permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

Biosemiotics
>From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosemiotics

See also

   - Ecosemiotics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosemiotics>
   - Zoosemiotics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zoosemiotics>
   - Mimicry <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimicry>

*Biosemiotics* (from the Greek <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_language>
*bios* meaning "life" and *semeion* meaning "sign") is a growing field of
semiotics <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics> and
biology<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology>that studies the
production and
interpretation <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpretation_%28logic%29> of
signs <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_%28semiotics%29> and
codes<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Code>
[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosemiotics#cite_note-1> in the
biological <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biology> realm. Biosemiotics
attempts to integrate the findings of biology and
semiotics<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotics>and proposes a
paradigmatic
shift <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradigm_shift> in the scientific view
of life <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life>, demonstrating that
semiosis<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiosis>(sign process,
including
meaning <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_%28semiotics%29> and
interpretation) is one of its immanent and intrinsic features. The term
"biosemiotic" was first used by Friedrich S.
Rothschild<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_S._Rothschild>in
1962, but Thomas
Sebeok <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sebeok> and Thure von
Uexküll<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thure_von_Uexk%C3%BCll>have done
much to popularize the term and field.
[2] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosemiotics#cite_note-2> The field,
which challenges normative views of biology, is generally divided between
theoretical and applied biosemiotics.

Definition

Biosemiotics is *biology interpreted as a sign systems study',' or, to
elaborate, a study of*

   - signification <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign_%28semiotics%29>,
   communication <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communication> and
habit<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habituation>formation of
   living <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life> processes
   - semiosis <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiosis> (changing sign
   relations) in living nature
   - the biological basis of all signs and sign interpretation

Approaches

To define biosemiotics as “biology interpreted as sign systems study” is to
emphasize not only the close relation between biology as we know it (as a
scientific field of inquiry) and semiotics (the study of signs), but
primarily the profound change of perspective implied when life is
considered not just from the perspectives of
molecules<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecule>and
chemistry <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemistry>, but as signs conveyed
and interpreted by other living signs in a variety of ways, including by
means of molecules. In this sense, biosemiotics takes for granted and
respects the complexity <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complexity> of living
processes as revealed by the existing fields of biology – from molecular
biology to brain science and behavioural studies – however, biosemiotics
attempts to bring together separate findings of the various disciplines of
biology (including evolutionary
biology<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolutionary_biology>)
into a new and more unified perspective on the central phenomena of the
living world, including the generation of function and signification in
living systems, from the ribosome <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ribosome>to 
the
ecosystem <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ecosystem> and from the beginnings
of life <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biogenesis> to its ultimate
meanings<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meaning_%28semiotics%29>
.

Furthermore, by providing new concepts, theories and case studies from
biology, biosemiotics attempts to throw new light on some of the unsolved
questions within the general study of sign processes (semiotics), such as
the question about the origin of signification in the
universe<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universe>.
Here, signification (and sign) is understood in a very general sense, that
is, not simply the transfer of
information<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information>from one place to
another, but the generation of the very content and
meaning of that information in human
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human>as well as non-human sign
producers and sign receivers.

Sign processes are thus taken as real: They are governed by regularities
(habits, or natural rules) that can be discovered and explained. They are
intrinsic in living nature, but we can access them, not directly, but
indirectly through other sign processes (qualitative distinction methods,
for instance) – even though the human representation and understanding of
these processes (in the construction of explanations) builds up as a
separate scientific sign system distinct from the
organisms<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organism>’
own sign processes.

One of the central characteristics of living systems is the highly
organized character of their physical and chemical processes, partly based
upon informational and molecular properties of what came to be known in the
1960s as the genome <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genome>. Distinguished
biologists, such as Ernst Mayr
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ernst_Mayr>and Manfred
Eigen <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manfred_Eigen> have seen these
informational aspects as one of the emergent features of life as a process
that distinguish life from anything else in the physical world, except,
perhaps, man-made computers <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer>.
However, whereas the informational
teleology<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology>of computer
programmes is derived, by being designed by humans to achieve
specific goals, the teleology <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teleology> and
informational characteristics of organisms are intrinsic to them and evolve
naturally.

Traditional biology (and philosophy of
biology<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philosophy_of_biology>)
has seen such processes as being purely physical and, being influenced by a
reductionist <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reductionist> and
mechanistic<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mechanism_%28philosophy%29>tradition,
has adopted a very restricted notion of the physical as having
to do with only *efficient causation
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efficient_cause>*. Biosemiotics uses concepts
from semiotics (in the sense of C.S.
Peirce<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Sanders_Peirce>as the
broad
logical <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logic> and scientific
study<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method>of dynamic sign
action in humans as well as elsewhere in nature) to answer
questions about the biological emergence of meaning,
intentionality<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intentionality>and a
psychical <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psyche_%28psychology%29> world.
These questions are either hard to answer or completely incoherent within a
purely mechanist and physicalist framework.

Biosemiotics sees the evolution of life and the evolution of semiotic
systems as two aspects of the same process. The scientific approach to the
origin and evolution of life has, in part due to the success of molecular
biology, given us highly valuable accounts of the outer aspects of the
whole process, but has overlooked the inner qualitative aspects of sign
action, leading to a reduced picture of causality. Complex self-organized
living systems are also governed by formal and final causality –
*formal*in the sense of the *downward
causation <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downward_causation>* from a whole
structure (such as the organism) to its individual molecules, constraining
their action but also endowing them with functional meanings in relation to
the whole metabolism; and *final* in the sense of the tendency to take
habits and to generate future interpretants of the present sign actions.
Here, biosemiotics draws also upon the insights of fields like systems
theory <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Systems_theory>, theoretical
biology<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theoretical_biology>and the study
of complex
self-organized <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organization> systems.

Particular scientific fields like molecular
biology<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_biology>,
cognitive ethology <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_ethology>, 
cognitive
science <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognitive_science>,
robotics<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotics>,
and neurobiology <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neurobiology> deal with
information processes at various levels and thus spontaneously contribute
to knowledge about biosemiosis (sign action in living systems). However,
biosemiotics proper is not yet a specific disciplinary research programme,
but a general perspective on the need for investigating the role that
"sign" use plays in life processes, and attempts to integrate such
findings, and to build a semiotic foundation for biology. It may also help
to resolve some forms of Cartesian
dualism<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cartesian_dualism>that still
haunt the philosophy of mind. By describing the continuity
between body and mind, or by showing this to be a false or at least
unhelpful distinction, biosemiotics may also help us to understand how
human "mindedness" may naturally emerge from more primitive processes of
embodied animal "knowing."


Bibliography

   - Favareau, D. (ed.) (2010). Essential Readings in Biosemiotics:
   Anthology and
Commentary.<http://www.springer.com/life+sciences/book/978-1-4020-9649-5>Berlin:
Springer.
   - Favareau, D. (2006). The evolutionary history of biosemiotics. In
   "Introduction to Biosemiotics: The New Biological Synthesis." Marcello
   Barbieri (Ed.) Berlin: Springer. pp 1–67.
   - Emmeche, Claus <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claus_Emmeche>; Kull,
   Kalevi <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kalevi_Kull> (eds.) (2011). *Towards
   a Semiotic Biology: Life is the Action of Signs*. London: Imperial
   College Press.
   - Emmeche, Claus; Kalevi Kull and Frederik Stjernfelt. (2002): *Reading
   Hoffmeyer, Rethinking Biology.* (Tartu Semiotics Library 3). Tartu: Tartu
   University Press <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tartu_University_Press>.
   - Hoffmeyer, Jesper <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesper_Hoffmeyer>.
   (1996): *Signs of Meaning in the Universe.* Bloomington: Indiana
   University Press. (special issue of Semiotica vol. 120 (no.3-4), 1998,
   includes 13 reviews of the book and a rejoinder by the author).
   - Hoffmeyer, Jesper
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesper_Hoffmeyer>(2008). *Biosemiotics:
   An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs.*
Scranton: University
   of Scranton 
Press<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Scranton_Press>
   .
   - Hoffmeyer Jesper <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesper_Hoffmeyer>;
   Kull, Kalevi (2003):
Baldwin<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Mark_Baldwin>and
Biosemiotics: What Intelligence Is For. In: Bruce H. Weber and David
J.
   Depew (eds.), *Evolution and Learning - The Baldwin Effect
   Reconsidered'.* Cambridge: The MIT Press.
   - Kull, Kalevi, eds. (2001). *Jakob von Uexküll: A Paradigm for Biology
   and Semiotics.* Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [ = *Semiotica
   <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semiotica>* vol. 134 (no.1-4)].
   - Sebeok, Thomas A. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Sebeok>;
   Umiker-Sebeok, Jean (eds.) (1992): *Biosemiotics. The Semiotic Web
1991.*Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
   - Sebeok, Thomas A.; Hoffmeyer, Jesper; Emmeche, Claus (eds.) (1999).
   *Biosemiotica.* Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter. [ =
*Semiotica*vol. 127 (no.1-4)].
   - Witzany, G. (2006). The Logos of the Bios 1. Contributions to the
   foundation of a three leveled biosemiotics. Helsinki: Umweb.
   - Witzany, G. (ed.) (2007). *Biosemiotics in Transdisciplinary Contexts:
   Proceedings of the Gathering in Biosemiotics 6, Salzburg
2006.*Helsinki: Umweb.
   [1] <http://www.biocommunication.at/pdf/publications/Proceeding.pdf>
   - Rothschild, Friedrich
S.<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friedrich_Rothschild>(2000). *Creation
   and Evolution: A Biosemiotic Approach*. Edison, New Jersey: Transaction
   Publishers.
   - Hoffmeyer, Jesper
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jesper_Hoffmeyer>(ed.)(2008). *A
   Legacy for Living Systems: Gregory Bateson as a Precursor to
Biosemiotics.*Berlin: Springer.
   - Barbieri, Marcello (ed.) (2008). "The Codes of Life: The Rules of
   Macroevolution." Berlin: Springer.




On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 12:44 PM, Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>wrote:

> [Is his important to Permaculture? - LL]
>
>
> Microsoft Word - Energy semiosis and emergence- fin .doc -
> Energy_semiosis_and_emergence.pdf
>
> http://www.lindahall.org/services/reference/papers/fernandez/Energy_semiosis_and_emergence.pdf
>
> *Energy, Semiosis and Emergence*
> - The place of biosemiotics in an evolutionary conception of nature
> *Autonomy, i.e., selfruling or self-regulation, is a distinctive mark of
> organisms and living systems in general.*
> *Organisms are parts of the world that segregate themselves from the rest
> of it (their environment) through structures (membranes) *
> *that allow selective passage of various forms of matter, energy and
> information in and out of their constituted interior.*
> http://goo.gl/6mfPLZ
>
> Image:  http://goo.gl/1BG2f7
>



-- 
Lawrence F. London
lfljvenaura@gmail.com
http://www.avantgeared.com
https://plus.google.com/+Avantgeared
Skype: lawrence.f.london