Guenther Witzany

Telos - Philosophische Praxis
  •  1542
    What is Life?
    Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences 7 1-13. 2020.
    In searching for life in extraterrestrial space, it is essential to act based on an unequivocal definition of life. In the twentieth century, life was defined as cells that self-replicate, metabolize, and are open for mutations, without which genetic information would remain unchangeable, and evolution would be impossible. Current definitions of life derive from statistical mechanics, physics, and chemistry of the twentieth century in which life is considered to function machine like, ignoring …Read more
  •  1352
    All the conserved detailed results of evolution stored in DNA must be read, transcribed, and translated via an RNAmediated process. This is required for the development and growth of each individual cell. Thus, all known living organisms fundamentally depend on these RNA-mediated processes. In most cases, they are interconnected with other RNAs and their associated protein complexes and function in a strictly coordinated hierarchy of temporal and spatial steps (i.e., an RNA network). Clearly, al…Read more
  •  796
    Artificial and Natural Genetic Information Processing
    In Mark Burgin & Wolfgang Hofkirchner (eds.), Information Studies and the Quest for Transdisciplinarity, World Scientific. pp. 523-547. 2017.
    Conventional methods of genetic engineering and more recent genome editing techniques focus on identifying genetic target sequences for manipulation. This is a result of historical concept of the gene which was also the main assumption of the ENCODE project designed to identify all functional elements in the human genome sequence. However, the theoretical core concept changed dramatically. The old concept of genetic sequences which can be assembled and manipulated like molecular bricks has probl…Read more
  •  715
    Manfred Eigen extended Erwin Schroedinger’s concept of “life is physics and chemistry” through the introduction of information theory and cybernetic systems theory into “life is physics and chemistry and information.” Based on this assumption, Eigen developed the concepts of quasispecies and hypercycles, which have been dominant in molecular biology and virology ever since. He insisted that the genetic code is not just used metaphorically: it represents a real natural language.However, the basic…Read more
  •  508
    Key Levels of Biocommunication
    In Richard Gordon & Joseph Seckbach (eds.), Biocommunication: Sign-mediated interactions between cells and organisms, World Scientific. pp. 37-61. 2016.
    Organisms actively compete for environmental resources. They assess their surroundings, estimate how much energy they need for particular goals, and then realize the optimum variant. They take measures to control certain environmental resources. They perceive themselves and can distinguish between “self” and “non-self.” Current empirical data on all domains of life indicate that unicellular organisms such as bacteria, archaea, giant viruses, and protozoa as well as multicellular organisms such a…Read more
  •  463
    First, I offer a short overview on the classical occidental philosophy as propounded by the ancient Greeks and the natural philosophies of the last 2000 years until the dawn of the empiricist logic of science in the twentieth century, which wanted to delimitate classical metaphysics from empirical sciences. In contrast to metaphysical concepts which didn’t reflect on the language with which they tried to explain the whole realm of entities empiricist logic of science initiated the end of m…Read more
  •  427
    Current knowledge of the RNA world indicates 2 different genetic codes being present throughout the living world. In contrast to non-coding RNAs that are built of repetitive nucleotide syntax, the sequences that serve as templates for proteins share—as main characteristics—a non-repetitive syntax. Whereas non-coding RNAs build groups that serve as regulatory tools in nearly all genetic processes, the coding sections represent the evolutionarily successful function of the genetic information stor…Read more
  •  418
    The biocommunication method: On the road to an integrative biology
    Communicative and Integrative Biology 9. 2016.
    Although molecular biology, genetics, and related special disciplines represent a large amount of empirical data, a practical method for the evaluation and overview of current knowledge is far from being realized. The main concepts and narratives in these fields have remained nearly the same for decades and the more recent empirical data concerning the role of noncoding RNAs and persistent viruses and their defectives do not fit into this scenario. A more innovative approach such as applied bioc…Read more
  •  340
    Evolution and Technique of Human Thinking
    Biosemiotics 8 (3): 503-508. 2015.
    IntroductionBy ‘philosophy of consciousness’ we mean an assembly of different approaches such as philosophy of mind , perception, rational conclusions, information processing and contradictory conceptions such as holistic ‘all is mind’ perspectives and their atomistic counterparts.Since ancient Greeks philosophy has provided widespread debates on pneuma, nous, psyche, spiritus, mind, and Geist. In more recent times the philosophy of consciousness has become part of psychology, sociology, neurosc…Read more
  •  320
    Natural Genome Editing from a Biocommunicative Perspective
    Biosemiotics 4 (3): 349-368. 2011.
    Natural genome editing from a biocommunicative perspective is the competent agent-driven generation and integration of meaningful nucleotide sequences into pre-existing genomic content arrangements, and the ability to (re-)combine and (re-)regulate them according to context-dependent (i.e. adaptational) purposes of the host organism. Natural genome editing integrates both natural editing of genetic code and epigenetic marking that determines genetic reading patterns. As agents that edit genetic …Read more
  •  302
    Rethinking quasispecies theory: From fittest type to cooperative consortia
    with Luis Villarreal
    World Journal of Biological Chemistry 4 79-90. 2013.
    Recent investigations surprisingly indicate that single RNA "stem-loops" operate solely by chemical laws that act without selective forces, and in contrast, self-ligated consortia of RNA stem-loops operate by biological selection. To understand consortial RNA selection, the concept of single quasi-species and its mutant spectra as drivers of RNA variation and evolution is rethought here. Instead, we evaluate the current RNA world scenario in which consortia of cooperating RNA stem-loops are the …Read more
  •  288
    Can mathematics explain the evolution of human language?
    Communicative and Integrative Biology 4 (5): 516-520. 2011.
    Investigation into the sequence structure of the genetic code by means of an informatic approach is a real success story. The features of human language are also the object of investigation within the realm of formal language theories. They focus on the common rules of a universal grammar that lies behind all languages and determine generation of syntactic structures. This universal grammar is a depiction of material reality, i.e., the hidden logical order of things and its relations determined …Read more
  •  284
    Can subcellular organization be explained only by physical principles?
    with Frantisek Baluska
    Communicative and Integrative Biology 8 (4). 2015.
    In a recent forum article, Dan Needleman and Jan Brugues argue that, despite the astonishing advances in cell biology, a fundamental understanding of even the most well-studied subcellular biological processes is lacking. This lack of understanding is evidenced by our inability to make precise predictions of subcellular and cellular behaviors. They suggest that to achieve such an under- standing, we need to apply a combination of quantitative experiments with new theoretical concepts and determi…Read more
  •  269
  •  240
    Manfred Eigen employs the terms language and communication to explain key recombination processes of DNA as well as to explain the self-organization of human language and communication: Life processes as well as language and communication processes are governed by the logic of a molecular syntax, which is the exact depiction of a principally formalizable reality. The author of the present contribution demonstrates that this view of Manfred Eigen’s cannot be sufficiently substantiated and that it…Read more
  •  233
    To the End of Dogmatism in Molecular Biology
    Biosemiotics 14 (1): 67-72. 2021.
    Denis Nobel looks at four important misinterpretations of molecular biology concerning evolutionary processes and demonstrates that the new synthesis today looks rather outdated. The modern synthesis is nearly 80 years old. The proponents who worked out the modern synthesis had no access to the current knowledge on cell biology, genetics, epigenetics, RNA biology and virology. Therefore this contribution adds several aspects which Nobel’s article does not explicitly mention, providing some examp…Read more
  •  222
    How Viruses Made Us Humans (review)
    In Chris Sinha Andy Lock Nathalie Gontier (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Human Symbolic Evolution. pp. 1-20. 2021.
    Current research on the origin of DNA and RNA, viruses, and mobile genetic elements prompts a re-evaluation of the origin and nature of genetic material as the driving force behind evolutionary novelty. While scholars used to think that novel features resulted from random genetic mutations of an individual’s specific genome, today we recognize the important role that acquired viruses and mobile genetic elements have played in introducing evolutionary novelty within the genomes of species. Viral …Read more
  •  187
    Viruses and related infectious genetic parasites are the most abundant biological agents on this planet. They invade all cellular organisms, are key agents in the generation of adaptive and innate immune systems, and drive nearly all regulatory processes within living cells.
  •  187
    Most molecular biological concepts derive from physical chemical assumptions about the genetic code that are basically more than 40 years old. Additionally, systems biology, another quantitative approach, investigates the sum of interrelations to obtain a more holistic picture of nucleotide sequence order. Recent empirical data on genetic code compositions and rearrangements by mobile genetic elements and non-coding RNAs, together with results of virus research and their role in evolution, does …Read more
  •  155
    The DNA Habitat and its RNA Inhabitants
    with Luis Villarreal
    Genomics Insights 6 1-12. 2013.
  •  134
    Self-empowerment of life through RNA networks, cells and viruses (review)
    F1000Research 12 (138): 1-27. 2023.
    Our understanding of the key players in evolution and of the development of all organisms in all domains of life has been aided by current knowledge about RNA stem-loop groups, their proposed interaction motifs in an early RNA world and their regulative roles in all steps and substeps of nearly all cellular processes, such as replication, transcription, translation, repair, immunity and epigenetic marking. Cooperative evolution was enabled by promiscuous interactions between single-stranded reg…Read more