Abstract:Th is lecture is divided into three main sections. Th e fi rst part discusses the von Uexküllian umwelt and Funktionskreis; the second concerns Charles Sanders Peirce's semiotic, and the growth of signs and meanings; and the last explores the biosemiotic idea of poiesis -particularly in relation to culture and literature. Th e fi rst two sections will look at some of the main theoretical ideas underpinning biosemiotics. Th e third, taking particular account of this audience of members of the European Associati… Show more
“…It is likely that it is a new poetic-semiosic process, not a nucleotide change per se, that is selected or not. As Wheeler (2014a;407) puts it:…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…It is likely that it is a new poetic‐semiosic process, not a nucleotide change per se , that is selected or not. As Wheeler (2014a; 407) puts it: Poetic form and biological form stand in a homologous relation: it is the regularity of form (or habit) which makes creative evolution possible as formal disruption affording the possibility of new meaning (or functions)…To use Stuart Kauffman's (2013: 1−24) example, what was simply a ‘fish jawbone’ becomes understood as ‘mammalian ear.’…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Every creature, no matter how simple, must have a sense of ‘aboutness’ or intentionality … However system‐derived and non‐conscious, they are not machines, and every living thing must be capable of negotiating a sometimes surprising world. This means that every organism has something like ‘mind’ … most of your mind and my mind and certainly the most creative parts, are non‐conscious… (Wheeler, 2014a; 402).…”
Evidence of cognition in aneural cells is well‐establish in the literature. This paper extends the exploration of the mechanisms of cognition by considering whether or not aneural cells may be capable of irrational cognition, making associations based on coincidental similarities and circumstantial factors. If aneural cells do harness such semiosic qualities, as with higher‐level creativity, this might be how they are able to overcome old algorithms and invent tools for new situations. I will look at three examples of irrational learning in aneural systems in terms of semiotics: (1) generalisation in the immune system, based on viral molecular mimicry, whereby immune cells attack the self, which seems to be an overgeneralisation of an icon sign based on mere similarity, not identity, (2) the classical conditioning of pea plants to trope toward wind as a sign of light, which seems to be an association of an index sign based on mere temporal proximity, and (3) a pharmaceutical intervention to prevent pregnancy, using a conjugate to encrypt self with non‐self, which seems to be an example of symbol use. We identify irrational cognition easily when it leads to ‘wrong’ outcomes, but, if it occurs, it may also lead to favourable outcomes and ‘creative’ solutions.
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“…It is likely that it is a new poetic-semiosic process, not a nucleotide change per se, that is selected or not. As Wheeler (2014a;407) puts it:…”
Section: Discussionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…It is likely that it is a new poetic‐semiosic process, not a nucleotide change per se , that is selected or not. As Wheeler (2014a; 407) puts it: Poetic form and biological form stand in a homologous relation: it is the regularity of form (or habit) which makes creative evolution possible as formal disruption affording the possibility of new meaning (or functions)…To use Stuart Kauffman's (2013: 1−24) example, what was simply a ‘fish jawbone’ becomes understood as ‘mammalian ear.’…”
Section: Introductionmentioning
confidence: 99%
“…Every creature, no matter how simple, must have a sense of ‘aboutness’ or intentionality … However system‐derived and non‐conscious, they are not machines, and every living thing must be capable of negotiating a sometimes surprising world. This means that every organism has something like ‘mind’ … most of your mind and my mind and certainly the most creative parts, are non‐conscious… (Wheeler, 2014a; 402).…”
Evidence of cognition in aneural cells is well‐establish in the literature. This paper extends the exploration of the mechanisms of cognition by considering whether or not aneural cells may be capable of irrational cognition, making associations based on coincidental similarities and circumstantial factors. If aneural cells do harness such semiosic qualities, as with higher‐level creativity, this might be how they are able to overcome old algorithms and invent tools for new situations. I will look at three examples of irrational learning in aneural systems in terms of semiotics: (1) generalisation in the immune system, based on viral molecular mimicry, whereby immune cells attack the self, which seems to be an overgeneralisation of an icon sign based on mere similarity, not identity, (2) the classical conditioning of pea plants to trope toward wind as a sign of light, which seems to be an association of an index sign based on mere temporal proximity, and (3) a pharmaceutical intervention to prevent pregnancy, using a conjugate to encrypt self with non‐self, which seems to be an example of symbol use. We identify irrational cognition easily when it leads to ‘wrong’ outcomes, but, if it occurs, it may also lead to favourable outcomes and ‘creative’ solutions.
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“…Wendy Wheeler is herself a leading representative of a biosemiotic approach in ecocritical literary studies, which has just recently been the topic of an EASLE conference at Tartu. 2 Serenella Iovino (Turin) and Serpil Oppermann (Ankara) are two important protagonists of the new materialism in literary and cultural studies, as is evidenced by their recent co-edited volume on Material Ecocriticism. Hanjo Berressem at the University of Cologne is a leading exponent of a creative integration of approaches from science, philosophy, mathematics, eco-logics, and complexity theory into literary studies on the basis of Deleuze and Latour.…”
While postmodern metafiction (or reflexive fiction) is commonly positioned outside the scope of the Ontological Turn due to metafiction’s association with postmodernism’s insistence on “world as text,” this article argues that metafiction’s proximity to scientific theories of reflexivity engenders a shift toward what the article calls body as text, a shift that is synchronous with reflexivity’s evolution from cybernetics to biological autopoiesis. To trace metafiction’s aesthetic evolution from world as text to body as text, the article examines Jorge Luis Borges’s short story “The Circular Ruins” (1940) alongside early-order cybernetic theories of reflexivity before examining Salvador Plascencia’s The People of Paper (2005) alongside later theories of biological autopoiesis. While both narratives demonstrate an interest in the world-building powers of the text, the article argues that Plascencia’s novel demonstrates reflexivity’s autopoietic ability to examine the interstitial relationship between material embodiment and nonhuman agencies. By moving away from Borgesian self-regulation toward self-assembly, The People of Paper gradually sheds the epistemological preoccupations of its world-as-text aesthetic in favor a more ontological body-as-text aesthetic, thereby opening up the possibility of interpreting Plascencia’s novel as an aestheticization not of the construction of reality but of the construction of the body itself. In marking a distinction between world-as-text metafiction and body-as-text metafiction, the latter emerges as a uniquely useful heuristic in the Ontological Turn for modeling molecular embodiment and nonhuman agency.
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