals between animals, quorum sensing in bacteria, electrochemical sensing in plants, neural and hormonal signals within organisms, and the action of genes within cells.

The argument of this paper is that biological signals possess semantic content. This is in contrast to sceptical claims that the weaker property of correlational information can do the explanatory work in the analysis of biological signalling. I define each property before defending the stronger view. One consequence is a vindication of behavioural ecologists’ practice of ascribing truth conditions to signals, often describing communication as honest or deceptive. Further, the account has ramifications for language and mind, embodying as it does a strong externalism about the normativity of meaning. There are payoffs for philosophy of science too: if the argument hits its mark, semantic content is a bona fide example of an emergent property.

Thesis
Biological information in uncooperative systems

The concept of information has a prominent role in the life sciences. Many biological systems are conceived of as producing or carrying information. The information concept is, however, multifaceted, and it would be more appropriate to say there is a family of closely related concepts at work in biology. This thesis will focus on information within uncooperative biological systems, asking which if any of the numerous concepts available are suitable to describe interactions between agents with imperfectly aligned interests.

The topic is philosophically interesting because it is not yet clear how information in the natural world depends on cooperation. This is due in part to the assumption of cooperation between agents in influential accounts of natural meaning. By examining how and why common interest between actors affects information transmission, the thesis will offer a novel contribution to an important stream of research. A good account will make inroads into justifying the application of our intuitive informational concepts as well as exploring their limits.