Abstract for 1st code biology conference: "Codes and interpretation in perception"

Yesterday I submitted the abstract below to the 1st International Conference in Code Biology (Paris, France, May 21-23, 2014).

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Codes and interpretation in perception

Morten Tønnessen, Associate professor at University of Stavanger’s Department of health studies 

In this talk I present work in progress on the role of interpretation vs. codes in perception, where perception is understood in terms of coherent (unified) subjective experience. I follow Jakob von Uexküll (1956, cf. 2010) in assuming that all organisms except plants and fungi have such coherent, unified subjective experience (i.e. Umwelt experience). 

My starting point is the tripartite Umwelt model (Tønnessen 2011), according to which any Umwelt has two aspects (core and mediated) and some have three (including conceptual). In Tønnessen, forthcoming, I outline the workings of the Umwelt in terms of these three aspects in more detail. We can generally conceive of six types, or categories, of acts, and these can be located within the three different aspects of the Umwelt: 

 Core Umwelt

- Automated acts of perception 

- Automated mental acts

Mediated Umwelt 

- Wilful acts of perception 

 - Wilful mental acts

Conceptual Umwelt    

- Habitual acts of perception 

- Habitual mental acts  

By automated, I mean the exact and physiologically based matching of something with something else, by wilful I mean the agenda- and interest-driven matching of something with something else, and by habitual I mean the learned matching of something with something else. Whereas conscious animals carry out all six types of acts, non-conscious creatures, in so far as they perceive, only carry out two, namely automated and wilful acts of perception. Habitual, i.e. conceptual acts are reserved for conscious creatures, but even bacteria can carry out wilful acts of perception, i.e. make choices based on interpretation. 

In general terms automated acts can be said to be code-based, whereas both wilful and habitual acts are interpretation-based. An implication of this claim is that the core Umwelt is generally code-based, and that the mediated Umwelt and the conceptual Umwelt are interpretation-based. If this is correct, the interpretive threshold is not located where animals with a nervous system meet creatures without a nervous system, nor where the biotic meets the abiotic. Instead, the interpretive threshold must be located where core experience meets mediated experience (and since these aspects often intermingle, the dividing line is not in plain sight). 

Questions for further investigation include the following: Can coding in automated acts of perception and in automated mental acts be understood within the framework of code biology (Barbieri, de Beule and Hofmeyr 2014)? Particularly, can they be understood as organic codes? While I have only begun reflecting on the notion of code itself, I will relate codes in perception as presented here to the notions of a neural code and of ecological codes. 

Acknowledgement: The research leading to these results received funding from the Norway Financial Mechanism 2009-2014 under project contract no EMP151, “Animals in changing environments: Cultural mediation and semiotic analysis”. 

References

Barbieri, Marcello, Joachim de Beule and Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr 2014. “Code biology: A glossary of terms and concepts”. URL: http://www.codebiology.org/glossary.html.

Tønnessen 2011. Umwelt Transition and Uexküllian Phenomenology – An Ecosemiotic Analysis of Norwegian Wolf Management (= Dissertationes Semioticae Universitatis Tartuensis 16). Doctoral dissertation. Tartu: Tartu University Press. 232 pp. Introduction available online.

Tønnessen, Morten, forthcoming. „Umwelt and language“. Cahiers de l’ILSL[l'Institut de Linguistique et des Sciences du Langage], special issue „Biosemiotic perspectives in linguistics“, edited by Ekaterina Velmezova, Stephen Cowley and Kalevi Kull.

Uexküll, Jakob von, 1956 [1934/1940]: Streifzüge durch die Umwelten von Tieren und Menschen: Ein Bilderbuch unsichtbarer Welten. Bedeutungslehre. Hamburg: Rowohlt.

Uexküll, Jakob von, 2010: A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans with a Theory of Meaning. Trans. of Uexküll 1956 [1934, 1940] by Joseph D. O’Neil. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press.

The base variants of semiotic causation

I am doing some writing, and in the process developing my notion of 'semiotic causation', which is coming to inhabit a central place in my semiotic worldview. Ten days ago I conceived of 'intentional causation' - the range of which in the realm of the living must correspond to each semiotician's notion of 'intention', which is likely to be somewhat intertwined with his or her notion of 'interpretation'.

Today I am introducing a distinction between 'horizontal semiotic causation' and 'vertical semiotic causation' tied to Peirce's levels of symbols (thirdness), indices (secondness) and icons (firstness), and a further distinction between 'mutual' and 'unilateral' semiotic causation (within either horizontal or vertical semiotic causation). Such subdivision is useful, but it should not be taken in any dogmatic vein. Part of my motivation is demonstrating the radical difference between semiotic interplay that is closed off from e.g. ecological developments (typically: horizontal semiotic causation, especially horizontal symbolic causation), and semiotic interplay which is in contact with such reality (typically: vertical semiotic causation).

Biosemiotic collage

A 48 pp email discussion following Marcello Barbieri's distribution of a paper now entitled "On the origin of language: A synthesis of Biolinguistics and Biosemiotics" has been posted to the blog Biosemiosis. The discussion featured one email from me (plus one email sent to Marcello Barbieri only, which has also been included in the collage). You'll find the post here, and the collage here.

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All in all the exchange included 79 emails (January 14th - February 6th). These include:

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2. My general post, sent to all on this biosemiotics email list:

Dear Marcello (and dear All),

I have a few comments/questions to your text (though I have little or nothing to contribute with concerning a general discussion about biolinguistics). First, though, I would like to ask where it will be published (as I would like to quote it in one of my articles-in-process).

Now, to questions and comments:
1) You write that "Sebeok’s conclusion that semiosis is based on interpretation is undoubtedly valid in animals, but ... not applicable, for example, to the cell, where the genetic code has been virtually the same for billions of years, which clearly shows that it does not depend on interpretation." It is not clear to me how the fact that the genetic code has been virtually the same practically forever shows that it does not depend on interpretation, since in order to function the genetic code must not only have been encoded but must further repeatedly be decoded - at a cellular level (and herein lies interpretation).

2) You claim that "animals do not interpret the world but only representations of the world. Any interpretation, in short, is always exercised on internal models of the environment, never on the environment itself". Sure, perception of "external reality" is always mediated. Nevertheless, "the environment" (in an objective sense) necessarily represents the final/ultimate object of any perception. The percepts are never identical to their final objects - but why stress that they are (fundamentally) different from them? That is trivially true. But related they are. Not even man can take in "reality" unmediated.

3) I find your explanations of how natural selection favors icons and indexes rewarding and interesting - but when you ask: "Why were animals unable to go beyond icons and indexes? Why didn’t they learn to use symbols?" I think you neglect some empirical evidence to the contrary.

4) I also found interesting your observation that in "all other mammals the wiring of the brain takes place almost completely in the dark and protected environment of the uterus, whereas in our species it takes place predominantly outside the uterus, where the body is exposed to the lights, the sounds and the smells of a constantly changing environment." This is clearly a key point.

morten tønnessen
http://utopianrealism.blogspot.com/

The first point, on our understanding of interpretation, was a recurring topic in the whole discussion. The third point I made, concerning the use of symbols among animals, made Marcello revise his article on this point, from a claim that animals do not make use of symbols to the much more correct claim that no animal make systematic use of symbols in any way comparable to man (cf. post 5, M.B.).

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76. My email to Marcello Barbieri:

Dear Marcello,

I have followed this discussion throughout, and realized how frustrating it must have been for you to see how few actually addressed the (new) substance of your article. That was a shame. Hopefully the ideas concerning the origin of language herein will be analysed in much more detail (from both sides of the fence) after your article has been published.

Best,
Morten

In addition, Marcello's reply to me (post 4) was referred to in posts 3 (Stanley Salthe), 40 and 48 (M.B.).