Updated reference for forthcoming reprint of "Existential universals" article

My article "Existential universals: Biosemiosis and existential semiosis", first published as (see also here):

Tønnessen, Morten (2017). Existential universals: Biosemiosis and existential semiosis. Chinese Semiotic Studies 13(4): 381–398. Published online November 16th 2017. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/css-2017-0022.

will as mentioned earlier be reprinted in the anthology Transcending Signs (for which it was initially intended). Updated reference for the chapter to be reprinted:

Tønnessen, Morten, forthcoming. Existential universals: Biosemiosis and existential semiosis. To be reprinted in Eero Tarasti, Sayantan Dasgupta and Paul Forsell (eds.), Transcending Signs – Essays in Existential Semiotics. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 

#15

Today I have had an article writing day devoted to revising and commenting on chapter 7, "Semiosis", for our book Semiotic agency, with some 400 words written. Total number of writing days this Spring is up to 15.

Call for contributions - more-than-human rhetorics?

I have shared a call for contributions on the Biosemiosis blog, "Rhetorical Animals: Boundaries of the Human in the Study of Persuasion" (book volume, eds. Alex Parrish and Kristian Bjørkdahl).

2nd biosemiotic survey - 'Umwelt' (deadline August 20th)

The questionnaire for the second survey in the biosemiotic community conducted by the journal Biosemiotics as part of the biosemiotic glossary project has just been presented. See the blog post 2nd survey conducted by Biosemiotics - 'Umwelt' (the biosemiotic glossary project) in the Biosemiosis blog. The questionnarie is also to be found on my Academia.edu profile page - see here. Deadline for participation in the survey is August 20th.

See also:

Second biosemiotic glossary review article to review 'Umwelt' notion

The journal Biosemiotics to reorganize Editorial Board

The Springer journal Biosemiotics, for which I am one of three Editors-in-Chief, is in a process of reorganizing its Editorial Board. Candidates with documented competence in biosemiotics can contact the editors in order to be considered for the new and revised editorial board. For details see "Message on the editorial board of Biosemiotics (Springer)", posted in the Biosemiosis blog.

The biosemiotic glossary project announced and started - first terms to be reviewed 'agent', 'agency'

Yesterday I posted "Questionnaire from Biosemiotics - and info about the biosemiotic glossary project" in the Biosemiosis blog. The text, which I also distributed on an email list and by email, reads like this:

Dear all,

on behalf of the journal Biosemiotics, I refer you to a questionnaire which we now distribute in the biosemiotic community in preparation of the biosemiotic glossary project. The editorial team of Biosemiotics, which counts Alexei Sharov, Timo Maran and myself (note that in parallel Marcello is finishing the final issues he is responsible for the next few months), has decided to go through with this project, and that I will be its handling editor.

The genre for the resulting publications will be invited review articles. The first, standard-setting review article, on the notions ‘agent’ and ‘agency’, will be written by me personally. One review will be published in each regular issue of Biosemiotics – in other words, usually there will be two review articles per year. The first article will appear in no. 3/2014. Each article will review one or more terms.

While I am the handling editor for these review articles, all three of us will be involved in decision making. We will routinely discuss and decide on what term(s) to review next, what author(s) to invite to write each review, etc. As part of the editorial process, each review article will, when submitted, be distributed to the members of the editorial board of Biosemiotics and further to those cited in the article, for feedback. This will be part of the basis for our editorial decision concerning whether the review is ready to be published or needs revisions.

A survey in the biosemiotic community will be conducted in preparation of each review article. The associated questionnaire, which is to be returned to me as handling editor, will be distributed to a wide range of biosemioticians, including but not necessarily restricted to/via the members of the editorial board and advisory board of Biosemiotics, the biosemiotics email list (biosemiotics@lists.ut.ee), the board members of the International Society for Biosemiotic Studies (ISBS), the board members of the International Society of Code Biology (ISCB), and the Biosemiosis blog (http://biosemiosis.blogspot.com/).

The invited author(s) will in each case be tasked with describing the outcomes of the survey associated with their review article, and to do so systematically and in an unbiased manner. However, when it comes to synthesis and suggestions, they will have the freedom to propose their own view even if it contradicts the general/popular understanding. In the writing process, all assigned authors are expected to conduct an extensive literature review on their own as well.

All respondents to the first survey in the biosemiotic community are, as part of the survey, invited to propose specific terms to review. Suitable terms should be quite concisely used by several biosemioticians, and if the terms are in more general usage as well, the biosemiotic usage of the terms should somehow stand out from general usage.

The deadline for returning the attached questionnaire is December 15^th. It should be sent to my email address (mortentoennessen AT gmail.com or alternatively morten.tonnessen AT uis.no).

My best,

Morten Tønnessen

Co-Editor-in-Chief of Biosemiotics

PS: The questionnaire is available via my Academia.edu page, here.

NASS VIII abstract on early human Umwelt accepted

Some two weeks ago I was informed that my abstract "The ontogeny of the embryonic, fetal and infant human Umwelt" has been accepted for presentation at the 8th conference of the Nordic Association for Semiotic Studies, Sign Evolution on Multiple Time Scales (Aalborg, Denmark, May 29-31).

Animal rhetoric paper written

Yesterday I finished my paper to be presented at the forthcoming workshop "The Rhetoric of Human-Animal Relations" (Oslo, May 29-30), "Animals craving for meaning in the Anthropocene - a perspective on the global semiocide". 14 pages, organized into 5 sections:

1. A footnote on biorhetorics 

2. On biosemiosis, the action of signs in living systems 

3. On the Anthropocene, particularly its animal aspect (and thus the global species concept) 

4. A note on induced semiosis, with repercussions for the global species concept 

5. Last wor(l)ds: On the global semiocide

It remains to be seen whether it will be selected for publication. At any rate it will be distributed among the workshop participants, among with the papers of all the others.

Existential universals - update

Transcending Signs - Essays around Eero Tarasti's existential semiotics is in progress. My contribution, "Existential universals - biosemiosis and existential semiosis", is now pending re-submission OR revision, depending on my decision. This is due January 15th.

The editors of the book, to be published by Mouton de Gruyter, are Paul Forsell and Rick Littlefield.

Abstract for the NY gathering in biosemiotics

I have completed and submitted an abstract for the 11th international gathering in biosemiotics, which will for the first time take place outside Europe - in New York, June 21-26 2011.

Integrated biological individualism and the primacy of the individual level of biological organization

Morten Tønnessen, Department of Semiotics – University of Tartu

In ‘Umwelt Transitions: Uexküll and Environmental Change’ (Biosemiotics 2.2) I introduced the notion of integrated biological individualism, according to which the individual, or more precisely organismic, level should occupy the centre—the middle ground—of methodology in the life sciences, at the crossroad where the somatic realm encounters the ecological one. The term was then included in a broader programmatic treatment in ‘Steps to a Semiotics of Being’ (Biosemiotics 3.3). From the standpoint of the individual, or organism, we can describe how an individual organism is constituted as a biological body, as well as how nature as a global ecological system is constituted by individual organisms and their interrelations. Nature, then, is a body of bodies (the ultimate superorganism); and any individual self is by its nature a social self – through its interrelation with others, a self is always bigger than itself.

In this paper I will expand upon the notion of integrated biological individualism by relating it more explicitly to the suggested primacy of the individual level of biological organization. As Anton Markoš remarks (Readers of the Book of Life: Contextualizing Developmental Evolutionary Biology (2002): 29), life “proceeds synchronously on innumerable space, time, and organizational levels. Nothing on any single level can reveal its essence”. Yet, it remains that a biological science with no concern for, or interest in, the living themselves (qua living beings – at the level of the individual) would be deeply problematic. There is no doubt that the ‘genetic turn’ in biology has been successful in terms of scientific understanding, but the new microscopic realm that has opened up to us has simultaneously induced us to neglect the ‘life-size’ realm. What future can we envision for the critical task of Umwelt mapping?

After a general introduction to this topic matter I will introduce an original, tentatively all-inclusive model of various levels of biosemiosis. According to this model there are six levels of biosemiosis, falling under three broader categories.

CATEGORIES // PRIMARY REALM // PRIMARY FIELD OF SEMIOTICS OF NATURE

SUB-PERCEPTUAL SEMIOSIS = MICROSCOPIC SEMIOSIS // Somatic // Biosemiotics

Intra-cellular semiosis

Inter-cellular semiosis

PERCEPTUAL SEMIOSIS = ORGANISMIC SEMIOSIS // Social // Zoosemiotics

Intra-organismic semiosis

Inter-organismic semiosis*

Extra-organismic semiosis

SUPER-PERCEPTUAL SEMIOSIS = MACROSCOPIC SEMIOSIS // Ecological // Ecosemiotics

Super-organismic semiosis*

* social proper, in the sense of involving several individuals

The tripartite model is relevant for simple and complex life forms alike (though in the case of very simple – non-social – creatures it collapses into a two-category model). As it demonstrates, perception is at the core of biosemiosis, even though not all biosemiosis is perceptual, and even though perception constitutes but one level (or layer) of biosemiosis. The standing of perception is intimately tied to the standing of the individual. With such an overall model of biosemiosis, the individual organism (and its lifeworld) is methodologically placed at the center of biological research.

New biosemiotic webpage

Marcello Barbieri has launched a new biosemiotics webpage, Biosemiotica.it.

Structure:
Home
History
Websites
Gatherings (lists of participants)
Books (1985-2009) - with no mention of Sebeok's zoosemiotic books
Journal
Society

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.

/

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

/

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.).

/

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.).