Abstract
Individual semiotic systems interpreting their environment are not well understood from the externalist approach typical of the scientific method. Science constructs probabilities describing large populations of systems, not individuals. The Umwelt, as the individually experienced/created aspects of the habitat aspect of its population’s ecological niche, is given an internalist understanding within the framework of the compositional hierarchy. Vagueness is an important aspect of the internalist condition. It is selectively reduced momentarily by creative choices that can have a Peircean semiotic formulation, and which are often unpredictable externally, thereby appearing to be chance events.
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Notes
Editor’s note: “I use the word phaneron to mean all that is present to the mind in any sense or in any way whatsoever, regardless of whether it be fact or figment.” (Peirce 1931-1958: CP 8.213).
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I thank Victoria Alexander and James Coffman for helpful comments and criticisms.
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Salthe, S.N. Creating the Umwelt: From Chance to Choice. Biosemiotics 7, 351–359 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-014-9204-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-014-9204-1