Displaying: 41-60 of 1237 documents

0.069 sec

41. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Dominique Lestel Human/animal communications, language, and evolution
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The article compares the research programs of teaching symbolic language to chimpanzees, pointing on the dichotomy between artificial language vs. ASL, and the dichotomy between researchers who decided to establish emotional relationships between themselves and the apes, and those who have seen apes as instrumental devices. It is concluded that the experiments with the most interesting results have been both with artificial language and ASL, but with strong affiliation between researchers and animal involved in the experiments. The experiments on talking apes are not so much experiments in psycholinguistics (how far can animal learn human language) but wonderful experiments in the communities of communication between human beings and great apes.
42. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Frederik Stjernfelt Tractatus Hoffmeyerensis: Biosemiootika väljendatuna 22 alushüpoteesi kaudu. Kokkuvõte
43. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Andres Luure Understanding life: Trans-semiotic analogies
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This paper sketches a network of analogies reaching from linguosemiotics (including theory of reference in analytical philosophy of language) to biosemiotics. It results in the following proportion: attributive use of referring expressions : referential use of referring expressions : ‘generative’ use of referring expressions = signifying : referring : ‘poetic pointing’ = ‘functional’ semiosis : ‘adaptational’ semiosis : semiosis in the narrow sense.
44. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Andres Luure Elu mõistmise poole: transsemiootilised analoogiad. Kokkuvõte
45. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Mihhail Lotman Umwelt and semiosphere
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
In the paper an attempt is made to treat the basic concepts of biosemiotics and semiotics of culture in a wide intellectual context. The three leading paradigms of the current intellectual discourse are distinguished, which could be conventionally designated as “classical”, “modern” and “postmodern”: Peirce’s semiosis stands for the classical, Umwelt for the modern and semiosphere for the postmodern semiotic space.
46. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Peter Harries-Jones Kui seosed muutuvad siduvateks: Batesoni interaktiivse vaate olulisusest biosemiootikale. Kokkuvõte
47. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Claus Emmeche Kana ja Orpheuse muna: tähenduse funktsioonist ja funktsiooni tähendusest. Kokkuvõte
48. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Søren Brier Intrasemiootika ja kübersemiootika. Kokkuvõte
49. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Søren Brier Intrasemiotics and cybersemiotics
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The concept of intrasemiotics designates the semiosis of the interpenetration between the biological and psychological autopoietic systems as Luhmann defines them in his theory. Combining a Peircian concept of semiosis with Luhmann’s theory in the framework of biosemiotics makes it possible for us to view the interplay of mind and body as a sign play. The recently suggested term ‘sign play’ pertains to ecosemiotics processes between animals of the same species stretching Wittgenstein’s language concept into the animal world of signs. With intrasemiotics there is an inner interplay. Lorenz in ethology has used the concept of motivation, and Uexküll the concept of tone, mostly describing the outgoing effect on perception and the reactions on perception. One could view intrasemiotics as the interplay between Lorenz’ biologically defined motivations and Freud’s Id, understood as the psychological aspect of many of the natural drives. In the last years of development of his theory Lorenz studied how emotional feedback can introduce just a little learning through pleasurable feelings also into the instinctivesystems because, as he reasoned, there must be some kind of reward going through instinctive movements, thus making the appetitive searching behaviourfor sign stimuli possible. But he never found an acceptable way of modelling motivation in biological science. A cybersemiotic model may combine these approaches, defining various concepts of thoughtsemiotics, phenosemiotic and intrasemiotics, combining them with the already known concepts of exosemiotics, ecosemiotics, endosemiotics to an approach which studies the self-organising semiotic processes in living systems.
50. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Donald Favareau Beyond self and other: On the neurosemiotic emergence of intersubjectivity
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The explosive growth over the last two decades of neuroscience, cognitive science, and “consciousness studies” as generally conceived, remains as yet unaccompanied by a corresponding development in the establishment of an explicitly semiotic understanding of how the relations of sign exchange at the neuronal level function in the larger network of psychologically accessible sign exchange. This article attempts a preliminary foray into the establishment of just such a neurosemiotic. It takes, as its test case and as its point of departure, recent discoveries from the neurobiological research on viuso-motor transformations and on the widespread cortical phenomena of selectively tuned, single-neuron response to argue for a vision of “intersubjectivity” whereby the ens rationis arising as a function of the neuronal semiosphere may be abstracted, constructed, and shared mutually across agents.
51. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Tommi Vehkavaara Why and how to naturalize semiotic concepts for biosemiotics
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
Any attempt to develop biosemiotics either towards a new biological ground theory or towards a metaphysics of living nature necessitates some kind of naturalization of its semiotic concepts. Instead of standard physicalistic naturalism, a certain kind of semiotic naturalism is pursued here. The naturalized concepts are defined as referring only to the objects of our external experience. When the semiotic concepts are applied to natural phenomena in biosemiotics, there is a risk of falling into anthropomorphic errors if the semiotic concepts remain mentalistic. It is suggested that there really is an anthropomorphic error or “hidden prototype fallacy” arising from Peirce’s prototype for semiosis: the research process of an experimental scientist. The fallacy lies in the concept of the object of representation — it is questionable whether there are any objects of representation for bacteria and whether the DNA-signs have any objects. The conclusion is that Peircean semiotic concepts are naturalizable but only if they are based on some more primitive concept of representation. The causal origins of representations are not relevant, only their anticipative consequences (i.e. meaning).
52. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Peder Voetmann Christiansen Habitueerumine kui sümmeetria murdumine varases universumis. Kokkuvõte
53. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Vefa Karatary, Yağmur Denizhan Evolution of the “window”
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
We propose a general model that integrates meta-system transition theory with biosemiotics on the basis of an “evolvable window” metaphor. The evolution of the “window” proceeds via meta-system transitions, during which new windows are created iteratively on the “inner” side of the preexisting ones, generating a “telescope” growing inwards starting from the “outside”. The tendency of “inwards growth” of the “telescope” can be explained in terms of the following circular causality: (1) the tendency leading from unity towards individualisation, (2) individual learning providing a basis for more complex semiotic interactions, (3) creation of additional, nonconflicting “values” leading to habit formation, (4) strong control bringing forth a unification at a higher (meta-system) level. Using the proposed metaphor we hope to provide clarity to the fluctuation between objectivity and subjectivity inherent to the circular causality loop described above.
54. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Aleksei Turovski On the zoosemiotics of health and disease
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The main feature of the signs of health in the animal habitus and behaviour can be characterised as the readiness to adequately (for a species) serve the need for impression (in animalistic elements of the Umwelt). The signs of disease, however multifarious and diverse, generally display certain lack of Umwelt-oriented attentiveness, alertness. Attention of deeply afflicted animals is strongly Innenwelt-oriented; and in some species a set of such signs, suggesting sickness or mortal disease is used as a set of traits in the mimicry of dying. The semiotic factors in health-disease relationships are apparently connected with intuition — like responses creating in the semiosphere a structure of Umwelt-Innenwelt polarized tensions, important in ecological and evolutional developments.
55. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Peder Voetmann Christiansen Habit formation as symmetry breaking in the early universe
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
This paper tries to combine Peirce’s cosmology and metaphysics with current understanding in physics of the evolution of the universe, regarded as an ongoing semiotic process in a living cosmos. While the basic property of Life is viewed as an unexplainable Firstness inherent in the initial iconic state of the vacuous continuum we shall consider and exemplify two sign developing processes: (a) the transition from icon to index is considered as a symmetry breaking emergence of order actualising one among the possibilities of the iconic vacuum; (b) the transition from index to symbol, regarded as a habit formation — an adaptation of the surroundings to the order that has emerged. While the iconic state is characterized by fractal self-similarity the transitions to index and symbol are modelled by the mean field theory of second order phase transitions.
56. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Kalevi Kull Märk ei ole elus. Tekst küll. Kokkuvõte
57. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Luis Emilio Bruni Does “quorum sensing” imply a new type of biological information?
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
When dealing with biological communication and information, unifying concepts are necessary in order to couple the different “codes” that are being inductively “cracked” and defined at different emergent and “deemergent” levels of the biological hierarchy. In this paper I compare the type of biological information implied by genetic information with that implied in the concept of “quorum sensing” (which refers to a prokaryotic cell-to-cell communication system) in order to explore if such integration is being achieved. I use the Lux operon paradigm and the Vibrio fischeri – Euprymna scolopes symbiotic partnership to exemplify the emergence of informational contexts along the biological hierarchy (from molecules to ecologies). I suggest that the biosemiotic epistemological framework can play an integrative role to overcome the limits of dyadic mechanistic descriptions when relating the different emergent levels. I also emphasise that the realisation ofbiology as being a “science of sensing” and the new importance that is being ascribed to the “context” in experimental biology corroborate past claims ofbiosemioticians about a shift from a focus on information (as a material agent of causality) towards a focus on the world of signification.
58. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Elling Ulvestad Biosemiotic knowledge — a prerequisite for valid explorations of extraterrestrial intelligent life
abstract | view |  rights & permissions
The scientific search for extraterrestrial intelligent life is probably one of the most ambitious projects ever taken in biology. The article discusses methodological problems associated with the search. It is emphasized that investigators of extraterrestrial intelligence, in contrast to investigators of terrestrial matters, have no valid pre-understanding of their subject matter. In this barren setting, utilization of semiotic knowledge is shown to be a prerequisite for achievement of valid data. Owing to methodological shortcomings, it is concluded that the NASA funded project SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) has little if any relevance for the detection of intelligent life in other worlds.
59. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Andreas Weber “Tundes” märke: tähenduse päritolu Susanne K. Langeri ja Hans Jonase bioloogilises filosoofias. Kokkuvõte
60. Sign Systems Studies: Volume > 30 > Issue: 1
Elling Ulvestad Biosemiootilise teadmise tarvilikkus maavälise mõistusliku elu usaldusväärseil otsinguil. Kokkuvõte