Videos by Victoria N Alexander
How does propaganda work and why it is so difficult to counteract with logic? Propaganda takes a... more How does propaganda work and why it is so difficult to counteract with logic? Propaganda takes advantage of the way our brains function when we are not paying attention. When we are paying attention our analytical skills are engaged. When we are not, our brains go on processing information in a non-analytical way, using what might be called a poetic logic, based mainly upon similarities, coincidental patterns, associations, repetition, and emotion. There are sound biological reasons for this mindless type of processing, which actually helps us learn faster, retain memories longer, and make appropriate decisions without really thinking.
In this presentation, we explore how and why art and poetry may actually be more helpful in developing critical thinking skills. Art also works with the poetic logic of subconscious processing, but does so in a way that is not manipulative, deceptive or dishonest. 26 views
Books by Victoria N Alexander
The Journal of Physiology , 2023
Evidence of cognition in aneural cells is well-establish in the literature. This paper extends th... more Evidence of cognition in aneural cells is well-establish in the literature. This paper extends the exploration of the mechanisms of cognition by considering whether or not aneural cells may be capable of irrational cognition, making associations based on coincidental similarities and circumstantial factors. If aneural cells do harness such semiosic qualities, as with higher-level creativity, this might be how they are able to overcome old algorithms and invent tools for new situations. I will look at three examples of irrational learning in aneural systems in terms of semiotics: (1) generalisation in the immune system, based on viral molecular mimicry, whereby immune cells attack the self, which seems to be an overgeneralisation of an icon sign based on mere similarity, not identity, (2) the classical conditioning of pea plants to trope toward wind as a sign of light, which seems to be an association of an index sign based on mere temporal proximity, and (3) a pharmaceutical intervention to prevent pregnancy, using a conjugate to encrypt self with non-self, which seems to be an example of symbol use. We identify irrational cognition easily when it leads to ‘wrong’ outcomes, but, if it occurs, it may also lead to favourable outcomes and ‘creative’ solutions.
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Biosemiotics, 2017
Although research into the biosemiotic mechanisms underlying the purposeful behavior of brainless... more Although research into the biosemiotic mechanisms underlying the purposeful behavior of brainless living systems is extensive, researchers have not adequately described biosemiosis among neurons. As the conscious use of signs is well-covered by the various fields of semiotics, we focus on subconscious sign action. Subconscious semiotic habits, both functional and dysfunctional, may be created and reinforced in the brain not necessarily in a logical manner and not necessarily through repeated reinforcement. We review literature that suggests hypnosis may be effective in changing subconscious dysfunctional habits, and we offer a biosemiotic framework for understanding these results. If it has been difficult to evaluate any psychological approach, including hypnosis, this may be because contemporary neuroscience lacks a theory of the sign. We argue that understanding the fluid nature of representation in biological organisms is prerequisite to understanding the nature of the subconscious and may lead to more effective of treatments for dysfunctional habits developed through personal experience or culture.
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As 20th century geneticist J. B. S. Haldane famously quipped, "Teleology is like a mistress to th... more As 20th century geneticist J. B. S. Haldane famously quipped, "Teleology is like a mistress to the biologist; he dare not be seen with her in public but cannot live without her." Teleology is the study of the purposes of nature. As a scientific discipline, it began its celebrated decline in the 17th century, with the birth of modern empiricism, and continued to plummet apace the rise of the Enlightenment, Darwinism, and quantum mechanics. Those who continued to think nature could be purposeful were primarily spiritualists, artists, or madmen, who credited the guidance of gods, muses, or fate.
But could a wholesale rejection of teleology be an overreaction? Is there something in the idea, as Haldane implies, that we need? Applying research from the complexity sciences, Peircean semiotics, and poetics, Alexander helps us re-imagine what purposeful behavior might be, in ourselves as well as in nature. Lurking at the heart of the discussion about purposefulness is the too-often overlooked question of creativity, for without creativity there is no purposeful action, only robotic execution of design.
Using her knowledge and experience as an art-theorist and novelist, Alexander takes us "inside" paradoxical self-organizing processes (which, somehow make themselves without having a self yet to do the making) and shows us how poetic-like relationships -- things that are coincidentally near each other or metonymic, things that are coincidentally like each other or metaphoric -- help form organization where there was none before. She suggests that it is these language-like processes that result in the emergent phenomena we call meaningful and functional. The Biologist's Mistress deals deftly with postmodern theories that unfairly snubbed the purposeful artist and offers a view of a non-essentialist emergent self. It's a much-needed antidote to the extreme relativism and anti-intellectualism that has lately wreaked such havoc on human culture.
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Papers by Victoria N Alexander
The Democratization of Artificial Intelligence, 2019
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Biosemiotics, 2021
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A widely remarked fact about On the Origin of Species is that it is not about "origins"... more A widely remarked fact about On the Origin of Species is that it is not about "origins" per se—singular points at which something new begins—but about gradual changes in the proportions of already existing forms. Artists and others have long resisted Darwin's revolution on the grounds that natural selection does not explain evolution, a theory of which must include a theory of actual creativity. In early 20th-century biology, there were still many vocal and powerful dissenters: William Bateson and C. H. Waddington (also a painter and a poet), Richard Goldschmidt, and D'Arcy Thompson, who were heir to 19th-century teleomechanists and morphologists such as von Baer, Mivart, Owen, Muller, and Geoffroy. Repressed in the 1950s during the hardening of the Modern Synthesis, ideas about evolutionary creativity and progress have bubbled up again. Saltationists have increased in number, and Robert G. B. Reid, in his recent Biological Emergences: Evolution by Natural Experime...
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The Antioch Review, 2002
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Biosystems, 2021
Although machines may be good at mimicking, they are not currently able, as organisms are, to act... more Although machines may be good at mimicking, they are not currently able, as organisms are, to act creatively. We offer an understanding of the emergent qualities of biological sign processing in terms of generalization, association, and encryption. We use slime mold as a model of minimal cognition and compare it to deep-learning video game bots, which some claim have evolved beyond their merely quantitative algorithms. We find that discrete Turing machine bots are not able to make productive, yet unanticipated, "errors"-necessary for biological learning-which, based on the physicality of signs, their relatively similar shapes, and relative physical positions spatially and temporally, lead to emergent effects and make learning and evolution possible. In organisms, stochastic resonance at the local level can be leveraged for self-organization at the global level. We contrast all this to the symbolic processing of today's machine learning, whereby each logic node and memory state is discrete. Computer codes are produced by external operators, whereas biological symbols are evolved through an internal encryption process.
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100 Years of Semiotics, Communication and Cognition, 2014
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BioSystems, 2021
Although machines may be good at mimicking, they are not currently able, as organisms are, to act... more Although machines may be good at mimicking, they are not currently able, as organisms are, to act creatively. We offer an understanding of the emergent qualities of biological sign processing in terms of generalization, association, and encryption. We use slime mold as a model of minimal cognition and compare it to deep-learning video game bots, which some claim have evolved beyond their merely quantitative algorithms. We find that these discrete Turing machine bots are not able to make productive, yet unanticipated, "errors"-necessary for biological learning-which, based on the physicality of signs, their relatively similar shapes, and relative physical positions spatially and temporally, lead to emergent effects and make learning and evolution possible. In organisms, stochastic resonance at the local level can be leveraged for self-organization at the global level. We contrast all this to the symbolic processing of today's machine learning, whereby each logic node and memory state is discrete. Computer codes are produced by external operators, whereas biological symbols are evolved through an internal encryption process.
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Democratising AI, 2019
The fact that AI has not yet passed a Turing Test has not prevented it from being sold to the pub... more The fact that AI has not yet passed a Turing Test has not prevented it from being sold to the public as a superior kind of intelligence capable of handling vast amounts of data and therefore capable of making “evidence-based” decisions about human behavior. There is no basis for this claim. AI uses advanced statistics to fine-tune generalizations; it is a glorified actuary table, not an intelligent agent. At the time of his death in 1952, Alan Turing was exploring the differences between biological intelligence and his initial conception of AI. This paper focuses on those differences and sets limits on the uses to which current AI can legitimately be put.
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Biosemiotics, 2019
Biological mimicry is regarded by many as a textbook illustration of Darwin's idea of evolution b... more Biological mimicry is regarded by many as a textbook illustration of Darwin's idea of evolution by random mutation followed by differential selection of reproductively fit specimens, resulting in gradual phenotypic change in a population. In this paper, I argue that some cases of so-called mimicry are probably merely look-a-likes and do not gain an advantage due to their similarity in appearance to something else. In cases where a similar appearance does provide a benefit, I argue that it is possible that these forms of mimicry were created in a single generation. An interpretive response to an appearance as a sign can make a new structure perform drastically differently in an environment. In such cases, Darwin's natural selection mechanism only helps to explain gradual the spread of these new forms, not the creation of them. I argue that biosemiosis should be regarded as a much more powerful mechanism for affecting evolutionary trajectories than the gradualist view allows. I focus on two cases of butterfly mimicry: the Viceroy (Nymphalidae: Limenitis archippus) and Monarch (Nymphalidae: Danaus plexippus) butterflies, supposed Müllerian mimics, and deadleaf mimic butterflies (Kallima).
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"By thus admitting pure spontaneity or life as a character of the universe, acting always and eve... more "By thus admitting pure spontaneity or life as a character of the universe, acting always and everywhere though restrained within narrow bounds by law, producing infinitesimal departures from law continually, and great ones with infinite infrequency, I account for all the variety and diversity of the universe, in the only sense which the really sui generis and new can be said to be accounted for" (EP 1.308). In "The Doctrine of Necessity Examined" (1892), from which the above quote is taken, C. S. Peirce argues that the mechanistic hypothesis—initially posited by Democritus and seemingly confirmed by the lawful regularities discovered by Newton—has never been proved. Peirce notes that he is instead obliged to assume, along with Epicurus (and Aristotle after him), that “atoms swerve from their courses by spontaneous chance” (EP 1:298).
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DESCRIPTION Some forms of insect mimicry may not be the result of gradual selection over time. Na... more DESCRIPTION Some forms of insect mimicry may not be the result of gradual selection over time. Nabokov (along with Goldschmidt) put forth this theory in the 1940s. New evidence coming in from DNA analyses indicates that Nabokov may have been correct. Forthcoming in Fine Lines: Nabokov’s Art and Science. Eds. Stephen Blackwell and Kurt Johnson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015
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In this special issue, our objective is to clarify what biosemioticians may
mean insofar as they ... more In this special issue, our objective is to clarify what biosemioticians may
mean insofar as they claim that living systems are capable of making choices or that
biosemiotic interpretations are partially indeterminate. A number of different senses of
the term “chance” are discussed as we move toward a consensus. We find that
biosemiosic chance may arise out of conditions involving quantum indeterminacy,
randomness, deterministic chaos, or unpredictability, but biosemiosic chance is mainly
due to the fact that living entities (i.e., cells or organisms) invest their environments
with different meanings and values, which are not inherent in the material aspects.
Accordingly, interpretive responses are in part self-determined. A self-determined
interpretation may be thought of as a process in which localized biases constrain the
probabilities of the outcomes of the interactions between an agent and its environment.
The agent’s internal formal constraints that are defined by similarity and proximity are
relative and, as such, vague, and thus interpretation may be somewhat underdetermined
and involve an element of chance.
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Biosemiotics, Jan 1, 2012
In C. S. Peirce, as well as in the work of many biosemioticians, the semiotic object is sometimes... more In C. S. Peirce, as well as in the work of many biosemioticians, the semiotic object is sometimes described as a physical “object ” with material properties and sometimes described as an “ideal object” or mental representation. I argue that to the extent that we can avoid these types of characterizations we will have a more scientific definition of sign use and will be able to better integrate the various fields that interact with biosemiotics. In an effort to end Cartesian dualism in semiotics,which has been the main obstacle to a scientific biosemiotics, I present an argument that the
“semiotic object” is always ultimately the objective of self-affirmation (of habits, physical or mental) and/or self-preservation. Therefore, I propose a new model for the sign triad: response-sign-objective. With this new model it is clear, as I will show, that self-mistaking (not self-negation as others have proposed) makes learning,creativity and purposeful action possible via signs. I define an “interpretation” as a response to something
as if it were a sign, but whose semiotic objective does not, in fact, exist. If the response-as-interpretation turns out to be beneficial for the system after all, there is biopoiesis. When the response is not “interpretive,” but self-confirming in the usual way, there is bio
semiosis. While the conditions conducive to fruitful misinterpretation (e.g. ,accidental similarity of non-signs to signs and/or contiguity of non-signs to self-sustaining processes) might be artificially enhanced,according to this theory, the outcomes would be, by nature, more or less uncontrollable and unpredictable. Nevertheless, biosemiotics could be instrumental in the manipulation and/or artificial creation of purposeful systems insofar as it can describe a formula for the conditions under which new objectives and novel purposeful behavior may emerge, however unpredictably.
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Biosemiotics, Jan 1, 2009
Hackles have been raised in biosemiotic circles by T. L. Short’s assertion that semiosis, as defi... more Hackles have been raised in biosemiotic circles by T. L. Short’s assertion that semiosis, as defined by Peirce, entails “acting for purposes” and therefore is not found below the level of the organism (2007a:174–177). This paper examines Short’s teleology and theory of purposeful behavior and offers a remedy to the disagreement. Remediation becomes possible when the issue is reframed in the terms of the complexity sciences, which allows intentionality to be understood as the interplay between local and global aspects of a system within a system. What is called “acting for purposes” is not itself a type of behavior so much as a relationship between a dynamic system that “exists for a purpose” and its microprocesses that “serve purposes.” The “intentional object” of philosophy is recast here as the holistic self-organized dynamics of a system, which exists for the purpose of selfmaintenance, and that constrains the parts’ behaviors, which serve the purpose of forming the system. (A “system” can be any emergent, e.g. an abiotic form, an adapted species, a self, a conditioned response, thought, or a set of ideas.) The selforganized
whole, which is represented to the parts in their own constrained
behaviors, assumes the guiding function so long attributed to the mysterious “intentional object.” If emergent self-causation is not disallowed, creative originality, as well as directionality, becomes part of the definition of purposeful behavior. Thus, key tools used here, required for understanding emergence, come from poetics rather than semoitics. In the microprocesses of self-organization, I find what I call “accidental” indices and icons — which are poetic in the sense that they involve mere metonymic contiguity and metaphoric similarity — and which are preferentially selected under constrained conditions allowing radically new connections to
habituate into an “intentional” self-organized system that, not coincidentally, has some of the emergent characteristics of a conventional symbolic system.
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Tartu Semiotics Library, Jan 1, 2012
We might never have come up with a concept of chance if we hadnʼt noticed that sometimes the outc... more We might never have come up with a concept of chance if we hadnʼt noticed that sometimes the outcomes of chance aren’t “fair”. If every sample of uncorrelated events had a nice random distribution, then there would be no patterns to get our attention. We wouldn't wonder if, or how, chance “caused” that streak of heads in a coin toss, or that fortuitous meeting at the crossroads.
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Journal of Applied Philosophy, Jan 1, 2011
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Uploads
Videos by Victoria N Alexander
In this presentation, we explore how and why art and poetry may actually be more helpful in developing critical thinking skills. Art also works with the poetic logic of subconscious processing, but does so in a way that is not manipulative, deceptive or dishonest.
Books by Victoria N Alexander
But could a wholesale rejection of teleology be an overreaction? Is there something in the idea, as Haldane implies, that we need? Applying research from the complexity sciences, Peircean semiotics, and poetics, Alexander helps us re-imagine what purposeful behavior might be, in ourselves as well as in nature. Lurking at the heart of the discussion about purposefulness is the too-often overlooked question of creativity, for without creativity there is no purposeful action, only robotic execution of design.
Using her knowledge and experience as an art-theorist and novelist, Alexander takes us "inside" paradoxical self-organizing processes (which, somehow make themselves without having a self yet to do the making) and shows us how poetic-like relationships -- things that are coincidentally near each other or metonymic, things that are coincidentally like each other or metaphoric -- help form organization where there was none before. She suggests that it is these language-like processes that result in the emergent phenomena we call meaningful and functional. The Biologist's Mistress deals deftly with postmodern theories that unfairly snubbed the purposeful artist and offers a view of a non-essentialist emergent self. It's a much-needed antidote to the extreme relativism and anti-intellectualism that has lately wreaked such havoc on human culture.
Papers by Victoria N Alexander
mean insofar as they claim that living systems are capable of making choices or that
biosemiotic interpretations are partially indeterminate. A number of different senses of
the term “chance” are discussed as we move toward a consensus. We find that
biosemiosic chance may arise out of conditions involving quantum indeterminacy,
randomness, deterministic chaos, or unpredictability, but biosemiosic chance is mainly
due to the fact that living entities (i.e., cells or organisms) invest their environments
with different meanings and values, which are not inherent in the material aspects.
Accordingly, interpretive responses are in part self-determined. A self-determined
interpretation may be thought of as a process in which localized biases constrain the
probabilities of the outcomes of the interactions between an agent and its environment.
The agent’s internal formal constraints that are defined by similarity and proximity are
relative and, as such, vague, and thus interpretation may be somewhat underdetermined
and involve an element of chance.
“semiotic object” is always ultimately the objective of self-affirmation (of habits, physical or mental) and/or self-preservation. Therefore, I propose a new model for the sign triad: response-sign-objective. With this new model it is clear, as I will show, that self-mistaking (not self-negation as others have proposed) makes learning,creativity and purposeful action possible via signs. I define an “interpretation” as a response to something
as if it were a sign, but whose semiotic objective does not, in fact, exist. If the response-as-interpretation turns out to be beneficial for the system after all, there is biopoiesis. When the response is not “interpretive,” but self-confirming in the usual way, there is bio
semiosis. While the conditions conducive to fruitful misinterpretation (e.g. ,accidental similarity of non-signs to signs and/or contiguity of non-signs to self-sustaining processes) might be artificially enhanced,according to this theory, the outcomes would be, by nature, more or less uncontrollable and unpredictable. Nevertheless, biosemiotics could be instrumental in the manipulation and/or artificial creation of purposeful systems insofar as it can describe a formula for the conditions under which new objectives and novel purposeful behavior may emerge, however unpredictably.
whole, which is represented to the parts in their own constrained
behaviors, assumes the guiding function so long attributed to the mysterious “intentional object.” If emergent self-causation is not disallowed, creative originality, as well as directionality, becomes part of the definition of purposeful behavior. Thus, key tools used here, required for understanding emergence, come from poetics rather than semoitics. In the microprocesses of self-organization, I find what I call “accidental” indices and icons — which are poetic in the sense that they involve mere metonymic contiguity and metaphoric similarity — and which are preferentially selected under constrained conditions allowing radically new connections to
habituate into an “intentional” self-organized system that, not coincidentally, has some of the emergent characteristics of a conventional symbolic system.
In this presentation, we explore how and why art and poetry may actually be more helpful in developing critical thinking skills. Art also works with the poetic logic of subconscious processing, but does so in a way that is not manipulative, deceptive or dishonest.
But could a wholesale rejection of teleology be an overreaction? Is there something in the idea, as Haldane implies, that we need? Applying research from the complexity sciences, Peircean semiotics, and poetics, Alexander helps us re-imagine what purposeful behavior might be, in ourselves as well as in nature. Lurking at the heart of the discussion about purposefulness is the too-often overlooked question of creativity, for without creativity there is no purposeful action, only robotic execution of design.
Using her knowledge and experience as an art-theorist and novelist, Alexander takes us "inside" paradoxical self-organizing processes (which, somehow make themselves without having a self yet to do the making) and shows us how poetic-like relationships -- things that are coincidentally near each other or metonymic, things that are coincidentally like each other or metaphoric -- help form organization where there was none before. She suggests that it is these language-like processes that result in the emergent phenomena we call meaningful and functional. The Biologist's Mistress deals deftly with postmodern theories that unfairly snubbed the purposeful artist and offers a view of a non-essentialist emergent self. It's a much-needed antidote to the extreme relativism and anti-intellectualism that has lately wreaked such havoc on human culture.
mean insofar as they claim that living systems are capable of making choices or that
biosemiotic interpretations are partially indeterminate. A number of different senses of
the term “chance” are discussed as we move toward a consensus. We find that
biosemiosic chance may arise out of conditions involving quantum indeterminacy,
randomness, deterministic chaos, or unpredictability, but biosemiosic chance is mainly
due to the fact that living entities (i.e., cells or organisms) invest their environments
with different meanings and values, which are not inherent in the material aspects.
Accordingly, interpretive responses are in part self-determined. A self-determined
interpretation may be thought of as a process in which localized biases constrain the
probabilities of the outcomes of the interactions between an agent and its environment.
The agent’s internal formal constraints that are defined by similarity and proximity are
relative and, as such, vague, and thus interpretation may be somewhat underdetermined
and involve an element of chance.
“semiotic object” is always ultimately the objective of self-affirmation (of habits, physical or mental) and/or self-preservation. Therefore, I propose a new model for the sign triad: response-sign-objective. With this new model it is clear, as I will show, that self-mistaking (not self-negation as others have proposed) makes learning,creativity and purposeful action possible via signs. I define an “interpretation” as a response to something
as if it were a sign, but whose semiotic objective does not, in fact, exist. If the response-as-interpretation turns out to be beneficial for the system after all, there is biopoiesis. When the response is not “interpretive,” but self-confirming in the usual way, there is bio
semiosis. While the conditions conducive to fruitful misinterpretation (e.g. ,accidental similarity of non-signs to signs and/or contiguity of non-signs to self-sustaining processes) might be artificially enhanced,according to this theory, the outcomes would be, by nature, more or less uncontrollable and unpredictable. Nevertheless, biosemiotics could be instrumental in the manipulation and/or artificial creation of purposeful systems insofar as it can describe a formula for the conditions under which new objectives and novel purposeful behavior may emerge, however unpredictably.
whole, which is represented to the parts in their own constrained
behaviors, assumes the guiding function so long attributed to the mysterious “intentional object.” If emergent self-causation is not disallowed, creative originality, as well as directionality, becomes part of the definition of purposeful behavior. Thus, key tools used here, required for understanding emergence, come from poetics rather than semoitics. In the microprocesses of self-organization, I find what I call “accidental” indices and icons — which are poetic in the sense that they involve mere metonymic contiguity and metaphoric similarity — and which are preferentially selected under constrained conditions allowing radically new connections to
habituate into an “intentional” self-organized system that, not coincidentally, has some of the emergent characteristics of a conventional symbolic system.
This video features painting, Epiphany, 1998 by James Gilroy
We apologize for the poor quality sound.
VN Alexander, PhD discusses the science of making choices through a complexity science-biosemiotic perspective. This is the first video in "Science, Art and Biosemiotics" series, produced and directed by Lucian Rex.