Abstract

Grounded in the semiotics of Charles S. Peirce, T.A. Sebeok and new biosemiotic theory, this research is a preliminary investigation of the psychic meaning of Man and his Mountain, transformative signs which are often found in religion, myth and literature. Recently, biologists discovered horizontal gene transfer (HGT), the exchange of DNA between different species (aka evolvability or the evolution of evolution), is a common process occurring not only in Bacteria and Archaea, but also in Eukarya—plants, fungi and human cells. Since many of Nature’s laws are still veiled, it is clearly illogical to argue absolutely that HGT for human DNA is not possible after death based on the absence of hard evidence. For that reason and historical evidence pointing to a comparative biosemiotic use of Man and his Mountain, this paper aligns a semiotics of evolvability with the confusing biophysical survival messages preserved in Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s evolutionary philosophy, Mesoamerican myth, and the Book of Revelation.