Brier

Cybersemiotics
A transdisciplinary and evolutionary

framework encompassing information
with meaningful cognition and
communication through second order
cybernetics and Peircean semiotics
  Søren Brier
  Professor in the semiotics of information,
cognition and communication,
Copenhagen Business School.
  Ed. Cybernetics & Human Knowing
Søren Brier
Cybersemiotics: Why
Information is not Enough,
Toronto University Press
2008. Also a Google book, further
free papers on Brier’s home page.
A transdisciplinary philosophy
and sociology of science study
integrating information science
with second order cybernetics
and system science
(Luhmann) and Peircean
biosemiotics as well as
embodied cognitive linguistics.
2
Life/Living Systems Inner Life/Consciousness
The Cybersemiotic Star
Living Inner mental

embodiment world
 

Physical The other,
nature language
I have been at each point of the

star, moved on to the next one
and ended up in the middle
Matter/Energy Sense/Meaning
Research question
How can we create a theoretical framework to
understand the difference between computer’s
information processing and animals perception,
cognition and communication as well as the level
of human subjective and social interpretation of
meaning in language?
In short between the information processing of
natural and technological system and the
semiotic understanding of living systems?
This has relevance for many subject areas:
1.  The human-computer interface challenge
2.  Human embodied cultural intelligence versus AI and robotics
3.  Document retrieval by meaning in automatic indexed systems
4.  Information retrieval systems answering human meaningful questions
5.  Machine translation of natural languages
6.  The question of consciousness and brain relation: “the hard problem”
7.  Data versus meaning
8.  Physical perception versus signification
9.  Science communication to common sense

Our attempts of understanding of the difference between
Three types of causality
1.  efficient (physical energy based) causality (nature),
2.  formal (informational & pattern matching) causality

(computer and other technology),
3.  final (semiotic and linguistic meaningful) causation

with a goal (human consciousness, language and
culture.
is transdisciplinary crossing boundaries between the
natural, technical, social sciences and the humanities.
THE BASIC PROBLEM OF
TRANSDISCIPLINARITY
Cybersemiotics?
NATURE (UNIVERSE) CULTURE (SOCIETY)

No meaning,
information, fields
Meaning, persuasion
and forces
? and understanding
CULTURE
NATURE
SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY HUMANITIES – SOCIAL SCIENCES
The Worldview of two cultures. Science and Technology exist in nature/the universe
in which culture plays a minor role due to its late appearance in evolution. To
Humanities and Social Sciences, culture is the primary reality in which we exist and
nature is a culturally constructed concept changing with cultural evolution.
AUTOPOIETIC EPISTEMOLOGY:
No information transfer
19
Structural Coupling and Enactment
20
In Jacob von Uexküll’s cybernetic cognitive biology like in
Bateson’s cybernetics perceptual objects are created interactively
Uexküll’s functional circle that demonstrates his concept of objects in a

cybernetic recursive process between receptors and effectors. Biosemiotics
has interpreted Uexküll from a Peircean semiotics to be talking about signs!
LUHMANN’S TRIPLE AUTOPOIESIS
PSYCHO-
LOGICAL
INTER- AUTOPOIESIS
PENETRATON
SOCIO-COMMUNICATIVE
AUTOPOIETIC LANGUAGE
GAMES
BIOLOGICAL
AUTOPOIESIS
INDIVIDUAL
SIGNIFICATION
SPHERE
Mutual structural couplings are the basis for the ability of
communication to establish interpenetration and actualizing a
common reality. What is information is negotiated.
29
Pragmatic semiotics and
language philosophy
Physiology Phenomenology
and hermeneutics
Human
Behavioral
analysis Social sciences
The information science

Based cognitive science
33
Life/Living Systems Inner Life/Consciousness
The Cybersemiotic Star
Living Inner mental

embodiment world
 

Physical The other,
nature language
What is the connection?
Matter/Energy Sense/Meaning
1.  Representamen (the sign vehicle)
Peirce’s semiosis
2. Object (a relevant 3. Interpretant

aspect of reality) (embodied social practical
understanding)
Peirce’s Three Ultimate Categories
  All networks can be broken down to triads, but real triads do not
consist of dyads. These categories are more fundamental than
Kant’s, Hegel’s and Aristotle’s. Not at least because they are
phenomenological.
  Firstness is a continuum of random spontaneity, potentiality,

feeling, (mathematical) forms and qualia with a tendency to take
habits. In semiosis Representamen is Firstness.
  Secondness includes manifestations of resistance, force, will

power, dualistic concreteness and impenetrability of objects. In
semiosis the object is Secondness.
  Thirdness includes all kinds of regularities, such as habits of nature

and understanding mediating between Firstness and secondness.
Only here can true triadic sign processes happen (semiosis)
meaning the creation of interpretants. In semiosis the Interpretant
is Thirdness. Would-bes.
The life of signs in the living
Logic of semiosis
  Semiotics is the study of semiosis and is an
inquiry into the conditions, which are necessary
in order for representations of objects to
function as signs.
  Logic as semiotic is the theory of the conditions,

which determine the truth of signs.
  It is a normative science, in that it is a theory of

the kind of reasoning, which should be
employed in order to discover truth.
The codes of sign systems
  Semiotics is also defined as the study – or
doctrine - of signs and sign systems, where sign
systems are most often understood as
constituting codes.
  Language of cause depends on social and cultural

codes. Example of biological codes are the codes
for the reception and the effects of hormones and
neurotransmitters on various tissues, which are
obvious biological sign systems.

Brier

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Cybersemiotics

A transdisciplinary and evolutionary

The Cybersemiotic Star

Living Inner mental

I have been at each point of the

2. Human embodied cultural intelligence versus AI and robotics

3. Document retrieval by meaning in automatic indexed systems

4. Information retrieval systems answering human meaningful questions

5. Machine translation of natural languages

7. Data versus meaning

8. Physical perception versus signification

9. Science communication to common sense

1. efficient (physical energy based) causality (nature),

2. formal (informational & pattern matching) causality

3. final (semiotic and linguistic meaningful) causation

NATURE (UNIVERSE) CULTURE (SOCIETY)

SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY HUMANITIES – SOCIAL SCIENCES

Uexküll’s functional circle that demonstrates his concept of objects in a

The information science

The Cybersemiotic Star

Living Inner mental

What is the connection?

2. Object (a relevant 3. Interpretant

 Firstness is a continuum of random spontaneity, potentiality,

 Secondness includes manifestations of resistance, force, will

 Thirdness includes all kinds of regularities, such as habits of nature

 Logic as semiotic is the theory of the conditions,

 It is a normative science, in that it is a theory of

 Language of cause depends on social and cultural

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2.  Human embodied cultural intelligence versus AI and robotics

3.  Document retrieval by meaning in automatic indexed systems

4.  Information retrieval systems answering human meaningful questions

5.  Machine translation of natural languages

7.  Data versus meaning

8.  Physical perception versus signification

9.  Science communication to common sense

1.  efficient (physical energy based) causality (nature),

2.  formal (informational & pattern matching) causality

3.  final (semiotic and linguistic meaningful) causation

  Firstness is a continuum of random spontaneity, potentiality,

  Secondness includes manifestations of resistance, force, will

  Thirdness includes all kinds of regularities, such as habits of nature

  Logic as semiotic is the theory of the conditions,

  It is a normative science, in that it is a theory of

  Language of cause depends on social and cultural