Abstract
Studying the origin of semiosis is a task obscured by terminological and metaphysical issues which create an ambiguous set of definitions for biosemiotics when referring to the concept of emergence. The question is, how emergent can semiosis be? And what are the conditions for semiosis to be an emergent of a certain type? This paper will attempt to briefly deal with the general terminology of emergence from a philosophical point of view and will discuss the characterization of semiosis as an emergent phenomenon based on the distinctions made by Bedau, Kim and Chalmers. Accordingly, we will consider the possibility of strong and weak emergence in an attempt to bring some clarity to what it means for something in biosemiotics to be an emergent and how the philosophical concepts play out when applied to biosemiotic research. In inquiring into the metaphysical status of semiosis, we change our semiotic theories to correspond to the assumptions contained in the elementary objects of our theories. This being the case, the way semiosis–the constitutive element that it is for semiotics–is taken to be with regards to its possible ontology, will conduct to different research objects for the long-term investigation of its origins and necessary conditions.
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Notes
It’s important to note that this same description has been referred to in Brier (2008: 369) and Martinelli (2010: 194). Kull (2007: 4) also includes it among different approaches to biosemiotics. I will not try to document all possible perspectives, as it is beyond the scope of this research. The idea is, in any case, that the emergentist foundation of biosemiotics seems to be unproblematic except in its actual implementation, as we will later see.
The arguments against the epiphenomenalism of mental properties could be reworked into arguments against the epiphenomenalism of semiosis stating, for instance, the relevance of sign processes for living systems, as opposed to the qualitative irrelevance needed to make the epiphenomenal argument work. This, however, is a different discussion altogether.
See Stephan (1992: 25–26) for a historical survey of its stages in philosophy.
While the language used by Chalmers in this initial definition talks about ‘phenomena’, the concept of emergence deals more often with properties.
Supervenience itself, also called upwards determination, appears commonly divided in three different types, weak, strong and global, related to possible worlds (Kim 1984: 157). We will limit our talk on different types of supervenience to the common usage in standard discussions of emergence.
While it appears that Peirce considers chance as the best possible explanation, there is no reason in principle to stop there, as his remarks on evolution may suggest other possibilities.
A notable contribution in this respect has been carried by El-Hani et al. (2009).
The author refers to Kauffman’s view on emergence, but these claims can be generalized without much trouble. It is important to note, however, that Kauffman is associated with weak emergence.
We will avoid the issue of representation and reference altogether to skip extra complexities in the argument. These aspects can, however, play a role in more developed accounts of cognition within an emergentist framework.
At this point it is important to remark that, while inextricably related, the question of the emergence of life does not refer exactly to the same problems that appear when dealing with the emergence of semiosis.
Stjernfelt carries out the rest of the analysis of chemotaxis through biosemiotic terminology, reaching the striking, yet not unexpected conclusion that “in the perception-action circle of a bacterium, we find some of the minimum requirements for semiotic processes: the self-regulatory stability of a metabolism involving categorized signal and action involvement with the surroundings” (Stjernfelt 2007: 209).
Yet, once the object is part of the relation, we see that the relation, while not determined simply by it, needs it to exist.
The difference between dynamical and immediate object does not have an impact on this conclusion as both are taken in the same relation.
The argument for physical representamina is explored by Deely (2001) from a different philosophical perspective, but it is worth noting that the language used is perfectly valid in this particular formulation.
This quotation is far from straightforward. Peirce goes on to state that “the example of the imperative command shows that it need not be of a mental mode of being.” (CP 5.473) This passage, in any case, discusses causation in different levels, starting with microscopic animals and continuing with verbal military commands, from where the reference to imperative commands comes. While naive in his psychological interpretation, it seems Peirce points to the fact that the interpretant is wider than the concept of a mental image or idea. A discussion on this passage can be found in Hulswit (2002: 140–143).
An important passage from the same text states that
Semiosis, more shortly, could be defined as the appearance of a connection between things, which do not have a priori anything in common, in the sense that they do not interact or convert each other through direct physical or chemical processes. However, as far as the relation between them, once established (by a subject), is nevertheless intermediated by physical or chemical processes, this infers that the relation is semiotic as long as it is established through learning (Kull 1998: 303–304).
This is something to keep in mind when dealing with the possible properties of semiosis as an emergent phenomenon. The hierarchy between the elements of semiosis is not equal, despite the necessity of every element once the relation has been established.
The original quote states that “the laws of nature, which are all expressible by differential equations, might be semeiotic at the bottom, although of a degenerated kind” (Romanini and Fernández 2014: 3).
van Hateren (2015) also proposes what he calls “a strong form of emergence” (403) of meaningful phenomena, but the argument only seems to require weak emergence to hold.
In brief, Bedau maintains that “although strong emergence is logically possible, it is uncomfortably like magic […]. But the most disappointing aspect of strong emergence is its apparent scientific irrelevance” (Bedau 1997: 377). On the contrary, “science apparently does need weak emergence” (Bedau 1997: 377).
This may not turn out to be true if we hold that repeatable specific conditions do not need to have any explanatory value for emergents in that the property would not be deducible even if we are aware of what it takes for it to emerge. However, the fact that the specific initial conditions can be understood and even derived indicates that there may be a chance to reduce the possible emergents to monadic properties of some sort.
Conway’s Game of Life has some important traction in the discussion of determinism (Dennett 1991), but this must be set aside for the time being, though it can have some interesting and serious implications for biosemiotics.
Similarly, there is a conceptual difference between resultant and emergent properties, with the former being predictable unlike the latter. Regarding the extent to which downward causation is actual causation, a review can be found in Hulswit (2005).
Chalmers sees consciousness as the only case of strong emergence (Chalmers 2006: 246).
There is a different issue altogether with whether we should characterize all semiosis as perception. This will not be treated here, but in principle I do not wish to characterize all forms of sign usage, especially at the higher levels of cognition, to be based on the same principle.
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Rodríguez Higuera, C.J. Just How Emergent is the Emergence of Semiosis?. Biosemiotics 9, 155–167 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-016-9265-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-016-9265-4