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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T000000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230804T235959
DTSTAMP:20230727T183952Z
CREATED:20230624T085708Z
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SUMMARY:Gatherings in Biosemiotics 2023
DESCRIPTION:Program information for the Gatherings in Biosemiotics 2023.\nYou can review the presentation schedule for this year’s Gatherings starting from here.
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/gatherings-in-biosemiotics-2023/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T093000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T100000
DTSTAMP:20231029T103538Z
CREATED:20230624T090620Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T103538Z
UID:1451-1690882200-1690884000@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Kalevi Kull
DESCRIPTION:The Concept of Umweb: On the Linkages between Umwelten\nKalevi Kull\nUmwelt\, the concept introduced by Jakob von Uexküll\, has been commonly defined as the subjective world of organism. Once an organism can make distinctions\, once it uses signs and can choose\, there should also be its umwelt – its world with meanings. On a closer inspection\, however\, there are at least two different concepts behind this term\, when taking into account the relationship with time: momentary and distributed. \nMomentary umwelt is umwelt in its proper sense – the meaningful world of an organism. Meaning is the relation that exists now\, at the present\, atemporally (synchronically) in the subjective time. This is a simultaneous existence of distinguishables\, which are the possibilities or the options for behaving. Distinction itself is a relation. Since such is the core sense of Uexküll’s concept – the subjective space in the identical time – we reserve the term umwelt to this concept. \nDistributed umwelt is the web of meaning-relations over the course of time (diachronically)\, both intra- and inter-organismically. For this we propose the term umweb. Umweb is the whole set of sign relations that organisms have throughout their life. Umweb is the complex or nexus of habits. Habits are relations\, and their relata can belong to one and the same organism\, or to behaviourally linked organisms. Since such relations can include other organisms in one’s umweb\, and sometimes mutually\, it means that these organisms are semiotically linked. Through such relations\, umwelten of different organisms are encompassed by the umweb. \nThere exist some close notions to umweb. Uexküll himself uses the term ‘umwelt tunnel’\, meaning by this the temporal sequence of an organism’s subjective moments during its ontogeny or life cycle. We would describe umweb as the complex of semiotic relations in which the organism is involved\, while umwelt tunnel is the sequence of momentary umwelten. Another concept somewhat close to umweb is ‘semiosphere’\, the term introduced by Juri Lotman and later independently by Jesper Hoffmeyer. Semiosphere includes meaning-relations of all agents\, thus serving as a cover term. Among close concepts we also find ‘Lebenswelt’ as a solely human umwelt\, ‘actor-network’ as a material-semiotic network of agents\, and ‘chronotope’ as the spacetime of a narrative. \nAnother theoretical innovation besides introducing the concept of umweb concerns the role of umwelt as such in the fundamental model of meaning making. Our point is that signs cannot be outside of an umwelt. This implies that semiotic research should not be limited to the study of signs; the larger whole\, which is the umwelt\, must always be included. This is what we would call umwelt-based semiotics.             Accordingly\, the relationship between sign\, semiosis and umwelt has to be elaborated. \nWe are going to argue that in addition to Peircean semiotics\, which is based on the concept of sign\, and Saussurean semiology\, which is based on structure and codes\, semiotics can fundamentally be built on the Uexküllian concept of umwelt. Moreover\, umwelt-based semiotics enables the integration of these rather separate and incompatible semiotic theories. \n  \nReferences \nKull\, Kalevi (2022). Umwelt-based semiotics: Sign and meaning-structure presuppose umwelt. In: Paschalidis\, Gregory et al. (eds.)\, 15th World Congress of Semiotics: Semiotics in the Lifeworld. Thessaloniki: IASS\, p. 33. \nKull\, Kalevi; Favareau\, Donald (2022). Semiotics in general biology. In: Pelkey\, Jamin; Walsh Matthews\, Stéphanie (eds.)\, Bloomsbury Semiotics\, vol. 2: Semiotics in the Natural and Technical Sciences. London: Bloomsbury Academic\, 35–56. \nTønnessen\, M.; Magnus\, R.; Brentari\, C. (2016). The biosemiotic glossary project: Umwelt. Biosemiotics 9(1): 129–149 \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/kull/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T100000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T103000
DTSTAMP:20231029T103855Z
CREATED:20230624T090521Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T103855Z
UID:1445-1690884000-1690885800@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Yogi Hendlin & Daniel Kamp
DESCRIPTION:Biosemiotic Bottom-Up Emergence in the Key of Teilhard de Chardin\nYogi Hendlin & Daniel Kamp\nWhat are the cultural implications of understanding how evolutionary biological constraints gives rise to them? (Cobley 2016) Biosemiotic constraints through iterated interactions between individuals lead to a ‘pattern of variety-in-unity’ (Teilhard de Chardin 1961\, p. 18). Biosemiotics from an evolutionary perspective (Sharov 1991) provides an awareness for how sign systems of species communication develop through certain patterns over time. The work of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin describes these patterns in The Phenomenon of Man similarly as a bottom-up emergent phenomena across cultures into what he calls the noosphere. In this domain\, Teilhard’s work proves particularly useful for tracking the development of sign systems of cultures\, as he accommodates both science and religion. Especially\, insofar as he takes the scientific study of biological constraints to explain the emergence of conscious integration beyond what he calls ‘organic individuality’ to account for culture and its immaterial level of ‘co-operative interthinking.’ (For a more recent take on this\, see Hovhannisyan and Vervaeke 2022.) This ‘psychosocial’ aspect of the Umwelt arises from a bottom-up emergent pattern with the emergent pattern of stars and atoms alike\, for Teilhard\, envisioned akin to the cosmos as a ‘global unity of mankind’s noetic organization or systems of awareness\, but [with] a high degree of variety within that unity’ (pg. 28). \nIn contrast to current top-down industry capture through marketing (Hendlin 2019) and polarized politics in the aftermath of the postmodern century\, a lens that combines biosemiotics and Teilhard’s work may offer avenues to supersede this attenuation of semiotic sensitivity. Ivar Puura’s notion of semiocide as impairing the other from realizing their semiotic identity (Maran 2013) can be interpreted as the end result of semiotic instrumentalization – which occurs when we do not realize our co-emergence out of a more replete universal biosemiotic pattern. Keeping in mind the greater unifying framework which underpins our existence may allow individuals to disagree on aspects of their perceived realities without undermining their collective goal of cooperation for preserving the semiotic specificity that has emerged through particular traditions of habit and habitat. From an ecosemiotic perspective\, denying humans our evolutionary biological need for cooperation and community can be glossed as another form of semiocide. This presentation explores techniques of opening the aperture of awareness of ecosemiotics in humans\, including the methodologies of participatory action research and other technologies of entrainment across perceived ideological or species barriers. \n  \nReferences \nCobley\, P. (2016). Cultural implications of biosemiotics (Vol. 15). Dordrecht: Springer. \nHendlin\, Y.H. I Am a Fake Loop: the Effects of Advertising-Based Artificial Selection. Biosemiotics 12\, 131–156 (2019). \nHovhannisyan\, G.\, & Vervaeke\, J. (2022). Enactivist Big Five Theory. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences\, 21(2)\, 341–375. \nTeilhard de Chardin\, P. (1961). The Phenomenon of Man. (B. Wall\, Trans.). New York: Harper & Row. \nMaran\, T. (2013). Enchantment of the past and semiocide. Remembering Ivar Puura. Sign Systems Studies\, 41 (1)\, 146-149. \nSharov\, A. (1991). Biosemiotics: A functional-evolutionary approach to the analysis of the sense of information. In T. A. Sebeok & J. Umiker-Sebeok (Eds.)\, The Semiotic Web: Biosemiotics (pp. 345–373). De Gruyter. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/hendlin-kamp/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T103000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T110000
DTSTAMP:20231029T104110Z
CREATED:20230624T090505Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T104110Z
UID:1443-1690885800-1690887600@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Lei Han
DESCRIPTION:Human Umwelten at the Crossroads of Biosemiotics\, Biopower\, Biopolitics and Self-Technology\nLei Han\nThe connection between biosemiotics\, biopower and biopolitics has been a subject of debate among scholars\, but there is still much scope for further research. With particular recourse to the biosemiotic concept of human Umwelten\, this paper investigates this connection and further elaborates how combining these areas of study might constitute a transdisciplinary yet coherent object of research. \nThe paper argues that Uexküll’s human Umwelten\, Michel Foucault’s biopower and biopolitics\, all deal with the construction of human as subjects. It further argues that Uexküll’s Umwelt theory appropriates Kant’s concept of “transcendental subject”\, but paradoxically infuses it into 19th century biology to regard life as a naturally living system\, and a biological disclosure. The latter well elaborates the species-specific characters and individuality of human Umwelten in the perspective of biology\, but leaves this question unsolved: how to explain the sensus commus among transcendental subjects within the scaffolding of Umwelt theory. Subject and biological life are precisely the issues with which Foucault’s work on biopower and biopolitics are most concerned. Foucault’s proposal that the subject is a product of knowledge and power relations extends Kant’s research on the transcendental subject to an empirical subject that is constructed through its biological existence\, and existence in labor and language. It thus can be regarded as a response to Kant’s most significant and ultimate philosophical question\, “what is human?” In this sense\, Foucault’s conceptualization of “subject” might be helpful in tackling Uexküll’s unsolved question\, and it would further highlight the significance of discourse in distinguishing the construction of human Umwelten from that of other species. \nThis paper argues that Foucault’s research on self-technology\, or\, to be precise\, l’art de souci de soi\, concerning a subject’s relation to itself and the turning of observation of the outside world back inside\, inspires us with the idea that autocommunication is a critical or even prior step in the construction of human Umwelten. L’art de souci de soi is often taken as a kind of existential aesthetics\, since it leads humans to pursue freedom in material and everyday life; thus\, once again\, it speaks\, though indistinctly\, to Kant’s idea of ascending from understanding nature to the pursuit of freedom which constitute the full scope of human’s capacity of recognition – the same realm of human Umwelten. \nGiven that contemporary biology regards life as molecularized and life science as engaging in the endeavor of re-devising life\, which\, consequently\, complicates the relationship between a biological “ego” and the subject\, this paper\, through the lens of the concept of human Umwelten and its connection with self-technology\, also attempts to have a dialogue with Nikolas Rose’s interpretation of self-technology as the positive and responsible conduct of humans’ ethical undertaking of their sign activities when encountering with this new reality. \n  \nReferences \nPuumeister\, O. (2019) “Biopolitical subjectification.” Sign systems studies\, 47 (1/2)\, 105-125. \nRose\, Nikolas. The Politics of Life Itself: Biomedicine\, Power\, and Subjectivity in the Twenty-First Century. Princeton University Press\, 2007. \nHan\, L. (2021) “The Idealistic Elements in Modern Semiotic Studies: With Particular Recourse to the Umwelt theory.” Concentric: Literary and Cultural Studies\, March 2021\, 107-128. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/han/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T110000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T113000
DTSTAMP:20231029T104322Z
CREATED:20230624T090620Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T104322Z
UID:1452-1690887600-1690889400@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Katarzyna Machtyl
DESCRIPTION:Umwelt as a Trans-sign Network\, or The Implications of Biosemiotics to Humanities\nKatarzyna Machtyl\nThe main thesis of the proposed talk is that biosemiotics has significantly changed and reformulated the way humanities-related scholars think about culture. For instance\, one can mention here posthumanism\, post- / nonanthropocentrism\, nonhuman subjects’ studies\, ecohumanities and many more. The biosemiotic inspirations are noticeable in the theories of the subject – one can reflect on human and nonhuman subjectivity\, agency and freedom\, environment\, ethical issues and – finally – the artificial opposition of nature and culture. When seen as a complex of interrelated Umwelten\, and\, as a result\, as a complex of interrelated functional circles\, culture turns out to be quite different entity than humanists tend to think. Considering culture as a set of ecological relations and translations rather than an exclusively human world\, sheds a new light on environment and ‘being-in-the-world’ issues. \nReferring to some fundamental (bio)semiotic concepts\, i.e.\, Umwelt theory\, semiobiosphere and semioethics\, reciprocity and coexistence (with reference to Susan Petrilli’s and Augusto Ponzio’s ideas) the issue of responsibility\, involvement and engagement can be discussed. Being responsible for the biosphere considered as a living whole means being responsible for the whole planet and all living beings – both human and nonhuman. Petrilli herself referred to the Umwelt theory\, emphasizing its translational nature (an intersign or trans-sign network)\, and discussing two types of semiosis (modeling and communication) and the very process of semiosic fluxes across different biosemiosic phenomena. Petrilli’s position is going to be juxtaposed with some concepts introduced and elaborated by Jesper Hoffmeyer\, esp. the semiotic freedom and agency in relation to the living being’s creative response to its surroundings and anticipation. With this in mind\, I will discuss the artistic projects by Diana Lelonek The Center for Living Things (2019) and Wasteplants Atlas (2021)\, demonstrating\, on the one hand\, the interdependency of humans and nonhumans\, esp. in reference to the nonhumans’ settings which are\, at the same time\, the posthumans’ ones\, and the plants’ agency\, creativity and semiotic freedom on the other. Hereby\, the need of reformulating the very notion of culture and the idea of what is ‘natural’ with the tools offered by biosemiotics\, especially by the Umwelt theory in the Petrilli’s interpretation\, seems to be even more clear and realistic. \n  \nReferences \nHoffmeyer\, J. (1998). Surfaces Inside Surfaces. On the Origin of Agency and Life. “Cybernetics & Human Knowing” vol. 5 (1)\, 33-42. \nMagnus\, R.\, Kull\, K. (2012). Roots of culture in the Umwelt. In: Jaan Valsiner (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of Culture and Psychology. Oxford\, New York: Oxford University Press (Part seven: Emergence of Culture. Chapter 29)\, 649–661. \nPetrilli S. (2017). Sign Crossroads in Global Perspective. Semioethics and Responsibility. Routledge. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/machtyl/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T113000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T114500
DTSTAMP:20230801T040916Z
CREATED:20230624T090635Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230801T040916Z
UID:1454-1690889400-1690890300@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Coffee break
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/coffee-break-3/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T114500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T121500
DTSTAMP:20231029T104519Z
CREATED:20230624T090620Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T104519Z
UID:1453-1690890300-1690892100@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Isabel Ferreira
DESCRIPTION:The Importance of the Concept of Umwelt in a Changing World\nIsabel Ferreira\nIn the last decades\, humankind has been experiencing the cumulative effects of a profound technological development that has accelerated immensely the dynamics of human social life\, that has been reshaping the human sphere of action and interaction\, that has hybridised human reality by merging the natural and the artificial\, creating new possible forms of agency and consequently new lived worlds. \nAccording to Ferreira (2018\, 2021\, 2022)\, the deployment of artificial cognition in the twenty-first century\, has introduced a fundamental twofold ontological shift: (i) tools have lost their purely instrumental status and have suddenly become potential autonomous entities capable of a form of shared agency when co-acting with humans and even capable of decision making in multiple circumstances (ii) the environment\, on the other hand\, has acquired a hybrid nature\, where the analogic and the digital merge and where the physical and the virtual converge\, where natural intelligence and autonomous artificial systems cohabit in a fusion that blurs the lines between the physical\, the digital and the biological. \nAs Jesper Hoffmeyer pointed out (1996\, 2008)\, life is fundamentally grounded in semiotic processes.  The present paper claims that Uexkull’s concept of Umwelt and Hoffmeyer’s concept of Semiosphere play an essential role in the identification of the phenomena that the present technological (r)evolution brings about and in the analysis of its own dynamics. \n  \nReferences \nFerreira\, M. I. A. (2018). Cognitive architectures: The Dialectics Agent/Environment. In M. I. A. Ferreira\, J. Sequeira\, & R. Ventura (Eds.)\, Cognitive architectures\, intelligent systems\, control and automation: Science and engineering (Vol. 94). Springer\, Cham. ttps://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-97550-4_1. \nFerreira\, M. I. A. (2021). On human condition. In Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Robot Ethics and Standards—ICRES 2021. Retrieved from https://www.clawar.org/icres2021/ \nFerreira\, M.I.A. (2022). On Human Condition: The Status of Work. In: Aldinhas Ferreira\, M.I.\, Fletcher\, S.R. (Eds.) The 21st Century Industrial Robot: When Tools Become Collaborators. Intelligent Systems\, Control and Automation: Science and Engineering\, vol 81. Springer\, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-78513-0_1 \nHoffmeyer\, J. (1996). Signs of Meaning in the Universe. Bloomington. Indiana University Press. \nHoffmeyer\, J. (2008) Biosemiotics. University of Scranton Press. Chicago. USA. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/ferreira/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T121500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T124500
DTSTAMP:20231029T104734Z
CREATED:20230624T090635Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T104734Z
UID:1456-1690892100-1690893900@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Phillip Guddemi
DESCRIPTION:The Creative Porpoise Climbs the Semiotic Scaffolding\nPhillip Guddemi\nOne of Jesper Hoffmeyer’s many innovative concepts in biosemiotics was that of semiotic freedom. I propose to relate Hoffmeyer’s idea of semiotic freedom to Gregory Bateson’s concept of levels of learning\, by way of describing an experiment in porpoise learning which was inspired by Bateson’s observations of human-porpoise interactions in a performing oceanarium setting. \nIn this oceanarium\, the Sea Life Park in Hawaii\, in the middle 1960s\, the public was told that what they were observing in their entertainment was porpoise learning\, according to the accepted canons of behaviorism at that time. Bateson noted that this was impossible\, since the same porpoises put on six shows a day five days a week\, thus they could not be learning anew each time. On the other hand\, it would spoil the illusion if a tourist saw the same porpoise learning the same thing again. \nBateson postulated that the porpoise must achieve a learning at a different “level\,” i.e. that what the trainer wanted was for the porpoise to produce a new behavior when called upon to do so. Bateson proposed to demonstrate this experimentally. The experimental porpoise was subjected to several sessions just as the show porpoises had been. In each session the porpoise is frustrated by not being rewarded for the same behavior as in the previous session. At about the fourteenth session\, the porpoise dances excitedly in the tank and produces twelve new behaviors in sequence\, four of them never seen in the species before. \nThe behaviorist concept of a “behavior” (which Bateson did not use unironically) must of course be critiqued. What the trainers called a behavior is a part of a human-animal relationship\, involving for the porpoise a decontextualizing of some habitual response to the porpoise’s umwelt which is then re-porpoised (so to speak) into the new context of the human-porpoise “show” encounter. This is a kind of biosemiotic transfer from what the behavior means in its originary porpoise context\, and the porpoise’s capacity to do this may point to a precursor of symbolic sign use. \nThis may especially be true given the ability of the porpoise to demonstrate learning at the conceptual level of the ability to produce novel (or creative) recontextualizations of behavior. (The trainer herself\, Karen Pryor\, in spite of her ostensible behaviorism\, entitled the chapter she wrote about the experiment “The Creative Porpoise.”) Bateson considered this as learning at the level of category\, inspired by mathematical and philosophical concepts of the early 20th Century. Peirce might have seen it as an exemplification of his phrase the habit of habit change. And Hoffmeyer would very likely have seen it in the context of semiotic scaffolding – related to an increase in what he called semiotic freedom. \n  \n  \nReferences \nBateson\, Gregory. “Double Bind\, 1969.” Steps to an Ecology of Mind. Chicago\, University of Chicago Press\, 2000\, pp. 276-8. \nHoffmeyer\, Jesper. Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs. Scranton and London\, University of Scranton Press\, 2008. \nPryor\, Karen. Lads before the Wind: Adventures in Porpoise Training. N.Y.\, Harper and Row\, 1975. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/guddemi/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T124500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T131500
DTSTAMP:20231029T105023Z
CREATED:20230624T090635Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T105023Z
UID:1455-1690893900-1690895700@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Óscar Miyamoto
DESCRIPTION:Tales of semiotic freedom\nÓscar Miyamoto\nDo we have the means to clearly explain biosemiotics to the general public? Reaching broader audiences is not only feasible\, but also a responsible step if biosemiotics aims at changing the classic way biology is understood in other disciplines. We are\, though\, a long way from conveying our terminology in accessible and timely ways outside of our own academic journals. \nInterestingly\, central biosemiotic topics have been already raised in serious media outlets. Take for instance Aeon Magazine’s mention of Jesper Hoffmeyer’s concept of scaffolding in the context of biodiversity; and Jakob von Uexküll’s concept of umwelt to explain the origin of cognition. On a similar note\, Quanta has covered slime mould’s habituation\, and Real Science has reported sperm whales’ arbitrary codes\, even if they do not necessarily label those topics as ‘mycosemiotics’ or ‘zoosemiotics’\, respectively. These evidence-based narratives show that scientific accuracy and impactful storytelling can go hand in hand. \nThe potential to purposefully apply biosemiotics in everyday scientific literacy is yet to be discovered. I argue that biosemiotics has such a responsibility\, specifically when it comes to clarifying some of the most amazing and puzzling natural phenomena\, such as abiogenesis\, convergent evolution\, and mind: the ‘bread and butter’ of our field. \nMy presentation will show an example of how such ‘biosemiotic storytelling’ could look like. More concretely\, I will tell a story about umwelt phenomenology based on the concept of “semiotic freedom” (Hoffmeyer 1996: 61). Not being the typical scholarly talk\, my tale will start as follows: “In the murky waters of a Tanzanian creek\, a platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is looking for lunch. “Umberto” closes his eyes and nostrils\, letting the tickling sensations in his bill guide his scanning movements. The Australian monotreme relies on a multimodal coupling of 100 thousand electroreceptors and mechanoreceptors located on his bill skin. This underwater ‘sixth sense’ provides Umberto with tridimensional coordinates of his invertebrate snacks\, even when he cannot see them. \nUmberto’s electroceptive ‘scanner’ does something far more complex than ‘encoding’ the position of submerged insects and crayfish. It relies on Umberto’s ability to pertinently interpret surplus of meaning. On the one hand\, Umberto’s bill makes an abbreviation or sampling of some relevant aspects of the environment. And\, on the other\, Umberto’s wits have a productive reference inasmuch they enhance the vividness of his sentience\, augmenting his experiential Umwelt\, “the phenomenal world or the self-world of the animal” (Uexküll 1992: 319). \nIn Tartu\, Estonia\, a suspicious hooded crow (Corvus cornix) is hiding caches inside her secret pantries and fridges. “Nicola” will episodically remember the expiration date and exact location of each buried snack\, anticipating which items to retrieve first (e.g. fast-decaying worms)\, and which items to retrieve later (e.g. mussels and hazelnuts). Nicola’s theftproof food-storing techniques developed within a social game of deception and theory of mind. Umberto\, Thomas and Nicola are eye-opening examples of the intrinsic biosemiotic value of life: interpretative freedom. In the words of Jesper (Homo sapiens): “the most pronounced feature of organic evolution is not the creation of a multiplicity of amazing morphological structures\, but the general expansion of ‘semiotic freedom’\, that is to say the increase in richness or ‘depth’ of meaning that can be communicated” (Hoffmeyer 1996: 61). [to be continued] \nReferences \nHoffmeyer\, J. (1996). Signs of Meaning in the Universe. Bloomington: Indiana UP. \nSebeok\, T.A. (1991). A Sign is Just a Sign. Bloomington: Indiana UP. \nUexküll\, J. v. (1992) [1934]. A stroll through the world of animals and men: A picture book of invisible worlds. Semiotica 89(4)\, 319-391. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/miyamoto/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T131500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T141500
DTSTAMP:20230801T041141Z
CREATED:20230624T090635Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230801T041141Z
UID:1457-1690895700-1690899300@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Lunch
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/lunch-2/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T141500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T144500
DTSTAMP:20231029T105356Z
CREATED:20230624T090758Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T105356Z
UID:1459-1690899300-1690901100@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Ľudmila Lacková
DESCRIPTION:Biological Writing: An Appendix to The Language Metaphor of Life\nĽudmila Lacková\nThe language metaphor of life has been proposed as an analogy to the linguistic model\, where a specific biological level corresponds to a specific language level (DNA bases correspond to phonemes\, triplets of bases correspond to words and genes correspond to sentences). This presentation is a reconstruction of the original language metaphor of life (Jakobson 1971) and will focus on two main axes. The two axes are built on a critical reading of F. de Saussure and the postulates of modern linguistics about speech as primary semiotic system and linearity as the second principle for language in CLG (1916). Firstly\, Saussure’s privileging of speech over writing is reconsidered. Jakobson’s analogy starts with phonemes and naturally leads to replacing phonemes with written units of the genetic phonological alphabet\, or the “letters of the genetic alphabet”. Here we unexpectedly bring the critique by Derrida (1967) or Harris (2000) of the overestimation of the phonological alphabets in the western cultures into biology\, and propose an alternative to the Jakobsonian language metaphor of life: we can imagine for the genetic script\, rather than phonological alphabet\, some kind of pictographic or logographic writing system reminiscent of Egyptian hieroglyphs or Chinese characters. As proposed by Anton Markoš\, in some cases DNA bases are not read base by base\, but by the superficial structure of triplets\, that is\, by the spatial shape of a triplet. This observation leads us to understand the DNA script as composed not of discrete digital units of second articulation but of compositional units defined by first articulation only[1]. The second axis then develops the question of the supposed linearity of the genetic text. Jakobson’s original metaphor led to the reduction of complex genetic texts into digital linear strings transcribable by a computer. Privileging speech over writing misapprehends the genetic script as a phonological\, discrete and digital text. With the proposal to replace speech by\, ideographical or pictographic writing\, linearity is no longer a condition for the genetic script. As a conclusion\, it will be demonstrated that the language metaphor of life can be dimensional\, processual and dynamic. \n  \nReferences \nDerrida J. (1967). De la grammatologie.Paris: Editions de Minuit. \nHarris\, R. (2000). Rethinking Writing. Indiana University Press. \nJakobson\, R. (1971). Selected Writings\, Volume 2: Word and Language; Mouton: The Hague\, s. 289–333. \nMarkoš\, A. and Hajnal\, L. (2007). Staré pověsti (po)zemské\, Praha: Pavel Mervart. \nSaussure\, F. de. 1995 (1st ed.1916). Cours de linguistique générale (ed. by C. Bally and A. Sechehaye) Paris\, Payot \n[1] For the notion of double articulation see Martinet\, A. 1967. Eléments de linguistique générale. Paris: Colin \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/lackova/
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T144500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T151500
DTSTAMP:20231029T105225Z
CREATED:20230624T090635Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T105225Z
UID:1458-1690901100-1690902900@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Tyler Bennett
DESCRIPTION:Waste and the Second Turn in Biosemiotics\nTyler Bennett\nThe main characteristics of the second turn in biosemiotics are: “(a) extending the integration to Saussurean approaches; i.e. developing a general semiotics which synthesizes Peircean\, Saussurean and Uexküllean theories; and (b) grounding aesthetics and ideology in biosemiotics” (Chávez Barreto et. al 2022). The second turn was declared only at the beginning of the 2020s\, but already considerable progress has been made in the name of this turn. The 2023 Special Issue of the Biosemiotics journal\, edited by myself and Yogi Hendlin\, features contributions that emphasize all these characteristics. Out of control growth and consumption are byproducts of an economic theory of value that is disconnected from the environment but\, in order for it to work\, Marx’s flawed answer to this disconnection must be brought up to date with a contemporary understanding of ecological cost (Hornborg 2001). The arts and humanities are caught in the self-destructive loop of trying to prove their instrumental value and defend their legitimacy against charges of obsolescence from STEM – one reason is that postmodern humanities seem to have no interest in science (Gare 2022). The transdisciplinary framework of biosemiotics offers a solution to this deadlock\, but it is still not clear which of the humanities are to blame\, and which are unfairly maligned for their postmodernism. For example\, second–generation semiology (Kristeva\, Derrida\, Lacan) is often pejoratively lumped with postmodernism\, however\, one of the primary tasks of the second turn is to rehabilitate precisely these figures. Rehashing the actual status of the ‘postmodern’ is a major task of the second turn – it is no longer acceptable to discredit entire swathes of academic\, literary and artistic production as simply being ‘postmodern’ when postmodernism as such is no simple fad or set of whimsical stylistic choices (like montage) – in the 90s the postmodern was only a guess at what was to come\, but today it is a ubiquitous state of affairs\, where the fluid identity effects of communication technology have obliterated the old idols\, and those still trying to turn back the clock are just pissing in the wind. The second turn brings the advancements of biosemiotics to bear upon the most pressing questions of today’s supercharged media environment. This entails definite social and existential commitments that not everyone will agree with\, the least of which is certainly not the commitment to witnessing the ongoing ecological catastrophe. Probably the status of these commitments will be the source of the most lively discussion. \nReferences \nChávez Barreto\, Eugenio Israel; Kull\, Kalevi; Lacková\, Ludmila; Miyamoto\, Oscar; Bennet\, Tyler James 2022. Funktionskreis and the biosemiotic signifieds. Sign Systems Studies 50(2/3). DOI: 10.12697/SSS.2022.50.2-3.07 \nGare\, Arran 2022. Against Posthumanism: Posthumanism as the World Vision of House-Slaves. Borderless Philosophy 4:1-56 (2021) \nHornborg\, Alf 2001. The Power of the Machine: Global Inequalities of Economy\, Technology and Environment. Boulder: Alta Mira Press. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/bennett/
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T151500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T154500
DTSTAMP:20231029T105546Z
CREATED:20230624T090758Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T105546Z
UID:1460-1690902900-1690904700@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Peter Lang
DESCRIPTION:Deleuze and Biosemiotics\nPeter Lang\nThe aim of this paper is to establish a clear link between biosemiotics and Deleuzean philosophy. This can be done by highlighting the affinity in Deleuze’s work to theories of autopoiesis and organic/biophysical sense-making. A compelling through-line can be drawn between Deleuze\, theories of living systems\, and biosemiotics in the way an organism\, as emergent assemblage\, territorializes its world. If expression is considered as a continual modification of a system of interactions with an external milieu\, it is fundamentally interwoven with a notion of “effective action” or the cognitive activity inherent to living systems. From the perspective of biological systems theory\, cognitive activity produces a surplus of signification\, an Umwelt\, or world of meaningful interactions for the system. Biosemiotics teaches that lower-level (but no less essential) processes not only ground higher order structures from which meaning emerges\, but are themselves meaning-making. Contingent molecular interactions in turn enable the organism to engage with and make sense of a world. Sense-making\, the result of a complex of recursive\, embodied activity allows us to ultimately acknowledge concepts such as “mind” and “subject” as not only wholly embodied\, but grounded in a single\, creative biophysical process. Specifically\, I will focus on the cell as an organic semiotic system and the processual relation between cognition and language. The living cell\, as a result of its function as a bounded system\, marks inside and outside\, establishes a set of lived relations\, enacts a repertoire of behaviors\, and establishes the foundation for a self-other distinction.  \nIn order to make my case\, I will begin with an analysis of double causality in Deleuze’s early book Logic of Sense before linking it to a reading of double articulation in the third chapter of A Thousand Plateaus. The former presents a philosophical overview of internal dynamics that is later recast in an explicit discussion of living systems in the latter. Along the way\, my readings will be mediated by insights from autopoietic theory\, namely those of Maturana and Varela and the work of Evan Thompson. Securing both a philosophical and a biological understanding of dynamic systems in Deleuze foreshadows a reading of autopoiesis as a theory of biosemiotics which in turn substantiates biosemiotics as at once a scientific and an aesthetic theory of subjectivity. Biosemiotics as a discipline bridges science\, theory\, and the arts. A Deleuzean biosemiotics coheres and mobilizes these concerns and\, in my estimation\, remains the only approach that is consistently biophysically and aesthetically productive from the point of view of individual subjective emergence. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/lang/
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T154500
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T160000
DTSTAMP:20230801T041322Z
CREATED:20230624T090758Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230801T041322Z
UID:1461-1690904700-1690905600@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Coffee break
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/coffee-break-4/
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T163000
DTSTAMP:20231029T105803Z
CREATED:20230624T090758Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T105803Z
UID:1462-1690905600-1690907400@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Rebeca Méndez-Veras & Òscar Castro
DESCRIPTION:Biosemiotics as a theoretical framework to approach the human gut-microbiota-brain-axis\nRebeca Méndez-Veras & Òscar Castro\nThe human brain has approximately 86-100 billion neurons; however\, the enteric nervous system has an estimated 200 million neurons\, which is why our gut is called the “second brain”. Both systems connect through several sensors\, microbes\, and cells (Sarkar et al.\, 2018); host and microbiota interact continuously. \nThe gut-microbiota-brain-axis (GMBA) is a communication network which engages in a constant and complex dialogue. It connects the central nervous system (CNS) and the gastrointestinal tract. The brain\, immune cells\, and gut microbes communicate through signaling pathways and soluble factors such as cytokines\, central lymphatic vessels\, vagal connections\, amino acids\, neurotransmitters\, hormones\, and neuroactive metabolites (Sarkar et al.\, 2018). These communication elements can directly affect the gut\, CNS\, and immune system and indirectly affect the brain. Despite some disagreement\, several studies have shown that the gut microbiota influences cognitive functions (Sarkar et al.\, 2018). \nIn this study\, we present biosemiotics as a theoretical framework to explain the biocommunication occurring in the GMBA. We will use tryptophan-serotonin signaling as an example of neurotransmission and examine how Jesper Hoffmeyer´s semiotic scaffolding is one of the best ways to approach semiosis in this pathway. Do microbes communally work with host cells? Is their behavior part of a “shared agenda” (Hoffmeyer\, 2014) or are they capable of making individual decisions? Is health\, a continuous peaceful coexistence (as Hoffmeyer says) between the host homeostatic mechanisms and microbes? Is a disruption in this “blissful state” what leads to disease\, to cognitive impairment? These are some of the questions that we pretend to answer\, and that will lead us to reframe others as the ones proposed by those working on research regarding the use of pro(psycho)biotics as therapeutics. \nAs pointed out by Sharov and Vehkavaara (2015)\, “Biosemiotics should include both object-agent and meta-agent perspective in studying signs processes in living organisms” and “the importance of studying molecular interactions through biosemiotics terminology gives us a wider view of the problem” (Sharov & Vehkavaara\, 2015). A holistic approach is the only path to truly understanding the human-microbiome interconnection\, and biosemiotics is a wonderful framework to provide it. \n  \n  \nReferences \nHoffmeyer\, J. (2015). Semiotic Scaffolding of Multicellularity. Biosemiotics 8\, 159–171. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-015-9231-6 \nSarkar A\, Harty S\, Lehto SM\, Moeller AH\, Dinan TG\, Dunbar RIM\, Cryan JF\, Burnet PWJ (2018). The Microbiome in Psychology and Cognitive Neuroscience. Trends Cogn Sci. Jul;22(7):611-636. doi: 10.1016/j.tics.2018.04.006. Epub 2018 Jun 12. PMID: 29907531. \nSharov\, A.A.\, Vehkavaara\, T. (2015). Protosemiosis: Agency with Reduced Representation Capacity. Biosemiotics 8\, 103–123. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-014-92197 \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/mendez-castro/
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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230801T170000
DTSTAMP:20231029T105940Z
CREATED:20230624T090758Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T105940Z
UID:1463-1690907400-1690909200@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Mariana Vitti Rodrigues\, Claus Emmeche & Henrik Nielsen
DESCRIPTION:Protein language models and the semiotic language of Signal Peptides\nMariana Vitti Rodrigues\, Claus Emmeche & Henrik Nielsen\nAre language models learning to read the language of nature? This communication explores the learning potential of applying automated methods to predict signal peptides using protein language models. Signal Peptides (SP) are short amino acid sequences whose function is to guide its protein towards the secretory pathway in a cell. Being non-stable parts of proteins\, signal peptides are difficult to identify experimentally. One approach to identify SP bioinformatically is to use Protein Language Models which are inspired by Natural Language Processing (NLP) algorithms (SignalP 6.0\, Teufel et al. 2022). In this context\, we inquire: What is the role of the computer (language) model in our knowledge about signal peptides? To investigate this question\, we will propose a semiotic analysis of protein language\, inquiring the extent to which language models are able to read bits of ‘the language of nature’. Our hypothesis (H1) is that the semiotic concept of dicisign\, or natural proposition (Stjernfelt 2014)\, understood as a kind of sign which conveys information\, can shed light on the SP phenomenon. Peirce presented the dicisign as a double-sign structure by the colocalization between an Icon and an Index (Peirce CP 2.312\, 1903). The iconic part of a dicisign embodies the possible properties that can be attributed to the sign’s object\, being its description. The indexical part of the dicisign indicates possible objects of attribution\, being the reference of its object. The function of a dicisign is to inform\, to convey the form of its object by its own abilities\, in order to generate new interpretants which claim that the icon-index syntax holds. The SP\, viewed as a dicisign\, can be understood as playing a zipcode function: it guides a given package (icon/protein) to a certain location (index/transmembrane or outside the cell)\, conveying the form of its object (protein translocation). Within this framework\, we will discuss the extent to which Signal Peptides can be considered as part of semiosis in order to investigate which semiotic aspects of SP can be ‘translated’ (or digitalized) to be analyzed through language models (we will even pose this question to another language model). Finally\, we invite the audience to reflect upon the extent to which a biosemiotic approach to SPs plays a relevant role as a source of new knowledge in the growing automation of scientific practice. \nReferences \nTeufel\, F.\, Almagro Armenteros\, J.J.\, Johansen\, A.R. et al. (2022). SignalP 6.0 predicts all five types of signal peptides using protein language models. Nat Biotechnol 40\, 1023–1025. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-021-01156-3 \nPeirce\, C. S (1958) The Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce. Electronic edition. Vols. I-VI\, Hartshorne\, C.\, Weiss\, P. (Eds.)\, 1931-1935. Vols. VII-VIII\, Burks\, A. W. (Ed.). Charlottesville: Intelex Corporation. Cambridge: Harvard University Press. [Quoted as CP\, followed by the volume and paragraph]. \nStjernfelt\, F. (2014) Natural Propositions. The Actuality of Peirce’s Doctrine of Dicisigns. Boston\, Mass.: Docent Press. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/rodrigues-vitti-emmeche-nielsen/
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