permaculture

[Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>]

A few interesting comments at Google+, futuristic things happening in
science, society and human evolution - good food for thought - no idea how
this
relates to Permaculture (other than the reference to Odum and energy flow
[Emergy, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergy], "information is an ordered
energy flow",
but I feel that it does in many ways, particularly techno-socio-economic
and ecological dynamics in a changing world. Also, could the following
apply to Permaculture itself?
"this kind of pseudo scientific philosophy relevant as a practical addition
to the scientific vernacular" Gaia has to weather humans experimenting with
their nurturing nest and remain in one piece.
I wonder what Toby thinks about biosemiotics. - LL

<>
G+ Comments on the article, without attribution:

"We are molecular curiosity machines that want to be stroked.  We are
molecular and then in perception we are rock stars .... we are paradoxes in
smoking boxes.
And having tea just across from some interesting ppl just like us but
different"

"Great lines of inquiry - our conversing, languaging, IS the UX.
Biosemiotics helps here by providing scientific rigour."

"Interesting reading and comments. I'm struck by the notion that this
interplay of these core dynamics; autonomy, segregation and then the
presumed outcome of a seperate(ing) distinction beginning its own
evolutionary track... might describe a forthcoming evolutionary break in
humans with a subset more and more developing, adapting and understanding
technology and science for its/their benefit to a point at some point where
they separate and form their own eventual species (or at least worlds)...
through both accelerated biological evolution (e.g. DNA modification) and
rapid technological augmentation. Fancy way of simply saying this may be an
empirical way of thinking about and describing the growing differences
between the 'halves and have nots'... this theory being a means of not only
explaining it but predicting its eventual outcome - a new (super)
class/race/species of humans you embrace(d) and evolved with technological
apart from those who didn't/don't.
I'm struck by the difference in thought process and direction of these
types of conversations (rational, logical, scientific, reasoned) as
diametrically opposed to another conversation as illustrated by the Pew
Study this week where there is a growing disbelief (non-understanding, its
not really a belief) in evolution, a concept so basic and foundational for
any form of conversation or progress along the lines discussed here. One
group is moving forward, another staying stuck in place (even moving
backwards) - perhaps with Biosemiotics concepts producing a new unique
branch.
www.pewforum.org/2013/12/30/publics-views-on-human-evolution/ "

"The author needs to invoke wider information theory and could benefit from
the concept that information is an ordered energy flow ... (Shannon, Hebb,
Odum, Bertalanffy, Miller, Swenson, Varela, Maturana etc...) Getting stuck
on abstracted semiotics in this endeavor is imho a dead-end..."

"It's a collective concern already, as eg outlined in the movie Elysium.
>From where I sit, we need to extend Kevin Kelly's question:
*What does technology want?*
And ask ourselves what we want to draw forth."

"From everything I've read about biosemiotics and everything in the
article.. Quiet honestly I think the entire 'field' if it could be called
that is questionable at best.

We do not have even a shadow of enough knowledge about biology or physical
aspects of mind in general to make this kind of pseudo scientific
philosophy relevant as a practical addition to the scientific vernacular."



On Wed, Jan 1, 2014 at 12:53 PM, Lawrence London <lfljvenaura@gmail.com>wrote:

> 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
>



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