Abstract

The linguistic metaphor in biology adheres to a representational theory that seeks similarities between pre-given domains. The point of departure of this paper is the generative and nonrepresentational conception of metaphor. This paper argues that by adopting the nonrepresentational conception of metaphor, meaning-making may be the appropriate perspective for understanding biological systems. In both cases (the linguistic and the biological), boundary conditions between different levels of organization use micro-level disorganization to create macro-level organization.

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