Semiosis in evolution
pp. 69-100
in: Marcello Barbieri (ed), Introduction to biosemiotics, Berlin, Springer, 2007Abstract
The essay puts forward an adaptation of the Peircean model of semiosis. The interpretant is a higher monitor in the model watching over the semiosic communication between the object and the representamen, integrating the intrinsic asymmetry (cf. Lotman) between the two and giving the interpretations. To justify the broad range of semiosis, it is important to ground the hypothesis of the cosmological evolution and to show how life emerges from the physicochemical basis. Semiosis in life processes is dealt with in more detail. The assumption of the semiotic closure and epistemic cut by Pattee is accepted, in principle, but mainly reduced to the intrinsic dissymmetry between the object that represents potentials in the model and the representamen that stands for the actual changes and things in it. The dichotomy of energy and matter roughly demonstrates the dialectic between object and representamen at the physical level
