Towards a Biosemiotic

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Towards a Biosemiotic Epistemology Don
Favareau National University of
Singapore International Society for Biosemiotic
Studies www.biosemiotics.org/favareau/papers.html

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BIO SEMIOTICS
Life Processes Sign Processes
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FIRSTNESS Relations of Potentia,
possibility SECONDNESS Relations of Brute
force, actuality THIRDNESS Relations
of Regularity, law
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FIRSTNESS Relations of Immediate
sensation SECONDNESS Relations of Sensory
association THIRDNESS Relations of Pragmatic
knowledge
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FIRSTNESS Immediate sensation REPRESENTATION SECO
NDNESS Sensory association SIGNIFICATION THIRDNES
S Pragmatic knowledge MEANING
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FIRSTNESS Immediate sensation REPRESENTATION
ICONIC RELATIONS SECONDNESS Sensory
association SIGNIFICATION INDEXICAL
RELATIONS THIRDNESS Pragmatic knowledge MEANING
SYMBOLIC RELATIONS
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Dynamic Systems Theory
Umwelt Ecology
Peircean Semiotic
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FIRSTNESS Relations of Potentia,
possibility SECONDNESS Relations of Brute
force, actuality THIRDNESS Relations
of Regularity, law
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Dynamic Systems Theory
Umwelt Ecology
Peircean Semiotic
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BIOSEMIOTICS IS GROUNDED IN THE NATURALISTIC
ASSUMPTION THAT ALL FORMS OF ORGANIZATION IN THE
UNIVERSE EMERGE FROM INTERACTIONS WITHIN THE
SYSTEM. THE DIVERSITY OF ENTITIES ARISE AS
PRODUCED, TRANSIENT, CAUSAL POINTS OF ORDER.
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NATURAL FORMS ARE THE PRODUCT OF IRREVERSIBILE,
CONSEQUENTIAL CONSTRUCTIVISM IN THE ABSENCE OF
TELEOLOGICAL PURPOSES OR CENTRALLY ORGANIZED
CONTROL
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The Adjacent Possible Those possibilities that
have just been actualized - and the substrate
upon which immediate next actualization must take
place
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FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF ORGANIZATION
IRREVERSIBILITY INTERACTION EMERGENCE DOWNWARD
CAUSATION AUTOPOESIS
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Emergence Interaction among constituents
results in a property of the whole not found in
any of the properties of the parts
C
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Downward Causation Systemic Pressure increases
downwards with each meta-system transition upwards
C
D
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Autopoesis The measure of functional autonomy
in a systems ability to self-organize as a
result of the recursivity of its own top-down and
bottom-up interactions in coupling itself to
its environment
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FIRSTNESS Relations of Potentia,
possibility SECONDNESS Relations of Brute
force, actuality THIRDNESS Relations
of Regularity, law
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With this introduction of system agency, the
bidirectional causality that organized biotic
forms and their abiotic surrounds co-evolved
exponentially.
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FIRSTNESS Relations of Immediate
sensation SECONDNESS Relations of Sensory
association THIRDNESS Relations of Pragmatic
knowledge
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Subjective experience is an organizing principle
in nature
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Dynamic Systems Theory
Umwelt Ecology
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Perceptual capacities develop as organisms
mediate external and internal survival demands.
The sign relations constituting an organisms
perceptual domain comprise the umwelt in which it
chooses action.
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The smallest unit of information is a
difference that makes a difference to an
organism Gregory Bateson
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Dynamic Systems Theory
Umwelt Ecology
Peircean Semiotic
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FIRSTNESS Relations of Immediate
sensation SECONDNESS Relations of Sensory
association THIRDNESS Relations of Pragmatic
knowledge
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FIRSTNESS Immediate sensation REPRESENTATION SECO
NDNESS Sensory association SIGNIFICATION THIRDNES
S Pragmatic knowledge MEANING
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FIRSTNESS Immediate sensation REPRESENTATION
ICONIC RELATIONS SECONDNESS Sensory
association SIGNIFICATION INDEXICAL
RELATIONS THIRDNESS Pragmatic knowledge MEANING
SYMBOLIC RELATIONS
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REPRESENTATION
Apprehension of mind independent relations
constituting being or entity made present to
an organism directly and iconically
IMMEDIATE SENSATION
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ICONIC RELATIONS
the objects of experience perceived as
self-evident internally experienced distinctions
that carve the world up into things and states
whose externally existing relations genuinely do
share some trait, thus allowing an organism to
veridically (if only partially) KNOW the world
through the suprasubjective order of those
distinctions and their resemblances
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The smallest unit of information is a
difference that makes a difference to an
organism is also the ground of similarity
relations
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ICONIC RELATIONS
the objects of experience perceived as
self-evident internally experienced distinctions
that carve the world up into things and states
whose externally existing relations genuinely do
share some trait, thus allowing an organism to
veridically (if only partially) KNOW the world
through the suprasubjective order of those
distinctions and their resemblances
the relata of indexes
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FIRSTNESS Immediate sensation REPRESENTATION
ICONIC RELATIONS SECONDNESS Sensory
association SIGNIFICATION INDEXICAL
RELATIONS THIRDNESS Pragmatic knowledge MEANING
SYMBOLIC RELATIONS
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INDEXICAL RELATIONS
Apprehension of those consistently conjoined
mind-independent regularities having proven to
obtain between the iconic objects of experience.
Signs that connect, or point to, iconic relations
consistently connected to, but other than their
own (e.g., smoke to fire sounds to danger). The
relations involved in associative learning and
unlearning, both in ontogenetic and in
evolutionary time.
relations between icons relata for symbols
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SIGNIFICATION
Apprehension of mind independent relations
between being or entities made present to an
organism via internally generated indexical
mediation
SYSTEM-MEDIATED ASSOCIATION
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M
S
S
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FOOD
TRAIL
OBJECT
SIGN
NEST
INTERPRETANT
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FIRSTNESS Immediate sensation REPRESENTATION SECO
NDNESS Sensory association SIGNIFICATION THIRDNES
S Pragmatic knowledge MEANING
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M
S
S
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O
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E
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S
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S
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Knowledge has a history and is built
S
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O
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Autopoesis The measure of functional autonomy
in a systems ability to self-organize as a
result of the recursivity of its own top-down and
bottom-up interactions in coupling itself to
its environment
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SYMBOLS
Conventional, Virtual, Autopoetic
Signification via a dense web of inter-connected
reference where each sign connects to not a
single referent but to a whole system of signs
that are understood to be signs by their user
relations taken as signs qua signs
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Each subsequent representation in the semiotic
chain represents the prior object-sign relation,
taken itself as a higher-level semiotic object
(Parmentier, 19945)
The Peircean interpretant is a last
context-formed and next context-creating response
that can then be embedded into upwardly ascending
and downwardly causal chains that we call,
colloquially and with good reason, knowing
about and acting upon the world, respectively
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SYMBOLIC RELATIONS
IDEATION
INDEXICAL RELATIONS
ASSOCIATION
ICONIC RELATIONS
PERCEPTION
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SEMANTIC WEBS
SYMBOLIC RELATIONS
INDEXICAL RELATIONS
HEBBIAN ASSEMBLIES
ICONIC RELATIONS
SINGLE NEURON ACTIVATION
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ICONIC RELATIONS
INDEXICAL RELATIONS
SYMBOLIC RELATIONS
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SYMBOLIZATION
purely intra-system generated relations flexible
and conventional rather than determinist and
necessary its object may be either mind
independent or mind dependant but is always
mediated by a second-order apprehension of the
relations between relations
LANGUAGE, SYMBOLIC THOUGHT
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FIRSTNESS Immediate sensation REPRESENTATION
ICONIC RELATIONS SECONDNESS Sensory
association SIGNIFICATION INDEXICAL
RELATIONS THIRDNESS Pragmatic knowledge MEANING
SYMBOLIC RELATIONS
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• Three stages of reorganization in the
  internalization of symbols
• Completing a symbolically initiated action
• 2. Stabilising an ongoing external activity with
  symbols
• 3. Establishing ongoing internal activity
  regulation with symbols
• (v. Clowes 2005, Cowley 2007)

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FIRSTNESS Relations of Potentia,
possibility SECONDNESS Relations of Brute
force, actuality THIRDNESS Relations
of Regularity, law
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The Adjacent Possible Those possibilities that
have just been actualized - and the substrate
upon which immediate next actualization must take
place
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The Relevant Next What possibilities have just
been made available for immediate next action?
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Collapsing the Wave Function of Possibility
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Collapsing the Wave Function of Meaning
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NP
CONJ
Hhmmm . Eh, well, then, uh you you cn
ask Charles caus maybe well, he has con
NECT tionsI mean, dudnt he .?
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CONJ
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NP
CONJ
TRP
HDG
Hhmmm . Eh, well, then, uh you you cn
ask Charles caus maybe well, he has con
NECT tionsI mean, dudnt he .?
ACCT
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CONJ
SR
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FLLIN
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Fetishism consists of seeing the meaning of
things as an inherent part of their physical
existence, when in fact, that meaning is only
created by their integration into a system of
relations Sut Jhally (198727).
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