Cybersemiotics—Integration of the informational and semiotic paradigms of cognition and communication

Dear Colleagues,

A common view among information theorists is that information - integrated with entropy in some way - is a basic structure of the world. Computation is the process of the dynamic change of information. In order for anything to exist for an individual, she must get information on it by means of perception or by re-organization of the existing information into new patterns. This cybernetic-computational-informational view is based on a universal and un-embodied conception of information and computation, which is the deep foundation of “the information processing paradigm”, which is vital for most versions of cognitive science and its latest developments into brain function and linguistic research. Taken to its full metaphysical scope this paradigm views the universe as a computer, humans as dynamic systems producing and guided by a computationally functioning brain and sees language as a sort of culturally developed program for social information processing. What seems to be lacking is knowledge of the nature and role of embodied first person experience, qualia, meaning and signification in the evolution and development of cognition and language communication among self-conscious social beings and formed by the grammatical structure and dynamics of language and mentality. For this we need to enlarge the picture by for instance superimposing and integrating an even broader foundation such as Charles Sanders Peirce’s pragmatic semiotics in its modern development as a biosemiotics. Here the sign as triadic semeiosis is the central process of reality. In Cybersemiotics: Why Information is not enough, Toronto University Press, 2008, Søren Brier offers probably the first attempt to integrate information science and semiotics under the heading Cybersemiotics. We look for you critical and constructive contribution in this area.