Søren Brier
In this first issue of volume three we have a theme on Cyber-semiotics: the integration of knowledge from second-order cybernetics and the triadic semiotics of C.S.Peirce to a broader framework for understanding information and communication.
Søren Brier in his paper points out the shortcomings of cognitive science functionalistic concepts of perception, thinking and language. He shows how the sub-cognition paradigm of Hofstadter, second order cybernetics of Maturana, Varela, von Foerster and Luhmann points to the biological organization as an important source of meaning in signs and language. Biological and cultural social activity are the contexts that determine the meaning of communication. C.S. Peirce's second order definition of signs works fruitfully with the self-organization ideas of second order cybernetics. Inspired of Wittgenstein's theory of life forms and language games, what animals does when actualizing shared knowledge, is called sign games.
Jesper Hoffmeyer has for some years inspired by Bateson, von Uexkull, Peirce and Sebeok developed a new bio-semiotics which he in this paper takes steps towards integrating more with second-order cybernetic thinking. For him the living systems do not first of all constitute a Biosphere but a Semiosphere. Every biological system lives in its own self-organized semiotic Umwelt. The living world is a world of signs. Even the inner cyberspace of the living system is penetrated by signs coordinating the swarms of swarms of cells, which we call the body.
Lawrence Bale writes a historical paper on how Bateson's cybernetic theory was created and what its relations was to the classical cybernetics and the general system theory of Bertalanffy.
Ranulph Glanville is continuing his collum. This time it is the concepts of control and error of cybernetics that is in focus.
We bring reviews of the books of Asghar Minai, Robert Theobald and the journal Review des Sciences de l'education.
The poet of this issue is Lawrence Bale. Front page artist is the art editor Bruno Kjær. Michael Manthey has done language revision on Brier and Hoffmeyer's papers.
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