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X-WR-CALDESC:Events for Biosemiotics
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BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T000000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230804T235959
DTSTAMP:20230727T183952Z
CREATED:20230624T085708Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230727T183952Z
UID:1423-1690761600-1691193599@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
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:20230731T100000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T103000
DTSTAMP:20230809T214457Z
CREATED:20230624T090500Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230809T214457Z
UID:1435-1690797600-1690799400@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Claus Emmeche & Kalevi Kull
DESCRIPTION:Opening remarks\n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/opening-remarks-emmeche-kull/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T103000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T110000
DTSTAMP:20231029T092502Z
CREATED:20230624T090501Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T092502Z
UID:1437-1690799400-1690801200@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Paul Deshusses
DESCRIPTION:Sebeok’s Razor and the Sign of Three: Hoffmeyer\, Chomsky and Mandelbrot\nPaul Deshusses\n  \nThis presentation will be based on historical archival research conducted at the Thomas Sebeok Archive in Bloomington Indiana\, and will review four emblematic and revealing correspondence the researcher held. Sebeok’s three chosen interlocutors for this presentation are Jesper Hoffmeyer\, Benoît Mandelbrot\, and Noam Chomsky. The ‘decisive’ correspondence the scholar had with Jesper Hoffmeyer in the 1990s will be reviewed\, as well as the forgotten exchange of letters he had with Benoît Mandelbrot in 1961\, 20 years before the mathematician developed the field of fractal theory and\, finally\, the correspondence he held with Noam Chomsky in the seventies where the principle of the Occam Razor and ironies were very present. Each correspondence will enable me to argue something larger about the history of biosemiotics\, namely the role of political and economic context\, serendipity\, and the role of forgotten actors or ‘little hands’ of science.\nFirst\, the content of the correspondence will be analysed\, and more importantly\, the form and the tone\, as theorised by the meta-historian Hayden White. Moreover\, this presentation seeks to illuminate not just the intellectual context and debates in which the actors were swimming (and sometimes against the current) but also will devote time and attention to excavating the political and economic contexts\, which no doubt played their part in the successes and challenges the actors met. On the context side\, I will\, for instance\, mention the evident role of cold war politics but also stress the role Sebeok’s academic secretaries played in his career (their assigned tasks far-exceeding their academic roles when requested to buy him a razor or deal with after-sales service for Christmas gifts for his children\, to mention two examples). For the style analysis part\, I will highlight the role of apologies in Thomas Sebeok’s prose\, irony\, and ‘awe’ vocabulary. Therefore\, following a similar method\, I strive to uncover the particular aesthetics and creative aspirations encoded in the various speakers’ self-imagination and expression\, most notably Jesper Hoffmeyer.\nFinally\, this presentation will ponder if Thomas Sebeok theory and Jesper Hoffmeyer theory of semiosis can be applied to their own method of working as revealed by the archive. Drawing on their own insights\, the correspondence analysis may serve as a compelling example of how semiotic theory can shed light on its ‘birth’ as a field of interest. Furthermore\, Sebeok\, Hoffmeyer\, Chomsky\, and Mandelbrot’s letters reveal a rich interplay between language\, posture\, and broader political and economic context\, illustrating the complexity of the semiotic process they were subjected to\, while theorising it in their own way. By applying their own insights to their exchange\, after having preliminary reviewed their posts following a method developed by Hayden White\, this paper seeks to contribute to the ongoing project of building a more comprehensive and nuanced understanding of the epistemology of early biosemiotics inquiries. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/deshusses/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T110000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T113000
DTSTAMP:20231029T092458Z
CREATED:20230624T090501Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T092458Z
UID:1438-1690801200-1690803000@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Jamin Pelkey
DESCRIPTION:Wonder and Embodiment: On Hoffmeyer’s biosemiotic aesthetics\nJamin Pelkey\nAmong the many ideas earmarked for ongoing development in Jesper Hoffmeyer’s oeuvre\, his sketches of a biosemiotic aesthetics are among the most promising for dispelling pernicious illusions of alienation between human consciousness and the natural world and for healing the untold trauma these illusions have caused. Building on ideas from C. S. Peirce\, John Deely\, Mary Douglas\, Kalevi Kull\, Mark Johnson\, and others (esp.\, Weber 2016)\, I focus on three themes in Hoffmeyer’s writings related to biosemiotic aesthetics (esp.\, 1997\, 2008): (1) his discussions of the interrelationships between aesthetics and ethics\, (2) his treatment of consciousness as narrative and spatial interpretation\, and (3) his embrace of fallibility and ambiguity as necessary for the emergence of signs of meaning in the universe. In doing so\, I suggest that wonder and embodiment are key unifying relations between these three themes\, with a special emphasis on the lived feelings of bodily movement and memory schemas in relation to the earth. To better illustrate the pragmatic power of these ideas\, I then shift to cognitive poetic analyses of four brief passages of literary art concerned with the ethics and aesthetics of human relationships to the biological world. These four passages (by Cameron Awkward-Rich\, Edna St. Vincent Millay\, Herman Melville\, and Cormac McCarthy\, respectively) illustrate ways in which movement schemas of the human Umwelt oriented to the bodily midlines of upright posture are well-suited for rehabilitating attention to an ethical aesthetics of empathic wonder capable of retrieving a vital sense of continuity with life itself\, including a spontaneous sense of concern for its irreplaceability. Revitalizing attention to these layers of being is a necessary but neglected component of the regimen required for healing the trauma of induced alienation between modern modes of human consciousness and the natural world. \n  \nReferences \nHoffmeyer\, J. (1997). Signs of Meaning in the Universe. Indiana University Press. \nHoffmeyer\, J. (2008). Biosemiotics: An Examination into the Signs of Life and the Life of Signs. University of Scranton Press. \nWeber\, A. (2016). The Biology of Wonder: Aliveness\, Feeling and the Metamorphosis of Science. New Society Publishers. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/pelkey/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T113000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T120000
DTSTAMP:20230727T183853Z
CREATED:20230624T090504Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230727T183853Z
UID:1439-1690803000-1690804800@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Coffee break
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/coffee-break/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T123000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T130000
DTSTAMP:20230727T183844Z
CREATED:20230624T090504Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230727T183844Z
UID:1440-1690806600-1690808400@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Daniel Mayer-Foulkes
DESCRIPTION:The Nature of Living Being: Distinguishing Distinctions\nThe main ideas of the recently published book in the Biosemiotics series\, The Nature of Living Being: From Distinguishing Distinctions to Ethics will be presented. \nLiving beings are distinguishing distinctions. Single cells and multicellular organisms maintain themselves distinct by drawing distinctions. This is what organisms are and what they do. From this starting point\, key issues examined range across ontology\, epistemology\, phenomenology\, logic\, and ethics. Topics discussed include the origin of life\, the nature and purpose of biology\, the relation between life and logic\, the nature and limits of formal logic\, the nature of subjects\, the subject-object relation\, subject-subject relationships and the deep roots of ethics. The book provides a radical new foundation to think about philosophy and biology and appeals to researchers and students in these fields. It powerfully debunks mechanical thinking about living beings and shows the vast reservoir of insights into aliveness available in the arts and humanities.
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/mayer-foulkes/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T123000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T130000
DTSTAMP:20231029T094608Z
CREATED:20230624T090505Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T094608Z
UID:1441-1690806600-1690808400@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Matthew McTeigue
DESCRIPTION:Semiosis\, Sense-Making and the Being of the Between: Reconciling Autopoietic Enactivism and Biosemiotics through Relational Biology\nMatthew McTeigue\nThis talk will investigate the autopoietist’s theory of the continuity between life and mind under the auspices of a biosemiotic approach to enactivist philosophy of mind\, with a view to resolve a deep-seated tension between the essence of life and mind (cognition). As proponents of the theory claim\, where we find life\, we find mind. Life and mind derive from the same set of organizational and functional properties\, and those that define mind are an enriched version of those fundamental to life. In particular\, it is those self-organizing features of mind which are enriched from those typifying life. The talk proceeds in a three-fold manner. Firstly\, it queries the foundation of autopoietic theory to uncover the roots of the multi-varied criticisms levelled at the thesis. Secondly\, it looks at the recent controversy between classical autopoietic theory and advocates of the free-energy principle and predictive processing theories\, who contend autopoiesis fails to account for the anticipatory and future-oriented aspect of cognition. Thirdly\, biosemiotic enactivism is shown to heal this disharmony by providing a more robust theory of autopoietic self-organization via Peirce and biosemiotics\, not only more thoroughly grounded in the metaphysics of complex and self-organizing systems which underpin both the autopoietic and biosemiotics paradigm\, but also through a demonstration of the sign as a unifying foundation of both autopoietic self-organization and meaning and anticipation. Finally\, it will be argued that modelling biosemiosis under the auspices of autopoietic biology and anticipatory systems gives a far richer and nuanced picture of the dynamics of the sign simply unavailable to classical semioticians\, and does justice to the prescience and insight of C.S Peirce. Ultimately\, a biosemiotic contextualization of autopoiesis is touted as an attractive via media between enactivism and free-energy and predictive processing approaches.  \n[Slides from the lecture]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/mcteigue/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T130000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T143000
DTSTAMP:20230727T183825Z
CREATED:20230624T090505Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230727T183825Z
UID:1442-1690808400-1690813800@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Lunch
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/lunch/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T143000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T150000
DTSTAMP:20231029T095048Z
CREATED:20230624T090521Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T095048Z
UID:1448-1690813800-1690815600@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Yagmur Denizhan & Vefa Karatay
DESCRIPTION:Origins and Phases\nYagmur Denizhan & Vefa Karatay\nClassically\, the quest for the origin of a complex and dynamic entity -be it life\, mind or semiosis- seems to demand an explanation of how this entity may have spontaneously emerged as a functioning whole without any prior equivalent. Analysing the full-fledged system one can identify its components\, but these are typically too complex and too specific themselves to have emerged independently and to have self-organised as a coordinated system after a chance encounter. Therefore\, the main challenge of origin questions is to find scenarios of how simple unstructured systems can become structurally and/or functionally more complex without a deus ex machina. A plausible scenario for the increase of complexity seems compartmentalisation in a system. \nThe spontaneous emergence of compartments of different viscosity in a mixed liquid (the so-called Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation) is a long-known phenomenon in physics. An equivalent of such relaxation processes involving biological matter first stroke biologists’ attention in the context of pathological conditions such as amyloid formation in some neurodegenerative diseases. Yet progress in scientific research demonstrated that the emergence of separate domains with distinct phases plays an equally important role in healthy life processes. The expansion of research interests eventually created a need for a more general notion than Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation. Some recent research articles suggest the more general term Phase Separation (PS) in order to also include separation processes involving biological macromolecules that can take on various tunable viscoelastic phases that cannot be categorised as a liquid. Also\, the energetic character of phase separation has a richer repertoire in biology: while it is typically a passive relaxation process in physics\, in biology also active control mechanisms can be at work in compartmentalisation and complexification. It is not a coincidence that models for the origin of life-from Oparin’s coacervation hypothesis (1924) to the more recent ones such as Sharov’s “Coenzyme World” model-all rely on LLPS mechanisms. \nMore than half a century before the recent findings of biophysics on the significance of phase separation\, Gilbert Simondon borrowed the same notion from physics and generalised it as one of the critical concepts of his ontogenetic theory [1]. In order to have an all-embracing theory\, he differentiates between three operational modes of the process of individuation: physical\, vital and psycho-collective. His theory places at the beginning of any process of individuation the so-called pre-individual being\, which is in a state of pure potentiality and tension where no phases exist. In this metastable state\, the slightest perturbation can unleash the process of individuation leading to the emergence of different phases both as spatial compartments (topological domains at distinct phases of matter) and temporal ones (distinct stages of the process). Simondon calls this operation phase separation (“dephasing” – Fr. se dephaser). In the physical mode of individuation\, phase separation refers to the same relaxation process known in physics\, which ends at a stable state where all tensions are resolved and all potential becoming are exhausted. In more complex systems\, however\, the conflicts and tensions within the pre-individual being can only be partially resolved\, such that some portion always remains unresolved as “pre-individual charge”\, leaving room for further individuation. Therefore\, one can say that phase separation offers a mechanism not only for the origin of life but also for the permanent origination potential that is characteristic of life. \nWhen interpreted in the light of Simondon’s Theory of Individuation\, the thriving findings of biophysics research on phase separation can be said to demonstrate how vital individuation operates at the molecular level\, generating structures and processes with limited stability. Some of these can be further stabilised by new phase-tuning mechanisms that emerge at later stages of individuation and thereby constitute strictly conserved codes\, while others remain less stable and\, therefore\, more prone to external influences. This reminds us of the Code Duality thesis proposed by Hoffmeyer and Emmeche [2] as ‘the chain of events which sets life apart from non-life…. needs at least two codes: one code for action (behaviour) and one code for memory’\, and seems to offer an explanation of how these different codes may have emerged in the course of vital individuation. \n  \nReferences \nHoffmeyer\, J.\, & Emmeche\, C. (1991). Code-duality and the semiotics of nature. In M. Anderson & F. Merrell (Eds.)\, On semiotic modeling (pp. 117–166). New York: Mouton de Gruyter. \nSimondon G. (2020). Individuation in light of notions of form and information. Translated by: Adkins\, T. University of Minnesota Press. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/denizhan-karatay/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T153000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T153000
DTSTAMP:20231029T095240Z
CREATED:20230624T090619Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T095240Z
UID:1449-1690817400-1690817400@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Josh Bacigalupi
DESCRIPTION:Semiosic Agency: Self-regulated Habituation of Ever-novel Signs via Affective Field\nJosh Bacigalupi\nAt the conclusion of our group’s presentation at last year’s gatherings\, we received two questions that this presentation will address: one from Alexei Sharov on the nature of agency and another from Vinicius Romanini on the nature of virtuality. This presentation will endeavor to rigorously characterize agency via virtuality. This project’s approach to virtuality (Bacigalupi 2022) – a dynamically sustained potential in continuous exchange with actuality\, or structure – will be further explicated via the self-regulation of the habituation of ever-novel signs\, all of which necessarily entails a continuous and transfinite affective field. \nBoth Sharov (2021) and Romanini (2006) have written on the subjects of their respective questions. It is therefore a great opportunity to respond with some level of rigor. To do this\, this presentation will start with the question of Semiosic Agency: what is it? \nA possible answer will be organized into three main sections: the first section will frame the proposed model as a tension in the continuous exchange between virtual and actual dynamics; to continuously engage and resolve this tension\, a physically grounded affective field will be proposed in the second section\, which will explain how ever-novel signs can be habituated from this tension; the final section will demonstrate that\, in addition to habituating novel signs\, the system must self-regulate itself so as to avoid perennial “death-states” of over- and under-coherence. The ever-evolving state of this system coherence will be inhered within the affective field\, which will serve as an index for semiosic viability. And self-regulation to maintain this viability involves two simultaneous\, non-stochastic and non-algorithmic choices with respect to this index on coherence: either tendency – deciding to “stay the course” – or drive – deciding to change the operational course. It will be argued that it is these existential ever-present choices\, and the afore-described dynamics manifesting them\, that constitute veritable Semiosic Agency. \n  \nReferences \nBacigalupi\, J. A. (2022). Semiogenesis: A Dynamic System Approach to Agency and Structure. Biosemiotics\, 15(2)\, 261–284. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-022-09494-8 \nRomanini\, V. (2006\, January 1). Minute Semeiotic Speculations on the Grammar of Signs and Communication based on the work of C. S. Peirce. \nSharov\, A.\, & Tønnessen\, M. (2021). Semiotic Agency: Science beyond Mechanism (Vol. 25). Cham: Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89484-9 \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/bacigalupi/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T153000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T160000
DTSTAMP:20231029T103128Z
CREATED:20230624T090620Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T103128Z
UID:1450-1690817400-1690819200@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Victoria Alexander
DESCRIPTION:The Creativity of Cells: Aneural Irrational Cognition\nVictoria Alexander\nBaluška and Levin’s (2016) review of the literature on aneural cognition in single-celled organisms\, plants\, and animal tissues is focused on what might be called rational biological processes\, using inherited or habituated signal pathways. The authors do not touch upon the extent to which simple organisms and cells are capable of irrational cognition. Human memory is not always the result of conditioning that locks in the most statistically relevant information about the environment.  \nTechniques for memorization available to humans use rhyme\, rhythm\, tone and other poetic devices\, such as metaphor\, metonymy\, and symbolism. The mind-palace technique forms memories via arbitrary association and does not require multiple repetitions as straight rote learning does. People with synesthesia are better able to recall arbitrary facts because numbers or letters may have for them a unique color\, texture or shape. Synesthesia studies have contributed to an understanding of how the subconscious works in a cross-modal manner. These types of memory formation do not conform to what we may think of as typical logical operations. \nI will argue that certain conscious mnemonic devices may have evolved from aneural semiosic mechanisms. The physical properties of sign-vehicles in signal pathways—insofar as they may be coincidentally similar to or coincidentally proximate to\, or arbitrarily connected to a component of the pathway—may lead to radical change in the function of the pathway. The self-organized emergent patterns that result from such lower-level “poetic” flexibility may be more robust and more efficient than patterns that require precisely determined categorically-correct local interactions. Such processes would flow easily to the lowest energy state. These aesthetic processes may underlie the most significant evolutionary adaptations\, as well as what might be called learning by insight or having an epiphany.  \nThe code duality model of Emmeche and Hoffmeyer (1991) can account for the apparently paradoxical situation wherein the physicality that grounds sign relations can also provide the physical qualities by which new (sometimes irrational) relationships can begin to form. As the effects of local sign-readings interact in the process of self-organization\, these qualities provide the constraints that engender semiotic freedom\, as well as the forgiving imprecision that leads to regularity. \nI will illustrate local sign “misreadings” with examples of laboratory manipulations of pea plants that cause them to pursue wind as an index sign of light\, virus conformations that “trick” the body with molecular mimicry\, and the use of a conjugate to encrypt self with non-self leading to an autoimmune reaction. In these cases\, the normal pathway is not simply broken or blocked\, it is co-opted. Thus\, it becomes possible to see how novel evolutionary adaptations might use similar aesthetic mechanisms to repurpose existing pathways.  \n  \n  \nReferences \nBaluška\, F.\, & Levin\, M. (2016). On Having No Head: Cognition throughout Biological Systems. Frontiers in Psychology\, 7. \nEmmeche\, C.\, & Hoffmeyer\, J. (1991). Code-duality and the semiotics of nature. In M. Anderson & F. Merrell (Eds.)\, On semiotic modeling (pp. 117–166). New York: Mouton de Gruyter. \n[Slides from the presentation]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/alexander/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T160000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T163000
DTSTAMP:20230727T183738Z
CREATED:20230624T090521Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230727T183738Z
UID:1446-1690819200-1690821000@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Coffee break
DESCRIPTION:
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/coffee-break-2/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T163000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T170000
DTSTAMP:20231029T103313Z
CREATED:20230624T090521Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T103313Z
UID:1447-1690821000-1690822800@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Claudio Rodríguez
DESCRIPTION:Vis-à-vis: Signification Does Not Necessitate Any Kind of Backward Causation\nClaudio Rodríguez\nThe following presentation will argue that no account of signification—be it semantic\, semiotic or organic—requires appealing to backward causation. \nJohn Deely’s views on the relevance of vis a prospecto and vis a tergo as well as their connection to sign virtuality are ontologically expensive as a result of a framework that calls for other specific features to make signification actual. \nI will argue here that signification is\, on the contrary\, a parsimonious phenomenon\, metaphysically speaking\, and that accounts of backwards causation build instead a kind of explanation of the metarelations of signification that does not map to actual significative relations. \n[Slides from the lecture]
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/rodriguez/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T173000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230731T180000
DTSTAMP:20230727T183654Z
CREATED:20230624T090521Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20230727T183654Z
UID:1444-1690824600-1690826400@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Thorolf Van Walsum
DESCRIPTION:The Signifier’s Objects: A Temporal Phenomenology through Lacan and Uexküll\nThe connection between Biosemiotics and Phenomenology is natural and necessary. Uexküllian thought\, since the time of Heidegger\, has pollenated profound philosophical insights into the nature of human and non-human worlds\, and in return\, traditional biosemiotics has held a crucial foothold in phenomenological thought. Without critical phenomenology\, biosemiotics is threatened with a materialist stagnation; without biosemiotics\, phenomenology risks a spiraling self-gratification into idealism. It is my opinion that current trends show symptoms of this mutually becoming the case. A tradition heretofore only minimally engaged by current biosemiotics is that of French psychoanalysis\, particularly that of the Lacanian school. When considering the profound theoretical influence of Uexküll and mid-century ethology on Lacan’s thought\, as well as the devastating critiques levelled by the Lacanian school against French existentialist\, Heideggerian\, and Husserlian phenomenology\, it is a wincing mistake as biosemioticians to have passed over this episteme for so long. \nThrough a critical reading of Lacan’s seminar IV\, The Object Relation\, I will follow in Lacan’s footsteps by proposing a theory of experiential objects that are constituted not by a Husserlian ego\, but by the unfolding of a particular ‘signifier’. In a basically autopoietic move\, Lacan’s notion of objects\, as they are constituted in a growing subject\, serve to orient and disclose the subject’s lived reality within a particular mythological structure; the particular object qua fixed object is a point de capiton in the autopoietic myth. In this unfolding of the signifier-myth\, objects appear as fetishistic or phobic fixities that answer to the subject’s developmental anxieties. Such objects can then become the infamous objet a of Lacanian theory; the object of desire\, ever pursued and necessarily deferred. As has been shown and will be shown again\, however\, both by Lacan’s review of psychoanalytic case studies and some of his most crucial writings\, the object-statuses granted by the developing myth exist within a degree of substitutivity and arbitrariness. The object of desire is primarily a function of the mythical developmental signifier\, and not an object in-itself. Experiential objectivity to Lacan\, then\, is derivative of a basically diachronic process\, an objectivity determined by orientation and approach rather than some essential qualitative characteristic. In his seminar IV\, this was explored in the phobias that appear around the Oedipus myth of Freud’s Little Hans case study\, and primarily concerns a societal negotiation of phallic stimulus. It is very interesting\, therefore\, to notice that a strikingly analogous diachronic unfolding of signifiers may be observed in Uexküll’s notion of the ‘functional cycle’. In his famous example of the Tick\, three stages of significant operations must be passed through to complete the tick’s feeding functions; light\, sweat\, and warmth\, each with a functional encoding. Here\, the experiential ‘objects’ of the tick\, that is\, its perceptual cues\, necessarily imply the completion of one functional cycle and the procession to a new\, discrete one; sweat is not simply the tick’s impulse to drop from its grass\, but also the diachronic implication of feeding-to-come. To put it simply\, the action of the tick may be a strictly coded physiological response (smell → drop)\, but carries the necessary implication of a particular response\, namely\, the possibility or impossibility of feeding upon what it lands. With such an understanding of objects as fundamentally diachronic\, I hope to propose a new phenomenology that can appraise the constitution of signifiers and signifier-elements\, the very bauplan of humans and animals\, which deviates significantly from phenomenological monism as equally as popular contemporary metaphor-absolutism of the cognitive sciences.
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/van-walsum/
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/
END:VEVENT
BEGIN:VEVENT
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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DTSTART;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230802T093000
DTEND;TZID=Europe/Vienna:20230802T100000
DTSTAMP:20231029T110406Z
CREATED:20230624T090826Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20231029T110406Z
UID:1466-1690968600-1690970400@isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com
SUMMARY:Paul Cobley
DESCRIPTION:Does Biosemiotics Need a Theory of Reading?\nPaul Cobley\nCentral to biosemiotics is the process of interpretation\, which takes place across all species of life. General semiotics has been enlivened by the concept of ‘the text’ and the concomitant act of ‘reading’ (Lotman 1964)\, with interpretation embedded in it. The term ‘reading’ clearly invokes a linguistic metaphor\, a derivation from literate culture with a fully anthropic bearing. Is such a metaphor of any use to biosemiotics in its resolute commitment to studying semiosis across species and within organisms\, the overwhelming majority in both cases being non-literate? Is it even worthwhile as a supplement to interpretation. This paper proposes that a reconsideration of the phenomenon of reading in the light of recent research will contribute to a finer sense of biosemiotics’ mission in the academy and beyond. The paper will do this in two main ways. First\, it will point to the emerging study of reading processes which demonstrates not a set of cerebral or socio-cultural co-ordinates that are enacted in acts of reading\, but the invocation of distributed bodily apparatuses characterized by scalarity (Trasmundi\, Toro and Mangen 2022). Second\, based on studies of the use of close reading (Cobley and Siebers 2021)\, it will suggest that embodiment in reading offers indications of what readers seek to get close to when they carry out close reading. In particular\, it will be argued that reading closely affords (or at least promises to afford) greater proximity to ‘the real’ as it is conceived in a biosemiotic frame by John Deely. Deely’s distinction between sign\, object and thing offers both biosemiotics and the theory of (close) reading a configuration for the recognition of a realm beyond signification plus the possibility of signs signifying beyond themselves and objects. In biosemiotic terms\, this entails constraints and agential opportunities. Effectively\, ever closer reading\, like Achilles’ progress in catching the tortoise\, will be argued to expand the parameters of the human Umwelt. \n  \nReferences \nCobley\, Paul and Siebers\, Johan (2021) ‘Close reading and distance: between invariance and a rhetoric of embodiment’ Language Sciences 84 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2021.101359 \nLotman\, Jurij M. (1964) Lektsii po struktural’noi poetike. Vvedenie\, teoriia stikha. Tartu \nUniversity. (Brown University Slavic Reprint 5. Ed. Thomas Winner\, Brown University Press\, 1968). \nTrasmundi\, Sarah Bro; Toro\, Juan & Mangen\, Anne (2022). Human Pacemakers and Experiential Reading. Frontiers in Communication. ISSN 2297-900X. 7. doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2022.897043.
URL:https://isbsarchive.dreamhosters.com/gibs23pres/cobley/
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