The organism-in-its-environment is recognized as the basic unit of analysis when dealing with living beings. This paper seeks to define the fundamental implications of the concept of the organism-in-its-environment in terms of the biosemiotic concept of human distributed cognition. Human distributed cognition in a biosemiotic context is defined as the ability of a self-referencing organism-in-its-environment to interact with its environment to satisfy its physiological and social needs to survive and sustain itself. The ontogenetic development of the organism-in-its-environment serves as the (...) backdrop to discover the implications of distributed cognition that have general applicability in organisms, but in this paper, are made relevant to human beings. (shrink)

All information results from a process, intrinsic to living beings, of info-autopoiesis or information self-production; a sensory commensurable, self-referential feedback process immanent to Bateson’s ‘difference which makes a difference’. To highlight and illustrate the fundamental nature of the info-autopoietic process, initially, two simulations based on one-parameter feedback are presented. The first, simulates a homeostatic control mechanism (thermostat) which is representative of a mechanistic, cybernetic system with very predictable dynamics, fully dependent on an external referent. The second, simulates a homeorhetic process, (...) inherent to biological systems, illustrating a self-referenced, autonomous system. Further, the active incorporation/interference of viral particles by prokaryotic cells and the activation of CRISPR-Cas can be understood as info-autopoiesis at the most fundamental cellular level, as well as constituting a planetary network of self-referenced information. Moreover, other examples of the info-autopoietic nature of information are presented to show the generality of its applicability. In short, info-autopoiesis is a recursive process that is sufficiently generic to be the only basis for information in nature: from the single cell, to multi-cellular organisms, to consideration of all types of natural and non-natural phenomena, including tools and artificial constructions. (shrink)

The concept of information has been extensively studied and written about, yet no consensus on a unified definition of information has to date been reached. This paper seeks to establish the basis for a unified definition of information. We claim a biosemiotics perspective, based on Gregory Bateson’s definition of information, provides a footing on which to build because the frame this provides has applicability to both the sciences and humanities. A key issue in reaching a unified definition of information is (...) the fundamental problem of identifying how a human organism, in a self-referential process, develops from a state in which its knowledge of the human-organism-in-its-environment is almost non-existent to a state in which the human organism not only recognizes the existence of the environment but also sees itself as part of the human-organism-in-its-environment system. This allows a human organism not only to self-referentially engage with the environment and navigate through it, but also to transform it in its own image and likeness. In other words, the Fundamental Problem of the Science of Information concerns the phylogenetic development process, as well as the ontogenetic development process of Homo sapiens sapiens from a single cell to our current multicellular selves, all in a changing long-term and short-term environment, respectively. (shrink)

Gregory Bateson is well known for defining information by stating “In fact what we mean by information – the elementary unit of information – is a difference which makes a difference…” This conceptual perspective has the merit of simplicity and generality. Simplicity, in addressing the complexity of information. Generality, in seeking applicability to any and every field of human experience. The purpose of this paper is to focus the applicability of this conceptual approach by Bateson and use it to perform (...) a calculation of taking the difference between two grey-level digital images that are shifted one relative to the other. The digital images take the place of the field of view that a human being would have access through her sense of vision at two different spatial/temporal instances. The results show that it is possible to highlight the edges of the objects under scrutiny, as well as to highlight other differences within the object. Bateson’s “difference that makes a difference” would seem to provide a first step in the elusive meaning making process of humans. (shrink)

Distributed cognition is widely recognized as an approach to the study of all cognition. It identifies the distribution of cognitive processes between persons and technology, among people, and across time in the development of the social and material contexts for thinking. This paper suggests an ectoderm-centric perspective as the basis for distributed cognition, and in so doing redefines distributed cognition as the ability of an organism to interact with its environment for the purpose of satisfying its most basic physiological (internal (...) and external) and social needs in order to survive and sustain itself. Underlying this ectoderm-centric perspective is a proposed theory of reactive and interactive learning. (shrink)