A necessary condition for proof of abiotic semiosis
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Marc Champagne
Marc Champagne (b. 1976) is a teaching assistant at York University 〈gnosiology@hotmail.com 〉. His research interests include semiotics and philosophy of mind. His publications include “What anchors semiosis: How Descartes changed the subject” (2009); “Some semiotic constraints on metarepresentational accounts of consciousness” (2009); “Explaining the qualitative dimension of consciousness: Prescission instead of reification” (2009); and “Axiomatizing umwelt normativity” (2011).
Abstract
This short essay seeks to identify and prevent a pitfall that attends less careful inquiries into “physiosemiosis.” It is emphasized that, in order to truly establish the presence of sign-action in the non-living world, all the components of a triadic sign – including the interpretant – would have to be abiotic (that is, not dependent on a living organism). Failure to heed this necessary condition can lead one to hastily confuse a natural sign (like smoke coming from fire) for an instance of abiotic semiosis. A more rigorous and reserved approach to the topic is called for.
About the author
Marc Champagne (b. 1976) is a teaching assistant at York University 〈gnosiology@hotmail.com〉. His research interests include semiotics and philosophy of mind. His publications include “What anchors semiosis: How Descartes changed the subject” (2009); “Some semiotic constraints on metarepresentational accounts of consciousness” (2009); “Explaining the qualitative dimension of consciousness: Prescission instead of reification” (2009); and “Axiomatizing umwelt normativity” (2011).
©[2013] by Walter de Gruyter Berlin Boston
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- Between the grid and composition: Layout in PowerPoint's design and use
- Beyond speech balloons and thought bubbles: The integration of text and image
- Abstraction as a limit to semiosis
- The multimodal representation of emotion in film: Integrating cognitive and semiotic approaches
- Hearing a shakkei: The semiotics of the audible in a Japanese stroll garden
- Towards a social semiotics of rhythm in popular music
- A carnival pilgrimage: Cultural semiotics in China
- Photography and intermediality: Analytical perspectives on notions referred to by the term “photography”
- An exploration of possible unconscious ethnic biases in higher education: The role of implicit attitudes on selection for university posts
- New insights into the medium hand: Discovering recurrent structures in gestures
- The multimodal construal of the experiential domain of recipes in Japanese and Chinese
- Cyberterrorist messages: A semiotic perspective
- A necessary condition for proof of abiotic semiosis
- Review of From First to Third Via Cybersemiotics
Articles in the same Issue
- Masthead
- Between the grid and composition: Layout in PowerPoint's design and use
- Beyond speech balloons and thought bubbles: The integration of text and image
- Abstraction as a limit to semiosis
- The multimodal representation of emotion in film: Integrating cognitive and semiotic approaches
- Hearing a shakkei: The semiotics of the audible in a Japanese stroll garden
- Towards a social semiotics of rhythm in popular music
- A carnival pilgrimage: Cultural semiotics in China
- Photography and intermediality: Analytical perspectives on notions referred to by the term “photography”
- An exploration of possible unconscious ethnic biases in higher education: The role of implicit attitudes on selection for university posts
- New insights into the medium hand: Discovering recurrent structures in gestures
- The multimodal construal of the experiential domain of recipes in Japanese and Chinese
- Cyberterrorist messages: A semiotic perspective
- A necessary condition for proof of abiotic semiosis
- Review of From First to Third Via Cybersemiotics
