Biosemiotics
Relevant terms:
- Umwelt or 'meaningful experience'.
- zoosemiotics
- ecosemiotics, grounded biosemiotics 2
- vivoscapes 1
- biosemiotic landscape
- biosemiotic ecology
Definitions
Biosemiotics is the study of knowing in living systems.
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, (3) social sphere.
An 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, rather than mechanistic interactions.
- The selection of variants that express more efficient relationships in developing or evolving systems.
- The environment is perceived as a meaningful Umwelt by living systems with different sensory-motor capabilities.
- Organisms are understood as teleological and sense-making subjects, defined by the purposes they serve rather than the causes 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 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 refers to the semiotic world of an organism.
A functional cycle is the mechanism of Umwelt construction. It consists of sensory and action processes, perceptions, and effects, constituting the meaning-making activity of all organisms.
Examples:
- medium
- nourishment
- enemy
- sex
- in modified and human-controlled ecologies, other cycles may exist.
For a human, a book may have a reading quality; for a dog, the book may have a chewing quality.
From Uexküll:
For a girl picking flowers, the flower is an ornament. For an ant, part of the flower is a ladder to reach the petals. For a cicada larva, the stem serves as a nest. For a cow, the flower is 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
The ethical umwelt refers to the human ability to inhabit 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
Body Hacking and Sensory Extensions
A notable example of the technologically extended umwelt is body hacking, in which individuals modify their bodies with technological implants to enhance sensory capacities. These modifications may add new senses or augment existing ones. For example, some individuals have implanted magnets in their fingertips to detect electromagnetic fields, while others have developed devices that enable the perception of ultraviolet light or echolocation.
Kadlecová, Jana, and Jaroslav Krbec. “Umwelt Extended: Toward New Approaches in the Study of the Technologically Modified Body.” Journal of Posthuman Studies 4, no. 2 (2020): 178–94. https://doi.org/10/gqx7m4.
Modern technological developments can disrupt or enhance the semiotic environments of organisms, resulting in new ecological and biosemiotic dynamics.
Tønnessen, Morten, Riin Magnus, and Carlo Brentari. “The Biosemiotic Glossary Project: Umwelt.” Biosemiotics 9, no. 1 (2016): 129–49. https://doi.org/10/gp5nt3.
Chrulew, Matthew. “Reconstructing the Worlds of Wildlife: Uexküll, Hediger, and Beyond.” Biosemiotics 13, no. 1 (2020): 137–49. https://doi.org/10/ggxrdm.
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.˄
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