Building on a range of disciplines - from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics - this book draws on the expertise of leading names in the study of organic, mental and cultural codes brought together by the emerging discipline of biosemiotics.

The book's 18 chapters present a range of experimental evidence which suggests that the genetic code was only the first in a long series of organic codes, and that it has been the appearance of new codes - organic, mental and cultural - that paved the way for the major transitions in the history of life.

While the...

Gregory Bateson's contribution to 20th century thinking has appealed to scholars from a wide range of fields dealing in one way or another with aspects of communication and epistemology. A number of his insights were taken up and developed further in anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology and communication theory. But the large, trans-disciplinary synthesis that, in his own mind, was his major contribution to science received little attention from the mainstream scientific communities.

This book represents a major attempt to revise this deficiency. Scholars from ecology,...

Synthesizing the findings from a wide range of disciplines - from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics - the emerging field of Biosemiotics explores the highly complex phenomenon of sign processing in living systems. Seeking to advance a naturalistic understanding of the evolution and development of sign-dependent life processes, contemporary biosemiotic theory offers important new conceptual tools for the scientific understanding of mind and meaning, for the development of artificial intelligence, and for the ongoing research into the rich diversity of non-verbal human,...

It has been nearly 150 years since Darwin published On the Origin of Species, and his theory of natural selection still ignites a forest of heated debate between scientific fundamentalists on the one hand and religious fundamentalists on the other. But both sides actually agree more than they disagree, and what has long been needed is a third way to view evolution, one that focuses more on the aspect of life and "being alive," one that can guide us through, and perhaps out of, the fiery thicket. This book, a seminal work in the burgeoning field of Biosemiotics, provides that third way, by...

This book is the first attempt to systematise the study of animal communication and signification through its most important and/or problematic terms and concepts. It attempts to cover the entire range of key terms in the growing field of zoosemiotics.

Building on a range of disciplines - from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics - this book draws on the expertise of leading names in the study of organic, mental and cultural codes brought together by the emerging discipline of biosemiotics.

The book's 18 chapters present a range of experimental evidence which suggests that the genetic code was only the first in a long series of organic codes, and that it has been the appearance of new codes - organic, mental and cultural - that paved the way for the major transitions in the history of life.

While the...

This anthology is a compilation of the best contributions from Symbolic Species Conferences I, II (which took place in 2006, 2007).

In 1997 the American anthropologist Terrence Deacon published The Symbolic Species: The Coevolution of Language and the Brain. The book is widely considered a seminal work in the subject of evolutionary cognition. However, Deacons book was the first step - further steps have had to be taken. The proposed anthology is such an important associate.

The contributions are written by a wide variety of scholars each with a unique view on evolutionary...

Gregory Bateson's contribution to 20th century thinking has appealed to scholars from a wide range of fields dealing in one way or another with aspects of communication and epistemology. A number of his insights were taken up and developed further in anthropology, psychology, evolutionary biology and communication theory. But the large, trans-disciplinary synthesis that, in his own mind, was his major contribution to science received little attention from the mainstream scientific communities.

This book represents a major attempt to revise this deficiency. Scholars from ecology,...

It has been nearly 150 years since Darwin published On the Origin of Species, and his theory of natural selection still ignites a forest of heated debate between scientific fundamentalists on the one hand and religious fundamentalists on the other. But both sides actually agree more than they disagree, and what has long been needed is a third way to view evolution, one that focuses more on the aspect of life and "being alive," one that can guide us through, and perhaps out of, the fiery thicket. This book, a seminal work in the burgeoning field of Biosemiotics, provides that third way, by...