Semiotic scaffolding: a unitary principle gluing life and culture together
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Semiotic scaffolding : a unitary principle gluing life and culture together. / Hoffmeyer, Jesper.
In: Green Letters, Vol. 19, No. 3, 2015, p. 243-254.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Semiotic scaffolding
T2 - a unitary principle gluing life and culture together
AU - Hoffmeyer, Jesper
PY - 2015
Y1 - 2015
N2 - Life processes at all levels (from the genetic to the behavioral) are coordinated by semiotic interactions between cells, tissues, membranes, organs, or individuals and tuned through evolution to stabilize important functions. A stabilizing dynamics based on a system of semiotic scaffoldings implies that genes do not control the life of organisms, they merely scaffold it. The nature-nurture dynamics is thus far more complex and open than is often claimed. Contrary to physically based interactions, semiotic interactions do not depend on any direct causal connection between the sign vehicle (the representamen) and the effect. Semiotic interaction patterns therefore provide fast and versatile mechanisms for adaptations, mechanisms that depend on communication and “learning” rather than on genetic preformation. Seen as a stabilizing agency supporting the emergence of higher-order structure semiotic scaffolding is not, of course, exclusive for phylogenetic and ontogenetic development, it is also an important dynamical element in cultural evolution.
AB - Life processes at all levels (from the genetic to the behavioral) are coordinated by semiotic interactions between cells, tissues, membranes, organs, or individuals and tuned through evolution to stabilize important functions. A stabilizing dynamics based on a system of semiotic scaffoldings implies that genes do not control the life of organisms, they merely scaffold it. The nature-nurture dynamics is thus far more complex and open than is often claimed. Contrary to physically based interactions, semiotic interactions do not depend on any direct causal connection between the sign vehicle (the representamen) and the effect. Semiotic interaction patterns therefore provide fast and versatile mechanisms for adaptations, mechanisms that depend on communication and “learning” rather than on genetic preformation. Seen as a stabilizing agency supporting the emergence of higher-order structure semiotic scaffolding is not, of course, exclusive for phylogenetic and ontogenetic development, it is also an important dynamical element in cultural evolution.
KW - Faculty of Science
KW - Biosemiotics
KW - scaffolding
KW - causality
KW - teleodynamics
KW - semiotic freedom
KW - evolution
U2 - 10.1080/14688417.2015.1058175
DO - 10.1080/14688417.2015.1058175
M3 - Journal article
VL - 19
SP - 243
EP - 254
JO - Green Letters
JF - Green Letters
SN - 1468-8417
IS - 3
ER -
ID: 153758346