Towards A Semiotic Biology: Life Is The Action Of Signs

Towards A Semiotic Biology: Life Is The Action Of Signs PDF Author: Kalevi Kull
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 1908977817
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
This book presents programmatic texts on biosemiotics, written collectively by world leading scholars in the field (Deacon, Emmeche, Favareau, Hoffmeyer, Kull, Markoš, Pattee, Stjernfelt). In addition, the book includes chapters which focus closely on semiotic case studies (Bruni, Kotov, Maran, Neuman, Turovski).According to the central thesis of biosemiotics, sign processes characterise all living systems and the very nature of life, and their diverse phenomena can be best explained via the dynamics and typology of sign relations. The authors are therefore presenting a deeper view on biological evolution, intentionality of organisms, the role of communication in the living world and the nature of sign systems — all topics which are described in this volume. This has important consequences on the methodology and epistemology of biology and study of life phenomena in general, which the authors aim to help the reader better understand.

Towards A Semiotic Biology: Life Is The Action Of Signs

Towards A Semiotic Biology: Life Is The Action Of Signs PDF Author: Kalevi Kull
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 1908977817
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book presents programmatic texts on biosemiotics, written collectively by world leading scholars in the field (Deacon, Emmeche, Favareau, Hoffmeyer, Kull, Markoš, Pattee, Stjernfelt). In addition, the book includes chapters which focus closely on semiotic case studies (Bruni, Kotov, Maran, Neuman, Turovski).According to the central thesis of biosemiotics, sign processes characterise all living systems and the very nature of life, and their diverse phenomena can be best explained via the dynamics and typology of sign relations. The authors are therefore presenting a deeper view on biological evolution, intentionality of organisms, the role of communication in the living world and the nature of sign systems — all topics which are described in this volume. This has important consequences on the methodology and epistemology of biology and study of life phenomena in general, which the authors aim to help the reader better understand.

Towards a Semiotic Biology

Towards a Semiotic Biology PDF Author: Claus Emmeche
Publisher: World Scientific
ISBN: 1848166877
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
This book presents programmatic texts on biosemiotics, written collectively by world leading scholars in the field (Deacon, Emmeche, Favareau, Hoffmeyer, Kull, Marko?, Pattee, Stjernfelt). In addition, the book includes chapters which focus closely on semiotic case studies (Bruni, Kotov, Maran, Neuman, Turovski). According to the central thesis of biosemiotics, sign processes characterise all living systems and the very nature of life, and their diverse phenomena can be best explained via the dynamics and typology of sign relations. The authors are therefore presenting a deeper view on biological evolution, intentionality of organisms, the role of communication in the living world and the nature of sign systems - all topics which are described in this volume. This has important consequences on the methodology and epistemology of biology and study of life phenomena in general, which the authors aim to help the reader better understand.

Biosemiotics

Biosemiotics PDF Author: Jesper Hoffmeyer
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781589661844
Category : Biology
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
Recent debates surrounding the teaching of biology divide participants into three camps based on how they explain the appearance of the human race: evolution, creationism, or intelligent design. Biosemiotics discovers an intriguing higher ground respecting those opposing theories by arguing that questions of meaning and experiential life can be integrated into the scientific study of nature. This groundbreaking book shows how the linguistic powers of humans imply that consciousness emerges in the evolutionary process and that life is based on sign action, not just molecular interaction. Biosemiotics will be essential reading for anyone interested in the nexus of linguistic possibility and biological reality.

Introduction to Biosemiotics

Introduction to Biosemiotics PDF Author: Marcello Barbieri
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402048149
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 530

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Book Description
Combining research approaches from biology, philosophy and linguistics, the field of Biosemiotics proposes that animals, plants and single cells all engage in semiosis – the conversion of objective signals into conventional signs. This has important implications and applications for issues ranging from natural selection to animal behavior and human psychology, leaving biosemiotics at the cutting edge of the research on the fundamentals of life. Drawing on an international expertise, the book details the history and study of biosemiotics, and provides a state-of-the-art summary of the current work in this new field. And, with relevance to a wide range of disciplines – from linguistics and semiotics to evolutionary phenomena and the philosophy of biology – the book provides an important text for both students and established researchers, while marking a vital step in the evolution of a new biological paradigm.

Global Semiotics

Global Semiotics PDF Author: Thomas A. Sebeok
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253339577
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
The study of semiotics underwent a gradual but radical paradigm shift during the past century, from a glottocentric (language-centered) enterprise to one that encompasses the whole terrestrial biosphere. In this collection of 17 essays, Thomas A. Sebeok, one of the seminal thinkers in the field, shows how this progression took place. His wide-ranging discussion of the evolution of the field covers many facets, including discussions of biosemiotics, semiotics as a bridge between the humanities and natural sciences, semiosis, nonverbal communication, cat and horse behavior, the semiotic self, and women in semiotics. This thorough account will appeal to seasoned scholars and neophytes alike.

Mimicry and Meaning: Structure and Semiotics of Biological Mimicry

Mimicry and Meaning: Structure and Semiotics of Biological Mimicry PDF Author: Timo Maran
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319503170
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
The present book analyses critically the tripartite mimicry model (consisting of the mimic, model and receiver species) and develops semiotic tools for comparative analysis. It is proposed that mimicry has a double structure where sign relations in communication are in constant interplay with ecological relations between species. Multi-constructivism and toolbox-like conceptual methods are advocated for, as these allow taking into account both the participants’ Umwelten as well as cultural meanings related to specific mimicry cases. From biosemiotic viewpoint, mimicry is a sign relation, where deceptively similar messages are perceived, interpreted and acted upon. Focusing on living subjects and their communication opens up new ways to understand mimicry. Such view helps to explain the diversity of mimicry as well as mimicry studies and treat these in a single framework. On a meta-level, a semiotic view allows critical reflection on the use of mimicry concept in modern biology. The author further discusses interpretations of mimicry in contemporary semiotics, analyses mimicry as communicative interaction, relates mimicry to iconic signs and focuses on abstract resemblances in mimicry. Theoretical discussions are illustrated with detailed excursions into practical mimicry cases in nature (brood parasitism, eyespots, myrmecomorphy, etc.). The book concludes with a conviction that mimicry should be treated in a broader semiotic-ecological context as it presumes the existence of ecological codes and other sign conventions in the ecosystem.

Signs of Meaning in the Universe

Signs of Meaning in the Universe PDF Author: Jesper Hoffmeyer
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 9780253112675
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 190

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Book Description
From reviews for the bestselling Danish edition: "... dashing and idiomatic language that is a pleasure to read." -- Berlingske Tidende "... an appetizer and eye opener... Hoffmeyer is a modernistic pioneer in the wide open spaces of the natural sciences... " -- Politiken "... extremely well written and interesting manifesto for a bioanthropology... " -- Inf. "It should be read by anyone who likes to be wiser and at the same time to be challenged in his habitual conception of the relations between culture and nature." -- Weekend Avisen On this tour of the universe of signs, Jesper Hoffmeyer travels back to the Big Bang, visits the tiniest places deep within cells, and ends his journey with us -- complex organisms capable of speech and reason. What propels this journey is Hoffmeyer's attempt to discover how nature could come to mean something to someone -- by telling the story of how cells, tissue, organs, plants, animals, even entire ecosystems communicate by signs and signals.

Biosemiotics

Biosemiotics PDF Author: Marcello Barbieri
Publisher: Nova Publishers
ISBN: 9781600216121
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 272

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Book Description
This book presents contexts and associations of the semiotic view in biology, by making a short review of the history of the trends and ideas of biosemiotics, or semiotic biology, in parallel with theoretical biology. Biosemiotics can be defined as the science of signs in living systems. A principal and distinctive characteristic of semiotic biology lies in the understanding that in living, entities do not interact like mechanical bodies, but rather as messages, the pieces of text. This means that the whole determinism is of another type.

A Legacy for Living Systems

A Legacy for Living Systems PDF Author: Jesper Hoffmeyer
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1402067062
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
Gregory Bateson’s contribution to 20th century thinking has appealed to scholars from a wide range of fields dealing in one way or another with aspects of communication and epistemology. A number of his insights were taken up and developed further in anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology and communication theory. But the large, trans-disciplinary synthesis that, in his own mind, was his major contribution to science received little attention from the mainstream scientific communities. This book represents a major attempt to revise this deficiency. Scholars from ecology, biochemistry, evolutionary biology, cognitive science, anthropology and philosophy discuss how Bateson's thinking might lead to a fruitful reframing of central problems in modern science. Most important perhaps, Bateson's bioanthropology is shown to play a key role in developing the set of ideas explored in the new field of biosemiotics. The idea that organismic life is indeed basically semiotic or communicative lies at the heart of the biosemiotic approach to the study of life. The only book of its kind, this volume provides a key resource for the quickly-growing substratum of scholars in the biosciences, philosophy and medicine who are seeking an elegant new approach to exploring highly complex systems.

Signs and Symbols in Education

Signs and Symbols in Education PDF Author: Francois Victor Tochon
Publisher: Deep University Press
ISBN: 9781939755278
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 146

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Book Description
In this monograph on Educational Semiotics, Francois Victor Tochon has produced a work that is truly groundbreaking on a number of fronts. First of all, in his concise but brilliant introductory comments, Tochon clearly debunks the notion that semiotics might provide yet another methodological tool in the toolkit of educational researchers. Drawing skillfully on the work of Peirce, Deely, Sebeok, Merrell, and others, Tochon shows us just how fundamentally different semiotic research can be when compared to the modes and techniques that have dominated educational research for many decades. He points out how semiotic methods can provide the capability for both students and researchers to look at this basic and fundamental human process in inescapably transformational ways, by acknowledging and accepting that the path to knowledge is, in his words "through the fixation of belief." In four brilliantly conceived studies, he shows us how semiotic concepts in general, and semiotic mapping in particular, can allow both student teachers and researchers alike insights in these students' development of insights and concepts into the very heart of the teaching and learning process. By tackling both theoretical and practical research considerations, Tochon has provided the rest of us the beginnings of a blueprint that, if adopted, can push educational research out of its entrenchment in the Age of Ideas into the new and exciting frontiers of the Age of Signs. This is a brilliant book and should be read not only by semioticians and educators, but also by anyone who wants to understand how we learn above and beyond the instinctual biological system with which we are endowed. Marcel Danesi, Professor of Linguistic Anthropology, University of Toronto What does semiotics, often seen as an abstract theorization of how symbols function, have to say to educators trying to do the difficult job of supporting student learning? Francois Victor Tochon offers us a sampling of practical teaching and research tools based in semiotic principles that help move education away from fixed methods, best practices, and rigid content standards toward understanding learning as coming at meaning sideways and creatively, always re-defining, re-imagining, and improvising for our own purposes here and now. Educators and education researchers sorely need to learn this lesson. Jay Lemke, Department of Communication, University of California-San Diego Educational Semiotics is a highly original work of scholarship. In four ingeniously designed studies, Francois Tochon demonstrates how semiotic analysis can be used to deconstruct the professional learning experiences of preservice teachers. These studies offer startling insights into the creative application of semiotic methods, the understanding of long standing issues in teacher education, and the nature of learning in situated contexts. Thus, this book is helpful to semioticians, teacher educators, and all those interested in how professionals learn through experience. The implications of his work are profound and their potential for further investigation is enormous. Tochon is pointing the way to a new field of endeavor that he has termed Educational Semiotics. John Henning, former President of Semiotics in Education at the American Educational Research Association, Ohio University Tochon's raises contemporary questions about the search for meaning and the processes through which we make meaning. His work demonstrates that meaning classifications are not products of a static system, but rather dynamic events which reshape their organizing as a continuous process of meaning creation. The four studies in this book are rich, flexible, and reflect critical knowledge transformation. Elvira Kati, Semiotic Society of America, Professor of Education, Ramapo College of New Jersey"