Photos from 6th code biology conference

The photos below are taken from Flickr and the code biology website. All photos are from the 6th international conference in code biology, which was held June 3-5th in Friedrichsdorf, Germany.

Search image paper scheduled for presentation in Friedrichsdorf June 4th

My presentation "The search image as link between sensation, perception and action" has been scheduled for presentation at the 6th International Conference in Code Biology, to be held in Friedrichsdorf, Germany, on Tuesday June 4th at 18.00-18.30.

See also abstract book.

To present search image paper on Code Biology 6

I have been notified by the organizers that my paper "The search image as link between sensation, perception and action" has been accepted for oral presentation at the 6th conference of the International Society for Code Biology (ISCB), to be held in Friedrichsdorf, Germany, June 4th to 6th of June. 

Code biology conference 2018 - Granada

The Fifth International Conference in Code Biology will take place in Granada, Spain, June 5-9th 2018. Abstract deadline is January 15th.

4th code biology conference to be held in Köszeg

At the third International Conference in Code Biology, recently held in Urbino, in Italy, it was decided that the 4th International Conference in Code Biology will be held 24-26 May 2017 in Köszeg, Hungary.

Uncertain whether code biology conference will be held in Norway

There has so far been preliminary plans for holding a code biology conference in Stavanger, Norway, organised by me. However, it is now uncertain whether that will happen, due to ongoing considerations of costs, locality etc. 

See also:

5th code biology conference possibly to be held in Norway

ISCB launches annual conference series - 2017 conference to be organised in Norway by me

CFP for 3rd Code Biology conference (Urbino)

The call for papers for the Third International Conference in Code Biology (Urbino, Italy, 24-28 May 2016) has now appeared, see CFP (and conference website). Abstract deadline is January 15th.

5th code biology conference possibly to be held in Norway

It has previously been preliminarily planned that the 4th International Conference in Code Biology, in 2017, would be held in Stavanger, Norway. It now appears that, instead, the 5th International Conference in Code Biology, in 2018, may be organised in Norway (by me). But a decision will only be made next summer at the earliest.

General Assembly of ISCB attended

On June 10th I attended the (very brief) General Assembly of the International Society of Code Biology (ISCB), in Jena, Germany, which took place during the 2nd code biology conference. I have since the foundation of the ISCB in the autumn of 2012 been a member of the Governing Board, and still am.

"Umwelt codes" - preliminary title for Jena paper

Today I have decided on a preliminary title for my abstract/paper for the 2nd international conference in code biology, which is to be held in Jena, Germany, June 16-20th 2015: "Umwelt codes".

Code biology conference: General assembly, roundtable attended

On Friday May 23rd, while at the 1st International Conference in Code Biology (Paris, May 21-23), I attended the first General Assembly of the International Society of Code Biology (ISCB) - which was very brief (approving financial report and formally also the venue for the second conference) - and the concluding roundtable discussion (cf. programme).

See also:

Codes and interpretation paper presented

Afternoon session chaired at 1st code biology conference

Second code biology conference, 2015

Codes and interpretation paper presented

On Friday 23rd of May I presented my paper "Codes and interpretation in perception" at the 1st International Conference in Code Biology (May 21-23, Paris). Some 30 people attended. Discussion following my presentation was positive and constructive.

To chair session at first code biology conference

I have agreed to chair the afternoon session May 22nd at the upcoming 1st International Conference in Code Biology (Paris, France, May 21-23, 2014) (see program here, abstract book here), at 15 to 18.30. 

"Codes and interpretation in perception" scheduled for presentation May 23rd (Paris)

My paper "Codes and interpretation in perception" has been scheduled for presentation at First International Conference in Code Biology (Paris May 21-23) on Friday May 23rd at 12.00-12.30.

Full programme (presenter last name and time) here.

See also:

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

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).

***

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.

Why I joined the ISCB

As promised in the post "ISCB launches annual conference series - 2017 conference to be organised in Norway by me", here comes my blog post "Why I joined the ISCB". The ISCB is short for the International Society for Code Biology. It was constituted/incorporated in Ferrara, Italy, on November 28th 2012, with the following Governing Board/founding members: 

• Marcello Barbieri (president)
• Jan-Hendrik Hofmeyr (vice-president)
• Almo Farina (secretary)
• Peter Wills (treasurer)
• Stefan Artmann
• Joachim De Beule
• Peter Dittrich
• Dennis Görlich
• Stefan Kühn
• Chris Ottolenghi
• Liz Stillwaggon Swan
• Morten Tønnessen

In an email November 30th announcing the establishment of the society, Marcello Barbieri wrote:

Code Biology is the study of all codes of life with the standard methods of science, and this makes of it the sole discipline that can prove the existence of semiosis in all living systems. Its purpose is nothing less than the rewriting of biology in order to include in it the countless codes that appeared after the genetic code and before the codes of culture, together with their theoretical implications. This is the challenge that lies ahead and this letter is announcing the beginning of that momentous enterprise. 

Applications for membership of the Code Biology Society are welcome from scholars of all relevant disciplines, including biology, philosophy, semiotics, cognitive science, information theory, linguistics, anthropology and ecology.

Marcello asked me whether I would be willing to be a founding member of the ISCB in an email October 16th. I replied that my long-time collaborators in Tartu "remain important colleagues and contacts for me, and that is how I would like it to go on as well." Furthermore:

In principle I am indeed interested in being a founding member of the ISCB. But there are conditions. First, before putting my name on any list I would like to see the statutes, or a draft of them, to get a sense of what the society is about and how it will work. Second, you should be aware that I am a person who speaks his mind even when in minority, and in situations such as the one in the ISBS this last year I might feel responsible to speak out (particularly if noone else does), no matter who is in charge and no matter who does things I find worthy of criticism. What I treasure is particularly organisational democrazy, scholarly pluralism, and constructive theoretical synthesis. 

Now, one reason to decline your invitation would be that it is likely that some biosemiotic scholars will misunderstand what me being part of the ISCB implies. Noteworthy, it could be perceived as sidetaking – siding with you personally (against Jesper) or preferring code biology to other kinds of biosemiotics. Therefore, let me make it absolutely clear: I treasure being undogmatic and open-minded, and I do not side with specific persons (only with ideas and principles). I want to contribute to holding all biosemioticians to certain standards, in terms both scientific and organisational. I think that several code biologists, including you, do a lot of valuable biosemiotic work (and I would like to take advantage of that in my own work, and when natural by way of direct cooperation). That is why I am interested in being a founding member of the ISCB. To avoid misunderstandings, however, I would without doubt feel the need to write in public (perhaps in a forum or on a discussion list, or at the very least in my academic blog Utopian Realism) what it implies, and what it does not imply, that I have become a member of the ISCB. My aim would be to not close any doors, and to maintain and further develop contact with interesting biosemioticians of all kinds.

I added, amongst other things, that "[t]ruly constructive synthesis is always desirable, but "compromises" motivated by reaching agreement only is more likely to be contraproductive. The key point at this stage is to aim systematically for constructive synthesis and not to block any ideas simply because they derive from the "wrong" persons".

In reply to my email, Marcello wrote that all that I had written was "perfectly acceptable".