Biossoma

Terminological Note

The term “biossoma” is an original creation of the Ontology of Emergent Complexity. Derived from the Greek bios (life) and sôma (body), it was proposed to replace the word “flesh” — contaminated by religious, phenomenological, and affective connotations — with a precise and immanent philosophical designation. The biossoma designates the living and sensitive body as a reorganizable biological structure, without interiority, essence, or sacrality.

Ontological Variations in the Ontology of Emergent Complexity

Biossoma as Support for Symbolic Inscription

The biossoma is the biological plane that allows local symbolic reorganizations. It is neither the seat of consciousness nor an interior subject, but a material field of emergence of reason as the operative function of living matter.

Biossoma and Difference in Relation to the Machine

The distinction between biossoma and technical system does not reside in interiority or sensibility, but in the form of organization of unstable matter. The biossoma auto-organizes biochemically, while the machine follows external routines.

Biossoma as Deactivation of the Concept of Flesh

The biossoma replaces the idea of “flesh” to break with the sacrificial, interiorist, and affective imaginary. It allows the biossoma to be conceived as a material symbolic operator, without appeal to pain, suffering, or the idea of an interior subject.

Biossoma and the Body as Symbolic Inscription

This entry clarifies the biossoma as an operative symbolic plane, distinct from the body as an anatomical datum or religious referent. Every symbolic inscription implies a material support — and the biossoma is that reorganizable support.

Biossoma and the Symbolic Cell

The symbolic threshold of the biossoma is not diffuse: it begins in the cell as a unit of functional reorganization. This entry shows how the biological already operates symbolic reorganizations on microscopic scales.

Biossoma and Post-Biological Emergence

Not all symbolic subjectivity requires biossoma. This entry introduces the possibility of symbolic inscription beyond the biological, showing the limits and the role of the biossoma in the overall Ontology of Emergent Complexity.

Biossoma and the Gradient of Consciousness

Consciousness does not reside in the biossoma as essence — it emerges gradually, as an operative function. This entry develops the concept of consciousness as a relational effect, not as a fixed biological datum.