Abstract
We develop here a semiotic model of evolution. We point out the role of confusion and choice as a condition for semiosis, which is a precondition for semiotic learning and semiotic adaptation. Semiosis itself as interpretation and decision-making between options requires phenomenal present. The body structure of the organism is largely a product of former semiosis. The organism’s body together with the structure of the ecosystem serves also as a scaffolding for the sign processes that carry on the ontogenetic cycle and the organisms’ behaviour, providing the experience-based channels for decision making in the indeterminate situations of choice. The stability and persistence of ontogenesis and behaviour are based on the plasticity, or the multiviality of organic dynamics. The same plasticity or multivial dynamics is providing the material for further potential evolution. Evolution has occurred when some change becomes irreversible via its stabilization, and it usually means a modification of existing constraints, or scaffoldings. Some examples of these processes are described in the article.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
This, of course, includes also the semiotic processes of culture—cf.: “we understand culture as the nonhereditary memory of the community, a memory expressing itself in a system of constraints and prescriptions” (Lotman and Uspensky 1978: 213).
Thus we may conclude here that specious present is coextensive with the capacity to make choice, and semiosis, and meaning making. While in humans the specious present is almost permanent, we may hypothesise that in cells it occurs only occasionally.
That every act of communication includes both problem-solving and design, has been noticed also by Souza (2005: 185).
We have described this in the context of relation between mathematics and semiotics, see Kull (2012a).
Slightly exaggerating, we can even say that the basic precondition of sign, and knowledge, is un-fittedness.
Because conflict presupposes options, while there cannot be options otherwise than in phenomenal present.
On these concepts see West-Eberhard (2003: 378–379).
However, the difference between drift and selection is not sharp (see, e.g., Huneman 2014).
See also Nicholson (2014: 171), who argues against the problem-solving interpretation of natural selection.
Kirschner and Gerhart (2005: 143) write: “[…] existing somatic adaptations can be a ready and available source for new variation when genetic change stabilizes adaptive processes at different points along their ranges. […] What kind of novelty might be stored in an organism, to be stabilized by mutation, for generating new anatomical structures, of for that matter new physiologies or new behaviors?”
Or just choosing between options—since the options can be habits.
This threefold description follows Peircean model. Correspondence can be either qualisign (tone), sinsign (token), or legisign (type, rule, code); reference can be either iconic (matching), indexical (correlative), or symbolic (conventional); use can be either rhematic (utterly), dicental (propositional), or argumentative (reasonable). These provide together 10 basic classes of semiosis (knowledge-processes).
References
Arstila, V., & Lloyd, D. (Eds.). (2014). Subjective Time: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Temporality. Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Baer, K. E. von (1864). Welche Auffassung der lebenden Natur ist die richtige? Und wie ist diese Auffassung auf die Entomologie anzuwenden? In K. E. von Baer (Ed.), Reden gehalten in wissenschaftlichen Versammlungen und kleinere Aufsätze vermischten Inhalts, Bd. 1 (pp. 237–284). St. Petersburg: H. Schmitzdorff.
Barbieri, M. (2002). Organic codes: metaphors or realities? Sign Systems Studies, 30(2), 743–754.
Bernstein, N. A. (1967). The Co-ordination and Regulation of Movements. Oxford: Pergamon Press.
Caporael, L. R., Griesemer, J. R., & Wimsatt, W. C. (Eds.). (2014). Developing Scaffolds in Evolution, Culture, and Cognition. (The Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology.). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Clark, A. (2008). Supersizing the Mind: Embodiment, Action, and Cognitive Extension. New York: Oxford University Press.
Eco, U. (1976). A Theory of Semiotics. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
Foley, J. (1994). Scaffolding. ELT Journal, 48(1), 101–102.
Gallagher, S. (1998). The Inordinance of Time. Evanston: Nortwestern University Press.
Gould, S. J. (1997). Full House: The Spread of Excellence from Plato to Darwin. New York: Three Rivers Press.
Hoffmeyer, J. (2007). Semiotic scaffolding of living systems. In M. Barbieri (Ed.), Introduction to Biosemiotics: The New Biological Synthesis (pp. 149–166). Dordrecht: Springer.
Hoffmeyer, J. (2011). Summary. In M. Skriver & I. M. Kjeldgaard (Eds.), Livstegn. Kunst + biologi. Morten Skriver og Jesper Hoffmeyer: Katalog (pp. 80–81). Esbjerg: Esbjerg Kunstmuseum.
Hoffmeyer, J. (2014a). The semiome: from genetic to semiotic scaffolding. Semiotica, 198, 11–31.
Hoffmeyer, J. (2014b). Semiotic scaffolding: A biosemiotic link between sema and soma. In K. R. Cabell & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Catalyzing Mind: Beyond Models of Causality (pp. 95–110). New York: Springer.
Hoffmeyer, J., & Kull, K. (2003). Baldwin and biosemiotics: What intelligence is for. In B. H. Weber & D. J. Depew (Eds.), Evolution and Learning: The Baldwin Effect Reconsidered (pp. 253–272). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Huneman, P. (2014). Inscrutability and the opacity of natural selection and random genetic drift: distinguishing the epistemic and metaphysical aspects. Erkenntnis. doi:10.1007/s10670-014-9684-z.
Kauffman, S. (2012). From physics to semiotics. In S. Rattasepp & T. Bennett (Eds.), Gatherings in Biosemiotics (Tartu Semiotics Library 11) (pp. 30–46). Tartu: University of Tartu Press.
Kirschner, M. W., & Gerhart, J. C. (2005). The Plausibility of Life: Resolving Darwin’s Dilemma. New Haven: Yale University Press.
Kull, K. (2012a). Semiosis includes incompatibility: On the relationship between semiotics and mathematics. In M. Bockarova, M. Danesi, & R. Núñez (Eds.), Semiotic and Cognitive Science Essays on the Nature of Mathematics (pp. 330–339). Muenchen: Lincom Europa.
Kull, K. (2012b). Scaffolding. In D. Favareau, P. Cobley, & K. Kull (Eds.), A More Developed Sign: Interpreting the Work of Jesper Hoffmeyer (Tartu Semiotics Library 10) (pp. 227–230). Tartu: Tartu University Press.
Kull, K. (2014a). Adaptive evolution without natural selection. Biological Journal of the Linnean Society, 112(2), 287–294.
Kull, K. (2014b). Catalysis and scaffolding in semiosis. In K. R. Cabell & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The Catalyzing Mind: Beyond Models of Causality. (Annals of Theoretical Psychology 11) (pp. 111–121). New York: Springer.
Kull, K. (2014c). Zoosemiotics is the study of animal forms of knowing. Semiotica, 198, 47–60.
Kull, K. (2014d). A taxonomy and evolution of semiosis as based on the mechanisms of learning: Emonic signs. In Y. Wang & H. Yu (Eds.), Traversing the Mental and the Artistic Worlds (pp. 3–9). Nanjing: Hohai University Press.
Kull, K. (2014e). Towards a theory of evolution of semiotic systems. Chinese Semiotic Studies, 10(3), 485–495.
Lotman, J. M., & Uspensky, B. A. (1978). On the semiotic mechanism of culture. New Literary History, 9(2), 211–232.
Nicholson, D. J. (2014). The machine conception of the organism in development and evolution: a critical analysis. Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 48, 162–174.
Plotkin, H. (1993). Darwin Machines and the Nature of Knowledge. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Pöppel, E., & Bao, Y. (2014). Temporal windows as a bridge from objective to subjective time. In V. Arstila & D. Lloyd (Eds.), Subjective Time: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Temporality (pp. 241–262). Cambridge: MIT Press.
Shank, J. C., May, C. J., & Joshi, S. S. (2014). Models as scaffolds for understanding. In L. R. Caporael, J. R. Griesemer, & W. C. Wimsatt (Eds.), Developing Scaffolds in Evolution, Culture, and Cognition (The Vienna Series in Theoretical Biology) (pp. 147–167). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Souza, C. S. D. (2005). The Semiotic Engineering of Human-Computer Interaction. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Uexküll, J. von (1928). Theoretische Biologie (2nd ed.). Berlin: Verlag von Julius Springer.
Varela, F. J. (1999). The specious present: A neurophenomenology of time consciousness. In J. Petitot, F. J. Varela, B. Pachoud, & J.-M. Roy (Eds.), Naturalizing Phenomenology: Issues in Contemporary Phenomenology and Cognitive Science (pp. 266–314). Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Vygotsky, L. S. (1986[1934]). Thought and Language. Cambridge: MIT Press.
West-Eberhard, M. J. (2003). Developmental Plasticity and Evolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Wood, D., Bruner, J. S., & Ross, G. (1976). The role of tutoring in problem solving. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 17(2), 89–100.
Acknowledgments
I thank Jesper Hoffmeyer and Claus Emmeche for helpful comments. This study is supported by IUT2-44 and the European Developmental Fund, via the Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory in Tartu, Estonia.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kull, K. Evolution, Choice, and Scaffolding: Semiosis is Changing Its Own Building. Biosemiotics 8, 223–234 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-015-9243-2
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-015-9243-2