Biosemiotics (bios = life and semion = sign) is an interdisciplinary science that studies communication and signification in living systems. Communication is the essential characteristic of life. An organism is a message to future generations that specifies how to survive and reproduce. Any autocatalytic system transfers information (ie initial conditions) to its progeny so that daughter systems will eventually reach the same state as their parent. Self-reproducing systems have a semantic closure because they define themselves in their progeny. A sign (defined in a broadest sense) is an object that is a part of some self-reproducing system. A sign is always useful for the system and its value can be determined by its contribution to the reproductive value of the entire system. The major trend in the evolution of signs is the increase of their complexity via development of new hierarchical levels, ie, metasystem transitions. This book presents new research in this dynamic field.

This book presents programmatic texts on biosemiotics, written collectively by world leading scholars in the field (Deacon, Emmeche, Favareau, Hoffmeyer, Kull, Markoš, Pattee, Stjernfelt). In addition, the book includes chapters which focus closely on semiotic case studies (Bruni, Kotov, Maran, Neuman, Turovski).According to the central thesis of biosemiotics, sign processes characterise all living systems and the very nature of life, and their diverse phenomena can be best explained via the dynamics and typology of sign relations. The authors are therefore presenting a deeper view on biological evolution, intentionality of organisms, the role of communication in the living world and the nature of sign systems — all topics which are described in this volume. This has important consequences on the methodology and epistemology of biology and study of life phenomena in general, which the authors aim to help the reader better understand.

The first international volume on the topic of biosemiotics and linguistics. It aims to establish a new relationship between linguistics and biology as based on shared semiotic foundation.

The book is a comprehensive introduction to the work of the Estonian-German biologist Jakob von Uexküll. After a first introductory chapter by Morten Tønnessen and a second chapter on Uexküll's life and philosophical background, it contains four chapters devoted to the analysis of his main works. They are followed by a vast eighth chapter which deals with the influence Uexküll had on other philosophers and scientists. Finally, the author discloses his conclusions, focused on the possibility of updating Uexküll’s work. As far as the key issue is concerned, the Uexküllian Umwelt is the perceptive and operative world which surrounds animal species; it is a subjective species-specific construction which provides living organisms with great security and behaviour stability. The relationship that the animal carries out with its environment is a complex system of semiotic interactions: its behaviour is not a set of mechanical reactions, but a spontaneous attribution of meaning to the outside world.

This book reviews the evolution of Biosemiotics and gives an outlook on the future of this interdisciplinary new discipline. In this volume, the foundations of symbolism are transformed into a phenomenological, technological, philosophical and psychological discussion enriching the readers’ knowledge of these foundations. It offers the opportunity to rethink the impact that evolution theory and the confirmations about evolution as a historical and natural fact, has had and continues to have today. The book is divided into three parts: Part I Life, Meaning, and Information Part II Semiosis and Evolution Part III Physics, medicine, and bioenergetics It starts by laying out a general historical, philosophical, and scientific framework for the collection of studies that will follow. In the following some of the main reference models of evolutionary theories are revisited: Extended Synthesis, Formal Darwinism and Biosemiotics. The authors shed new light on how to rethink the processes underlying the origins and evolution of knowledge, the boundary between teleonomic and teleological paradigms of evolution and their possible integration, the relationship between linguistics and biological sciences, especially with reference to the concept of causality, biological information and the mechanisms of its transmission, the difference between physical and biosemiotic intentionality, as well as an examination of the results offered or deriving from the application in the economics and the engineering of design, of biosemiotic models for the transmission of culture, digitalization and proto-design. This volume is of fundamental scientific and philosophical interest, and seen as a possibility for a dialogue based on theoretical and methodological pluralism. The international nature of the publication, with contributions from all over the world, will allow a further development of academic relations, at the service of the international scientific and humanistic heritage.

Genesis – In The Beginning deals with the origin and diversity of Life and early biological evolution and discusses the question of where (hot or cold sources) and when the beginning of Life took place. Among the sections are chapters dealing with prebiotic chemical processes and considering self-replication of polymers in mineral habitats. One chapter is dedicated to the photobiological regime on early Earth and the emergence of Life. This volume covers the role of symmetry, information and order (homochrial biomolecules) in the beginning of Life. The models of protocells and the genetic code with gene transfer are important topics in this volume. Three chapters discuss the Panspermia hypothesis (to answer “Are we from outer Space?”). Other chapters cover the Astrobiological aspects of Life in the Universe in extraterrestrial Planets of the Solar System and deal with cometary hydrosphere (and its connection to Earth). We conclude with the history and frontiers of Astrobiogy.

This book is the second volume of a two-volume edition based on the International Society for Information Studies Summit Vienna 2015 on 'The Information Society at the Crossroads. Response and Responsibility of the Sciences of Information' (see summit.is4is.org).The book gives an up-to-date multiaspect exposition of contemporary studies in the field of information and related areas. It presents most recent achievements, ideas and opinions of leading researchers in this domain reflecting their quest for advancing information science and technology. With the goal of building a better society, in which social and technological innovations help make information key to the flourishing of humanity, we dispense with the bleak view of the dark side of information society.It is aimed at readers that conduct research into any aspect of information, information society and information technology, who develop or implement social or technological applications. It is also for those who have an interest in participating in setting the goals for the sciences of information and the social applications of technological achievements and the scientific results.

At the dawn of the information age, a proper understanding of information and how it relates to matter and energy is of utmost importance for the survival of civilisation. Yet, attempts to reconcile information concepts underlying science and technology with those en vogue in social science, humanities, and arts are rather rare. This book offers a new approach, departing from fragmented information concepts.Many academics refrain from undergoing unifications, as most undertakings are reductionistic. This book contends that it is the noble task of an as-yet-to-be-developed science of information to go one step in the direction of a unified theory of information without falling back into neither reduction nor anthropomorphisation.To be able to succeed in an ambitious task like this, the book advocates the application of complex systems theory and its philosophical underpinnings. Information needs to be interpreted in terms of self-organisation to do justice to the richness of its manifestations. The way the book does so will provide the reader with a deep insight into a basic feature of our world.The following are discussed in the volume: A Science of Information; A New Way of Thinking; Praxio-Onto-Epistemology; Evolutionary Systems Design; Evolutionary Systems Ontology; Evolutionary Systems Methodology; Capurro's Information Concept Trilemma; A Multi-Stage Model of Evolutionary Types of Information: Pattern Formation, Code-Making, and Constituting Sense; A Triple-C Model of Systemic Functions of Information: Cognising, Communicating, and Co-Operating; Nine Categories of Information Capabilities: Reflectivity (physical), Psyche (biotic), Consciousness (human); Connectivity (physical), Signalability (biotic), Languageability (human); Cohesiveness (physical), Coherency (biotic), Communitarity (human); Nine Categories of Information: Response (physical), Flexible Response (biotic), Reflexion (human); Correspondences (physical), Signals (biotic), Symbolic Acts (human); Assemblage (physical), Assignment (biotic), Association (human); A Unified Theory of Information for, about, and by means of the Information Society.

Perhaps the most distinct question in science throughout the ages has been the one of perceivable reality, treated both in physics and philosophy. Reality is acting upon us, and we, and life in general, are acting upon reality. Potentiality, found both in quantum reality and in the activity of life, plays a key role. In quantum reality observation turns potentiality into reality. Again, life computes possibilities in various ways based on past actions, and acts on the basis of these computations. This book is about a new approach to biology (and physics, of course!). Its subtitle suggests a perpetual movement and interplay between two elusive aspects of modern science — reality/matter and potentiality/mind, between physics and biology — both captured and triggered by mathematics — to understand and explain emergence, development and life all the way up to consciousness. But what is the real/potential difference between living and non-living matter? How does time in potentiality differ from time in reality? What we need to understand these differences is an integrative approach. This book contemplates how to encircle life to obtain a formal system, equivalent to the ones in physics. Integral Biomathics attempts to explore the interplay between reality and potentiality.

Giorgio Prodi (1928-1987) was an important Italian scientist who developed an original philosophy based on two basic assumptions: 1. life is mainly a semiotic phenomenon; 2. matter is somewhat a semiotic phenomenon. Prodi applies Peirce's cenopythagorean categories to all phenomena of life and matter: Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness. They are interconnected meaning that the very ontology of the world, according to Prodi, is somewhat semiotic. In fact, when one describes matter as “made of” Firstness and Secondness, this means that matter ‘intrinsically’ implies semiotics (with Thirdness also being present in the world). At the very heart of Prodi’s theory lies a metaphysical hypothesis which is an ambitious theoretical gesture that places Prodi in an awkward position with respect to the customary philosophical tradition. In fact, his own ontology is neither dualistic nor monistic. Such a conclusion is unusual and weird, but much less unusual in present time than it was when it was first introduced. The actual resurgence of various “realisms” make Prodi’s semiotic realism much more interesting than when he first proposed his philosophical approach. What is uncommon, in Prodi perspective, is that he never separated semiotics from the materiality of the world. Prodi does not agree with the “standard” structuralist view of semiosis as an artificial and unnatural activity. On the contrary, Prodi believed semiosis (that is, the interconnection between Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness) lies at the very bottom of life. On one hand, Prodi maintains a strong realist stance; on the other, a realism that includes semiosis as ‘natural’ phenomena. This last view is very unusual because all forms, more or less, of realism exclude semiosis from nature but they frequently “reduce” semiosis to non-semiotic elements. According to Prodi, semiosis is a completely natural phenomenon.