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Information, semiotics, and symbolic systems

  • His research interests include quantum information, cybernetics, organisms as cybernetic systems, and mind-body relative to the issue sign-symbol. His publications include Introduction to Logic (in Italian, 2002); ‘Quantum information as a general paradigm’ (2005); ‘Logic, semiotics, and language’ (2005); and ‘The ontology suggested by quantum mechanics.’

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Published/Copyright: August 23, 2007
Semiotica
From the journal Volume 2007 Issue 166

Abstract

Three basic semiotic modes are presented that show an increasing number of referential relations: passive semiosis (monadic semiotic mode), active production of a sign referring to a state of the utterer (dyadic semiotic mode), and active reference to an external event or object for a partner (triadic semiotic mode). Symbolic systems arise when the third semiotic mode is combined with a combinatorial principle typical of information processing. Symbols are not directly representational, since they do not show the associative relation typical of the first two semiotic modes. The brain is not able, with its intrinsic resources, to give rise to a symbolic system, but needs external, physical units (phonemes, gestures, and so on) to be combined to form communicative structures as sentences and discourses. These units are both discrete and codified. Nonhuman primates' inability to possess a true language is due, at least in part, to their failure to discover the principle of combination. Symbolic systems may have arisen phylogenetically in close connection with cooperation for tool making.

Keywords: sign; symbol; icon; indexical relation; referent; representation

About the author

Gennaro Auletta

His research interests include quantum information, cybernetics, organisms as cybernetic systems, and mind-body relative to the issue sign-symbol. His publications include Introduction to Logic (in Italian, 2002); ‘Quantum information as a general paradigm’ (2005); ‘Logic, semiotics, and language’ (2005); and ‘The ontology suggested by quantum mechanics.’

Published Online: 2007-08-23
Published in Print: 2007-08-21

© Walter de Gruyter

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https://doi.org/10.1515/SEM.2007.061
Keywords for this article
sign; symbol; icon; indexical relation; referent; representation

Articles in the same Issue

  1. Wounded warriors: Further explorations into a biocultural semiotics
  2. ‘Reloading’ movies into commercial reality: A multimodal analysis of The Matrix trilogy's promotional posters
  3. The use of language to create realities: The example of Good Bye, Lenin!
  4. The narrative semiotics of The Daily Show
  5. Le produit in situ : Analyse (sémiotique) d'une photographie d'Andreas Gursky 99 cent
  6. Semiotic systemity of visual artworks: Case study of The Holy Trinity by Rublev
  7. ‘What's in a picture?’ A comparison of drawings by apes and children
  8. ‘Aller sans mais se sentir avec’ : emplois absolus non-innocents de avec et sans
  9. An interview with Paul Newman
  10. ‘Superreader’: Riffaterre revisited
  11. Application d'une hypothèse de linguistique textuelle : Le génotexte
  12. Information, semiotics, and symbolic systems
  13. Assuming positions: Organizational change as mediated through metaphors
  14. Icon, index, symbol and denotation, connotation, metasign
  15. Toxic substances, semiotic forms: Towards a socio- and textual analysis of altered senses
  16. Playing doubles: Derrida's writing
  17. Paratextology
  18. Semiotics of space: Peirce and Lefebvre
  19. Gesture and language
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