Biosemiotics
Relevant terms
Definitions
Biosemiotics is a general study of knowing.
Kull, Kalevi. ‘Biosemiotics: To Know, What Life Knows’. Cybernetics and Human Knowing 16, no. 3–4 (2009): 81–88.
Semiosis is a collapse of multiple possibilities via choice. (and memory (or 'semiotic memory') is a choice that influences other choices) Semiosis solves problems, incompatibilities, etc. Life is then problem solving. Semiotic fitting: an agent's communicational match with its surroundings. Semiotic fitting is the basic aesthetic process. Older biological communities (living agents) are better fitted (as they develop more relationships over time as a tendency) and as such are more beautiful. Beauty is then perfect semiotic fitness, it is species-specific. Kalevi Kull, in this brief talk on aesthetics.
“All that a subject perceives becomes his perceptual world [Merkwelt] and all that he does, his effector world [Wirkwelt]. Perceptual and effector worlds together form a closed unit, the Umwelt” (von Uexküll, 1934/2010, p. 6).
Three species-specific spheres: (1) perceptual sphere, (2) ethogram sphere, and (3) social sphere.
Ethogram is the set of actions a species can perform.
Bueno-Guerra, Nereida. ‘How to Apply the Concept of Umwelt in the Evolutionary Study of Cognition’. Frontiers in Psychology 9 (2018): 2001. https://doi.org/10/gf9n67.
Key concepts:
- the primacy of relationships (not mechanistic interactions)
- the selection of variants expressing more efficient relationships in developing or evolving systems
- the environment perceived as a meaningful Umwelt by living systems with different sensory-motor capabilities
- organisms understood as teleological and sense-making subjects (the purpose they serve rather than the cause by which they arise)
Giorgi, Franco. ‘Life Sciences and the Natural History of Signs: Can the Origin of Life Processes Coincide with the Emergence of Semiosis?’ In Biosemiotics and Evolution: The Natural Foundations of Meaning and Symbolism, edited by Elena Pagni and Richard Theisen Simanke, 45–64. Cham: Springer, 2021.
Kull, Kalevi, Terrence Deacon, Claus Emmeche, Jesper Hoffmeyer, and Frederik Stjernfelt. ‘Theses on Biosemiotics: Prolegomena to a Theoretical Biology’. Biological Theory, 2009, 7. https://doi.org/10/bspfdg.
Kull, Kalevi, Claus Emmeche, and Donald Favareau. ‘Biosemiotic Questions’. Biosemiotics 1, no. 1 (2008): 41–55. https://doi.org/10/c836qr.
Umwelt
For the background:
Tønnessen, Morten, Riin Magnus, and Carlo Brentari. ‘The Biosemiotic Glossary Project: Umwelt’. Biosemiotics 9, no. 1 (2016): 129–49. https://doi.org/10/gp5nt3.
Definitions
Umwelt is the semiotic world of an organism.
Functional cycle is the mechanism of Umwelt-building. Consists of sensory and action processes, perceptions and effects. Constitutes the meaning-making activity of all organisms.
Examples:
- medium
- nourishment
- enemy
- sex
- in modified and human=controlled ecologies there could be other cycles.
For a human book might have a reading quality but for a dog the book might have a chewing quality.
From Uexküll:
For a girl who is picking flowers, the flower is regarded as an ornament. For an ant, part of the flower is a ladder to get to the petals. For a cicada-larva, the stem serves as a nest. For a cow, the flower serves as fodder.
The role of the meaning carrier (in this case the flower) changes to suit the interests of meaning makers.
Uexküll, Jakob von. A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With a Theory of Meaning. Translated by Joseph D. O’Neil. 1934. Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.
In Use
Schroer, Sara Asu. ‘Jakob von Uexküll: The Concept of Umwelt and Its Potentials for an Anthropology Beyond the Human’. Ethnos 86, no. 1 (2021): 132–52. https://doi.org/10/gpm2x3.
Ethical Umwelt
Ethical umwelt, the ability of humans to live in multiple worlds.
Koutroufinis, Spyridon. ‘Animal and Human “Umwelt” (Meaningful Environment)––Continuities and Discontinuities’. Balkan Journal of Philosophy 8, no. 1 (2016): 49–54. https://doi.org/10/f3mq3d.
Political (Dark?) Side of Umwelt
Jakob Johann von Uexküll and his work, as the work of others in this space had overlaps with scary ideologies of the time, including Nazism. Something to get educated about.
Stella, Marco, and Karel Kleisner. ‘Uexküllian Umwelt as Science and as Ideology: The Light and the Dark Side of a Concept’. Theory in Biosciences 129, no. 1 (2010): 39–51. https://doi.org/10/bspvvj.
Beever, Jonathan, and Morten Tønnessen. ‘“Darwin Und Die Englische Moral”: The Moral Consequences of Uexküll’s Umwelt Theory’. Biosemiotics 6, no. 3 (2013): 437–47. https://doi.org/10/gr4f3g.
Technologically Extended Umwelt
On the Impact and Standing of Biosemiotics
Cognitive ethology and "animal minds" overtook Sebeok and "semiotic self":
Maran, Timo. ‘Why Was Thomas A. Sebeok Not a Cognitive Ethologist? From “Animal Mind” to “Semiotic Self”’. Biosemiotics 3, no. 3 (2010): 315–29. https://doi.org/10/d6vxqm.
References
Uexküll, Jakob von. A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans: With a Theory of Meaning. Translated by Joseph D. O’Neil. 1934. Reprint, Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010.
Cobley, Paul. Cultural Implications of Biosemiotics. Dordrecht: Springer, 2016.
Hoffmeyer, Jesper. Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs. 2005. Reprint, Scranton: University of Scranton Press, 2008.
Farina, Almo. Soundscape Ecology: Principles, Patterns, Methods and Applications. Dordrecht: Springer, 2014.
Footnotes
Farina, Almo. Ecosemiotic Landscape: A Novel Perspective for the Toolbox of Environmental Humanities. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2021.˄
Farina, Almo, and Philip James. ‘Vivoscapes: An Ecosemiotic Contribution to the Ecological Theory’. Biosemiotics 14, no. 2 (2021): 419–31. https://doi.org/10/gr4fp2.˄
Backlinks