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futilebricolage · 9 years ago

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What is Biosemiotics?

It’s a very new field, and I don’t think it can be canonically defined as a single system of thought yet. Perhaps it never will be. Here is how I choose to define biosemiotics:

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Biosemiotics is the study of what Evan Thompson calls the Deep Continuity of Mind and Life. The idea is this: There is a “thing” which some of us choose to call Consciousness. As a society we can’t really agree on what this “thing” is (hint: it’s not a thing) and so we also call it by other names like: Soul, Awareness, Self, Spirit, Genome, God, Mind, Personality, Character, Atman, etc…

These names range on a spectrum from religious to secular to scientific. In my opinion they are all trying to point at the same thing, but nonetheless some of them have mutually exclusive definitions. For example, the word Atman usually means precisely the opposite of the word Personality. I see the Deep Continuity Thesis as a response to all this rhetorical confusion.

Deep Continuity says, “If we want to get to the bottom of the matter about this “thing” we call Consciousness (or Mind, or Atman) it would be a mistake to start at the end. Human minds, with their symbols and language, they come at the end of the puzzle. They came into existence only after four billion years of evolutionary process. There’s something unique about human style minds, for sure, but if we want to understand the thing that really makes them special – if we want to understand the “thing” that’s responsible for that strange phenomenon we call Subjectivity, then we have to start at the beginning, at the origin of life.”

The Deep Continuity of Mind and Life claims that the origin of self and the origin of life were the same event.

This shouldn’t seem terribly controversial, but it has some interesting implications. Specifically, if Mind and Life share a Deep Continuity, then all Meaning Systems should have something in common. Well then, what is a Meaning System? That’ perhaps the biggest question we’ll seek to answer.

For now, let’s provisionally say that a Meaning System is an interconnected network of associations, which, taken all together, produces a kind of Paradigm. I don’t quite mean Paradigm in the Kuhnian sense – I mean Paradigm more in the way that Jakob von Uexküll used the word Umwelt – a holistic interpretation / reification of reality. If anything, the fact that the term Meaning System is difficult to define precisely says a lot more about what a Meaning System is than any definition could say.

In Indra’s net, each node in the network contains a reflection of the whole.

So, if there is a Deep Continuity between Mind and Life, then all Meaning Systems should have something in common. This implies that there is something about the way a bacteria experiences reality that is akin to the way I experience reality. More controversially, it implies (to me at least) that there should be an isomorphism between the evolution and structure of the genetic code and the evolution and structure of symbolic language.

This is why we link the terms Biology and Semiotics. Biology is the study of life, and Semiotics is the study of signs and symbols (and their interpretation). Another term lurking in the background here is Semantics, the branch of linguistics and logic concerned with meaning. The words Semiotics and Semantics both developed in the specific context of western philosophy, with its peculiar preoccupation with the written word. What the prefix Bio- does is compels us to notice that these theories about meaning need not necessarily apply to just human symbols (that would be ridiculous), and that the entire tree of life is pulsing with systems of meaning. Biosemiotics invites us to expand our linguistic notions of the word Symbol to cover a much wider range of phenomena.

My hope is that with this expanded vision, we can uncover a bit more of this mystery of what a Self is.

I’m particularly interested in the experience of becoming more than yourself. This can be felt quite powerfully during particularly good sex, or religious reverie, but I think it is also a daily occurrence. When we drive a car or use a tool, it might be said that we extend our models of ourselves into the object. When we finish the sentence of a close friend, the hard work of thinking has become distributed between two minds.

Here’s another, related example:

Human groups like ‘the Iroquois’ or ‘the Romans’ or ‘the Jews’ have distinct phenotypic characteristics that allow them to act in concert (shape history). Could we say that any of these groups has a Self? What would the relationship be between the Self of the group like that and the Self of the individual humans which make it up? And would that relationship be similar to the relationship between the Self of an individual human, and the Self of that human’s cells?

In this course we will take a broad view at many types of Meaning Systems (genetic, religious, linguistic, mathematic) and try to discover, through conversation, if we can find any meaningful correspondence between them. We will pay particularly close attention to those times in which the meaning system eats its own tail. My belief is that the self-consuming structure of the ouroborous is what gives Meaning Systems their Meaning, and what gives Selves of all types their Selfhood.

We’re going to start with the work of Terrence Deacon, and his collaborators Jeremy Sherman and Tyrone Cashman. Jeremey and Ty have graciously agreed to facilitate the discussion about their work, and it will lay the foundation of everything to follow. So, we’ll spend the first five weeks focusing on Deacons teleodynamic theory of self and meaning, and when we move on to other ideas, we’ll be sure to keep these core concepts in mind.

Weeks 6 and 7 will be spent reading excerpts from The Language of the Goddess by Marija Gimbutas. This may seem like an abrupt jump, but there is a line of continuity. The Language of the Goddess describes the evolution of a meaning system which bloomed and decayed all before the advent of the written word (25,000 bc – 3500 bc, for those who care about dates). We still bear fossilized remnants of this system within our culture. Understanding a bit how it worked will bring us much closer to understanding how meaning comes into the world.

Week 8 will be spent on Godels incompleteness theorm. This will provide a logical and mathematical intuition for the phenomena we’ve talked about so far. Will Ramsdel will facilitate this class.

After that, the schedule becomes more fluid. We’re going to spend some time with Gregory Bateson, as well as Lynn Margulis, and maybe Doug Hofstadter, if there’s time. I’ll also throw an essay of mine and some vlog style videos I’ve made. There’s far more to read than we could ever get through, so I think we will try an experiment in the later classes where individuals read different essay’s the same book, and try to find meaningful correspondences during the discussion.

Another way we might characterize this class is that it’s going to be an extended conversation, guided by a growing list of questions. Here is the list I have so far.

· What is a Meaning System? · What is the self? · Can human social groups (+ domesticated species) be considered Selves? True organisms? · Is there a rigorous isomorphism to be found between the evolution of symbolic language and the evolution of DNA? · In what ways is the function of symbolic artifacts in human society analogous to the function of the genome in a cell? · What role do boundaries play in the definition of self? · How does Godelian incompleteness (or any other abstract version of the liars paradox) affect self / other boundaries? · Where does meaning come from? Or, how does meaning develop? · What is the role of repetition in the creation of meaning?

Nuts and Bolts

This class will take place entirely online, helped along by the video sharing technologies that are becoming ubiquitous. As an exploration of identity and meaning, and their relationship to the physical world, we will be very mindful of the ways that meaning and connection can be built in a virtual setting.

This course will consist of substantial readings + online discussion. Expect 3-6 hours of reading a week, plus 2 hours of virtual discussion over Google hangouts. Reading is mandatory.

Weekly Output:

Prior to each week’s discussion, dialoguers are expected to write approximately 200 words (one short paragraph) which broadly summarizes the reading or highlights one interesting point for further discussion. This 200 word paragraph is to serve as a rough template, inspiration, or guide for a video monologue lasting no more than 3 minutes, unedited. Footage can be recorded via webcam or other camera, and will be uploaded to the class youtube channel, EvoTevo. Dialoguers are expected to watch each other’s video monologs before attending class.

Final output:

Final output will be determined via consensus based decision making by November 1st 2016. The final output will likely be a written paper or educational video.

Reading list

Week 1: The Priscilla Series by Italo Calvino. Here is a link to a pdf. Here is a link to Maximus reading the stories aloud. Also, Deacon, towards a science of biosemiotics

Week 2: Neither Ghost nor Machine by Jeremy Sherman, first half. Discussion facilitated by Jeremy Sherman

Week 3: Neither Ghost nor Machine by Jeremy Sherman, second half. Discussion facilitated by Jeremy Sherman

Week 4: Deacon, the symbol concept and Symbolic species Chapters 3 and 12

Week 5: Deacon and Cashman, symbols and religion and Deacon and Cashman, steps to a metaphysics of incompleteness Discussion facilitated by Tyrone Cashman

Week 6: The language of the goddess by marija gimbutas: Foreword, introduction, ch 1, 2, 3, 6.1-6.4, 10, (11)

Week 7: The language of the goddess by marija gimbutas: 12.1-12.4, (14.1-14.5), 15.1, 15.2, 15.4 -15.7, (16), (18.1, 18.2), 18.6-18.10, (19), 20.1 – 20.4 , 25, 27

Week 8: Godels Incompleteness theorm. Discussion facilitated by Will Ramsdel

Week 9: Till death do us part, interpenetration, the biological principles of the ouroborus, what does soap have to do with identity, on alternation of generations, Anastomosis, The mushrooms are Fruiting. Vahafta Analysis Discussion Facilitated by Maximus Thaler

Week 10: An ecology of mind, by Gregory Bateson. Metalogues (all). Biology and evolution essays 1 and 2. Also the documentary, An ecology of mind by Nora Bateson

Week 11: An ecology of mind, by Gregory Bateson. Biology and evolution essays 3 and 4. Begin Angels fear.

Week 12: Gregory bateson, Angels Fear

Week 13: Gregory bateson, Angels Fear

Week 14: Slanted Truths, by Lynn Margulis and Dorion Sagan

Week 15: conclusions / flexibility.

Week 16: conclusions / flexibility.

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