The Biosemiotic Approach in Biology: Theoretical Bases and Applied Models

Queiroz, João; Emmeche, Claus; Kull, Kalevi; El-Hani, Charbel Niño

doi:10.7551/mitpress/9780262201742.003.0005

Cited by 18 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 45 publications

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“…As we argued in previous works (Queiroz et al 2005;El-Hani et al 2006Stjernfelt 2007;Queiroz et al 2009), Peirce's theory of signs brings a contribution to the building of such a theory, since it is quite helpful in addressing semantic and pragmatic aspects of information, which have not been properly treated by theories of information up to present day. Debrock (1996) comments that Peirce defined "information" at least ordinarily (CP 2.418), metaphysically (CP 2.418), as a connection between form and matter, and logically (W 1.276), as the product of the extension and intension of a concept.…”

Section: A Semiotic Analysis Of Firefly Deceptionmentioning

confidence: 86%

“…Debrock (1996) comments that Peirce defined "information" at least ordinarily (CP 2.418), metaphysically (CP 2.418), as a connection between form and matter, and logically (W 1.276), as the product of the extension and intension of a concept. The definitions of sign mentioned above straightforwardly lead to a definition of information as the communication of a form from O to I through S (Queiroz et al 2005;El-Hani et al 2006;Queiroz et al 2009). …”

Section: A Semiotic Analysis Of Firefly Deceptionmentioning

confidence: 98%

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Firefly Femmes Fatales: A Case Study in the Semiotics of Deception

2009

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Mimicry and deception are two important issues in studies about animal communication. The reliability of animal signs and the problem of the benefits of deceiving in sign exchanges are interesting topics in the evolution of communication. In this paper, we intend to contribute to an understanding of deception by studying the case of aggressive signal mimicry in fireflies, investigated by James Lloyd. Firefly femmes fatales are specialized in mimicking the mating signals of other species of fireflies with the purpose of attracting responding males to become their prey. These aggressive mimics are a major factor in the survival and reproduction of both prey and predator. It is a case of deception through active falsification of information that leads to efficient predation by femmes fatales fireflies and triggered evolutionary processes in their preys' communicative behaviors. There are even nested coevolutionary interactions between these fireflies, leading to a remarkable system of deceptive and counterdeceptive signaling behaviors. We develop here a semiotic model of firefly deception and also consider ideas advanced by Lloyd about the evolution of communication, acknowledging that deception can be part of the explanation of why communication evolves towards increasing complexity. Increasingly complex sign exchanges between fireflies evolve in an extremely slow pace. Even if deceptive maneuvers are played out time and time again between particular firefly individuals, the evolution of the next level of complexity-and thus the next utterance in the dialogue between species-is likely to take an immense amount of generations.

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Section: A Semiotic Analysis Of Firefly Deceptionmentioning

confidence: 86%

Section: A Semiotic Analysis Of Firefly Deceptionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Firefly Femmes Fatales: A Case Study in the Semiotics of Deception

2009

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“…Let us tackle these assumptions, then, from a biosemiotic point of view. Biosemiotics is prone to admit that life is made of informative relations, but the notion of information is often subsumed into the idea of sign-based communication (Queiroz et al 2011). One common instrument for such operation is Peirce's semiotics (El-Hani et al 2008;Marcos 2011).…”

Section: Tentimentioning

confidence: 99%

Xenosemiotics. Toward an Alienist Materialism

Tenti

2022

Linguistic Frontiers

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Intended as a branch of synthetic biology, xenobiology aims to design and build non-standard life forms, that is to constructively venture into biological otherness. According to this creative and speculative character, it challenges the principles of synthetic biology itself, which is tied to a fundamentally reductionist approach. Xenobiology does not treat life as a closed code, but rather as a field of ontological innovation; in this sense, it evokes a biosemiotic paradigm that accounts for sense-making and non-anthropomorphic interactions. Xenobiology, however, can also be intended as the “divergent” and most speculative part of astrobiology, namely as a theory of contact with extra-terrestrial life. According to this second meaning, it searches for and speculates on alien biologies. Building on these two meanings, the paper aims to outline a semiotic theory of otherness, or ‘xenosemiotics’, that shifts the focus from communication to morphogenetic information.

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“…Qualquer relação entre o signo e seu objeto é intérpretedependente. "Intérprete", aqui, não se refere necessariamente a um indivíduo, mas a qualquer tipo de sistema cognitivo, sem restrição à sua natureza -físico-químico, biológico ou computacional (QUEIROZ et al, 2011).…”

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O externalismo semiótico ativo de C. S. Peirce e a cantoria de viola como signo em ação

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Queiroz

2021

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RESUMO: O principal propósito deste trabalho é fornecer uma ontologia semiótica para redescrição do externalismo cognitivo ativo, desenvolvido recentemente pelo paradigma 4E (embodied, embedded, enactive, extended cognition). Nessa abordagem, sistemas cognitivos distribuídos (SCDs) são descritos como semiose, ou signos em ação. Explora-se a relação entre semiose e cognição, como concebida por C. S. Peirce, em associação com a noção de sistema cognitivo distribuído (SCD). Introduz-se a abordagem externalista peirciana, com ênfase na noção de distribuição temporal da semiose, e se descrevem SCDs, e seus elementos, como “ação dos signos”. Para desenvolver esse argumento, examina-se um exemplo de SCD - improvisação verbo-musical do repente, repentismo, ou cantoria de viola. Trata-se de um fenômeno de improvisação verbo-musical que tem a forma de um desafio em poesia oral versificada. Explicita-se esse fenômeno como a incorporação da estrutura formal de uma tarefa cognitiva e de um processo inferencial. Essa incorporação corresponde a uma semiotização das performances do repente como SCD. A tendência temporalmente distribuída do repente organiza o SCD como um sistema que realiza experimentos metassemióticos sobre a ação dos signos.

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The Biosemiotic Approach in Biology: Theoretical Bases and Applied Models

Cited by 18 publications

References 45 publications

Firefly Femmes Fatales: A Case Study in the Semiotics of Deception

Firefly Femmes Fatales: A Case Study in the Semiotics of Deception

Xenosemiotics. Toward an Alienist Materialism

O externalismo semiótico ativo de C. S. Peirce e a cantoria de viola como signo em ação

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