The cybersemiotic model of communication

an evolutionary view on the threshold between semiosis and informational exchange

pp. 697-729

in: Donald Favareau, Essential readings in biosemiotics, Berlin, Springer, 2009

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.