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Biomimetics: A Biosemiotic View

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Biomimetics and Bionic Applications with Clinical Applications

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Abstract

After giving a brief review of different approaches related to biomimetics, we focus on the question of the general mechanisms of problem-solving and self-building in living systems. It is possible to develop a theory of biomimetics in connection with a semiotic approach to understand the workings of living systems. In this case we concentrate on the innovative or knowledge-acquisition aspects and mechanisms of life. This would make it possible to understand why living systems are suitable and specific to be used as models for technological modelling.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    On the relationship between meaning and function, see [11].

  2. 2.

    For a contemporary overview on biosemiotics, see [12, 14, 26].

  3. 3.

    See the recent reviews of biomimetics, e.g., [2, 5]. Couple of volumes on biomimetics were recently published by Springer: [23, 45, 51] (see also [10]).

  4. 4.

    Assuming that the problem-solving by living systems also means some gaining of knowledge, we may shed light on these processes by mimicking life’s findings. In a more general sense, mimicking can be a tool for investigation, since mimicking is a kind of modelling.

  5. 5.

    Rossi and Pieroni [54] write: “In addition to the development of bioinspired artifacts for achieving better performance, another dimension of interest is epistemological. The epistemological approach attempts to test and verify biology-based hypothesis by conceiving and implementing specific bioinspired machines”.

  6. 6.

    Application of semiotics in biomimetics has more aspects. For instance, Camargo and Vega [8: 161] emphasise “the importance of the semiotic theory as an intermediary field in the transposition of natural phenomenon from their original biological field to computational field”.

  7. 7.

    On semiotic approach to mimesis and its relationship to modelling systems, see also [40] and [22].

  8. 8.

    See also [18].

  9. 9.

    See a history of biotechnology by R. Bud [7].

  10. 10.

    https://bioengineering.stanford.edu (2015).

  11. 11.

    The term ‘adaptronics’ appears, for instance, in Bionics Symposium 1966: Short Paper Pre-Prints, Dayton (Quashnock, Joseph M., dir., Air Force Systems Command, US Air Force, Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio), paper by Cary W. Armstrong 1966 (pp. 1–9), p. 1—which is earlier than assumed in Janocha [31: 5] that relates it to VDI Technology Centre that was established only in 1978.

  12. 12.

    MRS Bulletin, March 1995, p. 48.

  13. 13.

    https://biomimicry.org/what-is-biomimicry/ (2015).

  14. 14.

    On the contemporary material biomimetics, see [59].

  15. 15.

    On the mechanisms of how the behavioural decisions can be conveyed via epigenetic and ecological inheritance and further fixed through genetic drift, see, e.g., [35, 65].

  16. 16.

    It should be emphasized that semiotics is dealing not only with sign processes or life processes, but also with what is built or constructed by life processes, like it is the case with artefacts in technology and structures of organism’s body.

  17. 17.

    As we have argued, it is also where the organism’s phenomenal world stems from and the phenomenal present appears. This is because conflict (as well as choice) presupposes options, but options assume simultaneity, which implies that if an organism makes choices, it should have a phenomenal present. See [38].

  18. 18.

    See [37].

  19. 19.

    Semiosis or sign process is also ordering—the process in which indeterminacy turns into a relation, and further into a habit or rule. Cf. [29: 132].

  20. 20.

    Spelled also as ‘artifact’.

  21. 21.

    A more detailed description of this mechanism, see [35].

  22. 22.

    On the relationship between signs and tools, cf. [46].

  23. 23.

    Code as (a rule, based on) a mediated correspondence is commonly a carrier of knowledge. However, it may not be the case for all codes. Namely, if a code is a result of (originates from) a purely random processes, i.e. if it is not a result of choices, then it may not by itself carry any knowledge. For instance, genetic code as the correspondence between nucleotide triplets and amino acids is a code, while seemingly without any knowledge to carry on (because it is not a product of choices).

  24. 24.

    This discussion can make a reference to the final (eleventh) thesis in Karl Marx’ “Theses on Feuerbach” (1845), which sounds: “Philosophers have hitherto only interpreted the world in various ways; the point is to change it” (translation by Cyril Smith 2002). While the emphasis of Marx was just on practice, the thesis has been used as a call for an overwhelming and unlimited technical progress, a call to remake our environment on the basis of technical and industrial innovations. This principle, however, is not an implication from a model of sustainable ecosystem. Since the understanding of ecology of the biosphere, however, the major challenge of science became to be “how not to change the world”.

  25. 25.

    On certain irreversibility of growth of knowledge, however, see [47].

  26. 26.

    On some other semiotic qualities of biomimetic product design, see, e.g., [9, 15].

  27. 27.

    Cf. [27].

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Acknowledgements

I thank Meir Israelowitz for encouraging me to write this essay, Timo Maran for helpful comments, and the project PRG314 that allowed completing this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, Jakobi St. 2, 51005, Tartu, Estonia

    Kalevi Kull

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  1. Kalevi Kull
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Correspondence to Kalevi Kull .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Biomimetics Technologies Inc., Toronto, ON, Canada

    Meir Israelowitz

  2. Abteilung für Plastische und Handchirurgie, Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Hannover, Germany

    Birgit Weyand

  3. University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada

    Herbert P. von Schroeder

  4. Medizinische Hochschule Hannover, Hannover, Niedersachsen, Germany

    Peter Vogt

  5. Technical University, Clausthal-Zellerfeld, Niedersachsen, Germany

    Matthias Reuter

  6. (Deceased), Hannover, Germany

    Kerstin Reimers

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Kull, K. (2021). Biomimetics: A Biosemiotic View. In: Israelowitz, M., Weyand, B., von Schroeder, H., Vogt, P., Reuter, M., Reimers, K. (eds) Biomimetics and Bionic Applications with Clinical Applications. Series in BioEngineering. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-53214-1_1

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