Today I have had half a book writing day, focussed on my book manuscript in spe Being and Sign, with some 300 words added to the text. This was writing day #45,5 this Autumn (starting July 1st), with a total of 31,5 of the writing days devoted to book writing to date.
I also added to my preliminary plans for book writing over the next decade, with prospective titles including Global Species and The Natural History of the Phenomenal World.
Burkey, Tormod Vaaland 2013. En annen verdensanskuelse er mulig [A different world view is possible]. In: Ragnhild Sollund, Morten Tønnessen and Guri Larsen (eds), Hvem er villest i landet her: Råskap mot dyr og natur i antropocen, menneskets tidsalder [Who is wildest in this country here? Brutality towards animals and nature in the Anthropocene, the age of Man]. Oslo: Spartacus Forlag/Scandinavian Academic Press, 353-374.
But humans have established themselves on all continents, under all possible environmental circumstances, and operate as a global species that is no longer held back by local conditions (see Tønnessen, chapter 2).
In the era of the Anthropocene (see Tønnessen, chapter 2) humans are rather to be regarded as an environmental condition which other species are restrained by, than a part of that same nature.
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
On the notion of induced semiosis, with emphasis on anthropogenic semiosis
Morten Tønnessen, Associate professor at University of Stavanger
In this presentation Sharov’s notion of induced semiosis (“Functional information: Toward synthesis of Biosemiotics and Cybernetics” in Entropy 12: 1050–1070), which represents a valuable contribution to biosemiotic vocabulary, will be analysed and a further development of the term suggested. According to Sharov agents, which are either living organisms or their products, “are defined as systems with goal-directed programmed behaviour” (1052), and semiosis “can be inherited or induced by higher-level agents” (1050). In Sharov’s conception, induced semiosis concerns sign exchange which is induced (initiated) by some higher-level agent for some purpose. The various forms of anthropogenic induced semiosis can in the perspective of human ecology (aka ecosemiotics) be considered as constituting a further effectory layer in humankind’s control system qua global species. Non-human agents involved in such sign exchange are generally only vicariously goal-directed – it is our goals they are set to pursue.
But what about the myriad of cases in which biosemiotic sign exchange is triggered by our global civilization but not intended by any human agent? Is not such semiosis induced (and anthropogenic) as well? We thus have to distinguish between induced semiosis qua communicative system triggered by some intending agent and induced semiosis as triggered by the activity of some communicative system but not intended by its controlling agents. This latter kind, enveloping a variety of unintended consequences, is arguably an equally informative measure of our ecological impact.
Two global species and their age-old foe: The semiotic eth(n)ology of wolves, sheep and people
Morten Tønnessen
Among the core notions I introduce in my recently submitted doctoral dissertation Umwelt transition and Uexküllian phenomenology: An ecosemiotic analysis of Norwegian wolf management is that of a global species (see Tønnessen 2010). In short, by establishing a global ‘colonial organism’ our species has installed an ecological empire, organised with Homo sapiens placed highest in the hierarchy and with crop species, pets, and livestock enjoying positions of privilege. The sheep, the third most significant creature in my case study on Norwegian wolf management beyond wolves and people (given a conflict-oriented focus on livestock predation), partakes in our ecological empire in a quite central position, as one of the top five livestock species globally. The wolf, on the other hand, does not fit in with the modern idea we have had until recently of how we want nature to be (unlike the dog, for which the wolf is an ancestor). Sheep: companion; wolf: foe.
The two global species implied in the title of this presentation, then, are our own subspecies of the human kind (Homo sapiens sapiens), and the sheep (Ovis aries). The wolf (Canis lupus), once the most widely distributed large mammal on Earth, is no global species, but it has given rise to the dog, which is. In Sweden, Man’s “best friend” is arguably the prime animal with which the wolf is conceived of as being in conflict with, and in Norway the dog-wolf problem is perceived as second in importance only to the sheep-wolf problem. In the course of this presentation I will portray the symbolic construction of the Big Bad Wolf in contemporary Norway. Wolves and sheep have historically often been juxtaposed, especially in the context of the Bible. In cultural terms, hardly any animals are as loaded with symbolic value as the wolf and the sheep. And the shared importance is no coincidence, since the symbolism of the two animals has frequently developed in explicit opposition to each other.
Reference
Morten Tønnessen 2010. The global species. New formations: a journal of culture/theory/politics culture/theory/politics 69 (Special Issue guest-edited by Ashley Dawson, Imperial Ecologies): 98-110. Featured as additional content in Encyclopaedia Britannica (www.britannica.com).
