The following points, which represent a path to a semiotics of being, are pertinent to various sub-fields at the conjunction of semiotics of nature (biosemiotics, ecosemiotics, zoosemiotics) and semiotics of culture—semioethics and existential semiotics included. 1) Semiotics of being entails inquiry at all levels of biological organization, albeit, wherever there are individuals, with emphasis on the living qua individuals (integrated biological individualism). 2) An Umwelt is the public aspect (cf. the Innenwelt, the private aspect) of a phenomenal/experienced world that is (...) organism-specific (rather than species-specific) and ultimately refers to an existential realm. 3) Existential universals at work on Earth include seeking out the edible, dwelling in a medium, holding a phenomenal world (possibly an Umwelt) and being endowed with life, and consequently being mortal. 4) Human Umwelten include speechless Umwelten, spoken Umwelten and alphabetic Umwelten. 5) An Uexküllian phenomenology—stating that semiotic states represent the general class to which all mental/cognitive states belong—can draw on the works of the phenomenologists David Abram and Ted Toadvine (The notion of semiotic states is treated in Tønnessen 2009a: 62–63. For an introduction to eco-phenomenology, see Brown and Toadvine (eds.) 2003). 6) A task for such a phenomenology is to portray the natural history of the phenomenal world. 7) An imperative task in our contemporary world of faltering biological diversity is that of Umwelt mapping, i.e. a mapping of ontological niches. 8) The ecological crisis is an ontological crisis with historical roots in humankind’s domestication of animals and plants, which can be taken as archetypical for our attempted planet-scale taming of the wild. 9) The process of globalization is expressed by correlated trends of depletion of semiotic diversity and semiotic diversification. 10) Semiotic economy is a field which task it is to map the human ontological niche insofar as its semiotic relations are of an economic nature. All ten points will be commented (explicitly or implicitly) in due time. (shrink)

Following the levels of intentionality and semiosis distinguished by the Semiotic Hierarchy, and the distinction between original agency and enhanced agency, we propose a model of an agency hierarchy, consisting of six layers. Consistent with the phenomenological orientation of cognitive semiotics, a central claim is that agency and subjectivity are complementary aspects of intentionality. Hence, there is no agency without at least the minimal sense/feeling of agency. This perspective rules out all artefacts as genuine agents, as well as simple organisms, (...) since it is highly unlikely that e.g. bacteria have any first-person perspective. Using this model, we review and assess recent proposals on the nature of agency from cognitive science, and neuroscience, and draw conclusions on how to incorporate aspects of them within a synthetic cognitive-semiotic framework. (shrink)

La percepción puede proponerse como uno de los factores centrales que propician el inicio de procesos semiósicos. La complejidad de esta primera fase cognitiva exige una perspectiva trans e interdisciplinar. Así, desde una postura biosemiótica, trataremos de proponer uno de los conceptos centrales de esta novel teoría, a saber, ‘biosemiosis’. Para ello, nos apoyaremos en ciertos experimentos emanados de las neurociencias. Esta vinculación, en la actualidad, ya no debe resultar extraña si comprendemos que, en nuestro caso, el ser humano es (...) una entidad compuesta por dos esferas fundamentales: la biológica y la cultural. Nos encontramos en un momento en el que el Universo puede entenderse como una enorme red interconectada. Así, la cooperación entre diferentes campos del conocimiento permitirá una mejor comprensión de dichas redes. (shrink)

The emerging epistemic community of ecosemioticians and the multidisciplinary field of inquiry known as ecosemiotics offer a radical and relevant approach to so-called global environmental crisis. There are no environmental fixes within the dominant code, since that code overdetermines the future, thereby perpetuating ecologically untenable cultural forms. The possibility of a sustainability transition (the attempt to overcome destitution and avoid ecocatastrophe) becomes real when mediated by and through ecosemiotics. In short, reflexive awareness of humankind's linguisticality is a necessary condition for (...) transforming ecologically maladaptive cultural forms. As a multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary research program integrating the human and natural sciences, ecosemiotic inquiry closes the gap between biophysical ecology and human ecology. A provisional outline of a pragmatic theory of ecoserniotics attempts to describe the processes by which adaptive cultural changes might be facilitated and points toward substantive content areas that constitute sites for further research. Ecosemiotic inquiry frames cultural codes as these shape and reproduce the ongoing stream of individual and societal choices that shape distinctively human existence in a larger context of biophysical realities that drive natural selection. However, while ecosemiotics is a necessary condition for the sustainability transition, it is not a sufficient condition. (shrink)

Loss of self is widely regarded to be a consequence of dementia, and this perceived loss presents a variety of problems - not least because a clear understanding of the concept of self is elusive. This paper suggests a way to cut through problems that arise because we rely on conceptions of self in our understanding of the effects of dementia. It is proposed that we can avoid reliance on the concept of self through an approach based in in bio-phenomenology. (...) Such an approach would help us better understand the inner life of those with dementia and assist us to recognize that even in late stage dementia they are semiotic subjects with unique value. (shrink)