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The Cybersemiotic Model of Communication: An Evolutionary View on the Threshold between Semiosis and Informational Exchange

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Part of the book series: Biosemiotics ((BSEM,volume 3))

Abstract

Because the domain of investigation that biosemiotics encompasses – i.e., the investigation of the sign use observable in any living system, at any level of its organization – is so large, the accomplishment of interdisciplinary synthesis and the search for unifying explanatory principles become increasingly pressing tasks. Having devoted over twenty years to a focused attempt at synthesizing insights from first- and second-order cybernetics theory, ethology, sociology, embodied cognitive science and philosophy of mind with Peircean semiotics, Danish biosemiotican Søren Brier has articulated a cybersemiotic framework for the understanding of animal and human evolution, communication, and cognition.

Søren Brier(1951– )

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Brier’s editorial and committee work – like his scholarly output – is prodigious, as he also serves on the Editorial Board of the journals System Research and Behavioral Sciences Biosemiotics, The Journal of Trans-person Studies, Triple C: The Journal of Cognition Communication and Cooperation and Signs, and on the Board of the Science of Information Institute, the Foundation of Information Science, and the Sociocybernetic Research Group of the International Sociological Association.

  2. 2.

    Thanks to John Collier for pointing out MacKay to me and for his most valuable critique of an earlier version of the manuscript.

  3. 3.

    The formulation is a result of a discussion with Jesper Hoffmeyer on April 3, 2001, in my office at KVL. As such it is a way to interpret Deely’s physiosemiosis theory.

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Favareau, D. (2009). The Cybersemiotic Model of Communication: An Evolutionary View on the Threshold between Semiosis and Informational Exchange. In: Essential Readings in Biosemiotics. Biosemiotics, vol 3. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4020-9650-1_22

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