1.3. The said state of affairs in today's semiotics is so dissatisfactory because, I think, it is based on

How does it come to Meaning? Obviously, the same thing can have different meanings to different observers. So, it is misleading to think Meaning to be in the things. Sometimes, meaning is simply attributed, fittingly or not. Sometimes everybody agrees to the same Meaning of X. Even more often Meaning results from contributions of varying weight by both, the thing it is attributed to and the observer attributing. Thus Meaning arises from Encounters, both encountering entities contributing.

Semiosis happens anywhere within and between organisms as well as between organisms and parts of their living and non-organic environment and, in addition, in suitable machines.

Perhaps with large molecules (DNA strings "programming" proteins), certainly at the latest with cells (receptors differentiating or selecting molecules in +/- usables, yet not necessarily by chemical criteria). The receptors appear to mediate between inside and outside, selectively bridging the membrane. I express here my skeptical attitude against the reduction of meaning to any sort of code. In the long run, I think, any Structure originating in genuine Evolutions (biotic, psychic, cultural) can take on that sign character for another suitable Structure; that sign character that makes a difference in comparison to things interacting directly.

This is a very simple, yet realistic and highly consequential thesis, in my opinion, for a new foundation of semiotic; it rests upon the differentiation of Structures into surface (+/-)attractors and latent potentials of Structures and has proven its remarkable fruitfulness in its simplicity. It may be seen to be just a manner of speaking; yet it presupposes a process of factual transaction that we can never bring into the open in full detail because brain parts with billions of neurons with several hundred times as many synapses and a few dozens of neurotransmitters are involved the whole of it would be destroyed by attempts to measure their dynamic behavior. Any Structure is organized matter and/or energy; and so are Structures of Structures.

Thus I do not need to invoke anything like Geist or spirit, soul, or mind. And thus no assumption of a dual world is required. Nor is this in any traditional sense materialistic; it simply depends upon the organization of matter and energy of the so differentiated Structure. And so it makes clear that complex physico-chemical processes are and can do more than our modern mechanistic understanding of matter and energy can cover. There is no unorganized matter, except perhaps original Plasma, which is too hot to be organized. My differentiation notion of Structures is obviously a key basis of my new understanding of semiosis and semiotic. Large molecules are Structures and relatively easy to be changed while some of their components, atoms and small molecules, can be ver stable. Even more flexible are the dynamic Structures attained in active states of brain systems; and they can be retained in latent potentials to nearly or completely repeat their former states.

The Transaction can result in an expression of latent qualities of either, the Ref's or the Int's potential or of both.

What I call here "knowledge" is based on affinities due to co-evolution and/or individual experience that may contribute in settings that have been genomically fixed yet further evolved by learning, e.g. in transformed instincts.

In contrast, Structures with powerful qualities at their surface such as ions or other strong energetic qualities can interact physico-chemically rather than semiosically; this is not semiosic. However, as soon as the interaction is only started by attraction from these outer qualities and goes based on the deeper potential of at least one of the Interactants, it is a semiosic Transaction. Naturally, also Transactions and thus Semioses are grounded in physico-chemical processes. Such are often transient and probably too complex to get at methodically.

 

Causal Relation in general and Semiosic Relations in particular are better conceived as Triads, two Structures meeting and then generating a third, or changing one of the two. The third can be a replicate, a similar, or a new Structure, depending on the Interactants.

It is important  to distinguish at least two different kinds of triadicity: additive and genuine or factorial triadicity. Additive Triads gather or combine three dyads which may be related, but anyone of them may exist separately. A good example is the antique conception of meaning: some thing is related to some meaning and to some word in a particular language. Any one of these three relation can exist and be consideren separately without damage to the others, albeit with restriction of understanding and use: thing-word, thing- meaning, word-meaning. The additive triad is topologically given as a triangle; any of the three sides presents an entity, while at the angles any side can touch one other side; we have here three times two entities related. A genuine or factorial Triad cannot be separated, only analytically distinguished. To use Perice’s example of dontation or making a gift we find two persons, donator and donated, and the gift; you cannot separate the three, otherwise it is no longer donation. The topological presentation of a genuine Triad is thus Y-shaped i.e. all three entities involved meet in one point, are involved in one triple relation.

Is it not a quite fundamental break of accepted scientific method, to attempt to explain regularities and irregularities in the world by two different principles, regularity by law, irregularity by chance? At the least it's a break of parsimony rules. Here another dualism is in effect that is evoked by attempting to explain some phenomena by material/energetic principle, others by some unclear opposite thereof, that has never been cleared in itself but only in opposition to matter/energy, whatever names are used to denote that unknown.

Of course, there is no known reason, why the logical scheme of Semiosis should fundamentally differ from any other kind of causal Relation. For it is a causal Relation, i.e. a condition-effect connection. Nothing more or less. It is in the Organization of the Structures taking part in the encounter, where we find the difference between direct Interaction and mediated Transaction or Semiosis, not in the Relation or Process proper. We need to understand causation generically. Naturally, as for any Relation, there may be different descriptions.

In any Semiosis is implied a physical form of causation. But the latter’s complexity, e.g. processes in a neuro-humoral system, can be so great that there is no hope to specify its functioning neurophysiologically. So we need another language which should be as precise and realistic as the one we use to describe in less complex ways simple physico-chemical processes. My objections strike both traditions, natural science for missing organization as an important factor and presupposing a closed universe and universal law; the humanities for focussing on symbols only and scarcely distinguishing between symbols with and symbols without observable referents. If any one Structure interacts with several different Structures, ever new Structures can be generated; but if any one Structure interacts with one that is a replicate of or highly similar other Structure to one in an earlier, the same or almost the same resultant Structure is replicated; however, it may result an entirely new Structure from an interaction with a different Structure. So the same type of triadic process account for both diverging innovation as well as stabilizing repetition which in the long run amounts to regularities or innovation. We can thus look at this generative process as constituting Evolution: one generative process leading to one type of event, but to both divergent innovation or to convergent regularity, simply because of the relationships among the Structures transacting. This is a beautiful effect of thinking triadic rather than in the traditional attempts to explain regularity by law and innovation by chance. This happens in any triadic interactive Relation depending on the Structures involved and independent of whether they are simple or semionic Structures. The random component depends on some amount of "autonomy" or proper action of all Structures, I prefer to name this "contingency"; it is both temporal and spatial; spatial contingency is heavily reduced by neighborhood of strongly related Structures, the ecological moment. The order component is highly furthered by the simple fact that many Structures are related or similar due to their nearness in Evolution; I use the term "affinity” for such encounter furthering relationship due to nearness in evolutive streams.

 

Examples for Structures from all types of Evolution are: quarks etc., protons etc., atoms, small molecules; stellar bodies of all sorts, electromagnetic and gravity fields; ordered mineral clusters, crystals; organs and organisms of all kinds, their nutri- and excrements, their positions and postures, movements, expressions, instincts; habits, memories, emotional states expressed; language, symbols, auditory or written, works, communicative systems,… Interestingly enough, this concept of Structure is easily applicable through all Evolutions. It always implies matter and static or dynamic energy and includes also structured Processes that are replicable. In effect, it is an abstraction, but lets intact its inherent qualities that may contribute to recognizability, rather than abstracting from them something into what is called a "substance". Struture abstracts from the kind of material substance, while matter remains there. Structures can be static or dynamic. A river is a Structure in that the form of its bed an flow speed and order constitute a particular form of flow, even when it may change over time and conditions. Real is to me, what has or can have effects. Symbols, of course do not have direct effects like many reals; only via mediators suited to know the Symbols; but they can be effective like reals. Structures in the brain are a kind of Symbols, no matter whether dynamic processes or static traces or paths, that have evolved in a particular history. They are symbolic, in that they are realized historically in a certain way that could as well be different yet have the same end effects. Yet Structures of the brain involving millions or billions of neurons and scores of transmitters can influence other brain or motor Structures directly and very intimately, i.e. down to the last detail. That is why I prefer to give transacting Structures a another name: Semions. In an a-dualistic understanding, we can see brain and mind as two access roads, the former publicly but extremely restricted, the latter private only and in parts, yet translatable to some limited extent into public via language, drawings, dream reports, comportment observation.

4.2. Structures can be less or more complex; the former being mixtures (germ. Gemenge) of Structures of usually little complexity, the latter most often dynamic organizations and alive. Structures may primitively be gathered in Formations that are not themselves Structures, because there is no inherent organization of the part Structures. their dynamics come from outside. Examples are clouds, earth, …

Spatiality thus is a precondition for encounters; and so is the motion of passive or active of Structures in space. Space firstly is the space in which Structures can change their and have effects on other locations. Space thus is inseparably connected with time, because whenever some Structure is moving, time is also made in addition to space. There is then another meaning of space added when symbolic Structures are sent in space and time in any possible form and are received later in time and at a different location: space-time is then also a symbol space that allows communication beyond the space-time needed to transport the symbol and may becalled communicative space independent of the particular means used for communication.

 

cf. Semeion in greek pronunciation as a unit of meaning (sem) and as an active attractor or refuser in chemistry (ion), and so bridging the gap between mechanics and meaning.

 I am not specialized enough to consider it a task of mine to clear all details in all fields. I only suggest another conception and test it in selected fields.

As far as I understand, there are essential requisites for the emergence of life: (a) reduplication with occasional "error" that can be corrected or perpetuated, (b) production by program or instruction; the main example should make it clear: DNA serving as instruction set (not as model) to manufacture proteins. The new feat here is that a first type of Structure is instrumental in constructing an entirely different type of Structure that could not be predicted from the qualities of the first

Cairns-Smith claims, that 4 critical conditions for life are present in clay minerals: order for replicative fidelity; disorder providing information capacity; growth in the form of duplication; cleavage for initiation of replication. Some early Semions can present all four conditions.

5.4. In my imagination, Semions abound in the domains of life and its evolutive successors psyche and culture. Almost every Structure if not all in this range can possess that differentiation and thus the capability to transact and so to enter Relations that impart Meaning.

In my definite opinion, all sciences from biology onwards in terms of evolutive emergences of their subject matter must become Meaning Sciences. Otherwise they certainly miss the essential character of their concern.

 

These two metaphors are illustrative, not explanatory.

It is mostly the following Peirce quote from his later years that probably incited me on the background of his triadic thinking to conceive Semiosis in ways deviating from his own where one interpretation almost completely dominates in the Peirce literature of the 20th century. Over the years of pursuing and perusing my generative conception, I have found it ever more pertinent and astonishingly simple. It's most consequential statement implies in fact the sign character of Peirce's interpretant and thus in some way discredits his separation between sign and interpretant and brings semiosis into the domain of causality:

This idea, I propose, of surface qualities / latent Potentials differentiation of Semionic Structures has proven simple, realistic, consequential and thus seems to be a great advance over any known definition of sign, because it is entirely structural and descriptive; it needs no functional or interpretative assumption whatsoever. I had for long searched for ways of instituting an a-dualistic world view. That the "ghost" sits lastly in this differentiation and can be so simple, is wonderful.

Note that the latent Potentials must eventually function by physico-chemical processes; but considering e.g that probably millions if not billions of neurons as well a thousand times more synapses and dozens of transmitters maybe involved already in simple acts make any perspective for explanations on physico-chemical, i.e. "mechanistic" basis simply hopeless, because we we would destroy the system if attempting to measure simultaneously already minor parts of them. We are in need of a descriptive language for Semiosis that bridges this gap. and can both be used to describe Semioses in realistic terms that can imply physico-chemical processes without invoking fictitious entities.

 

Molecules are built from Atoms. Stars are built from atoms and small molecules; and so are crystals. The second mostly by brute attraction, the latter in line with their valences or electron behavior. Yet the building elements remain there, however built-in.

If A transacts with B, C, D, …, a branching evolutive stream or increasing divergence results; if A transacts repeatedly with B or with B, B', B", …, A being the same, the latter being highly similar Structures, a reduction of diversity or containment thereof results that can lastly attain the opposite of branching, metaphorically spoken: merging or more equals; this amounts lastly to limitations or reductions in diversity or to some convergence. So different degrees of affinity of the Structures inter- or transacting automatically lead to both divergence and convergence of the evolutive streams at all its levels. Note how much this idea of Process-Structure-Alternation, like so many other things in Semiotic Ecology, simplifies conceptuality, because all concepts are defined in one conception rather than each one be itself and then secondarily related to others. Here, memory, for instance, needs no particular definition, but is simply and in its widest possible sense, an outgrow of the Process-Structure-Alternation. Or the Evolutions keep automatically a balance of divergence and convergence, as long as these Structure Interactions can freely play. Note also that from here I derive the idea of strategic primacy of the Relation or the Process before Structures, because this reduces our, the inquirer's or knower's influence on understanding, when Structures can be to what the Process leads us. This contrasts strongly with the widely common start with definitions of things we discern. I think I need to define only the notion of Structure and to to make the general Evolutive assumption and then specify the fundamental process as triadic causation; all the rest is observation of what happens in these terms. Obviously, this alternative basis of science does not imply that all former findings of the sciences would be invalid; but specifications of which of the findings are valid in which ranges are inevitable. Naturally this conceptuality has to meet evidence gathered in the various sciences that may be concerned; I can only draft the concepts and their interconnections.

 

8.2. Structures exist that have given up their independence for becoming parts of superstructures, their own fate inexorably connected with all Sub- and Super-Structures involved, often to some advantage for all. As long as they can communicate with each other in both directions as in living organisms (in plants and animals or their societies) advantages for any one giving up its independence may be greater than when staying alone, since they can perhaps influence the whole.

Don't ask for grounds for giving up large parts of autonomy by and for becoming a member of an alliance, symbiosis or total compound such as e.g. cells in an organism. Evolutions happen as they did and do. Only post-hoc can we guess or judge this or that advantage and disadvantage for it; and it’s we who judge, not Evolution; we attribute functions. Functionality grounds or explanatory attempts simply should not have any place in evolutive theorizing. Of course, autonomy may be greater for the complex Structures than for their parts. Self-motion is one among other expressions of autonomy.

Considering cultural Evolution it is particularly important, that humans have emerged what we usually call democracy, which is basically some maximization or at least optimization of influence of the lower units on the compound, i.e. the groups, no matter whether village, quarter, city, valley, nation or all people on the planet. At present understanding of democracy and its practice it is safe to say, that we need more influence from below based on better insight at lower levels into the whole, when we humans want to have a chance to stay alive for some time yet.The inclination of people in positions to make use of those that have not much choice, is too great to give them free hands, however clever they can be to the advantage of all.

The above graph gives a processual presentation of generative Semiosis; it always contains a temporal moment and presupposes one common spatio-temporal presence of all three components. I have given in section 11 both the above in a simplified model web and in addition an a-temporal presentation that only retains the nets of the Relations, accounting only for their temporal seriality (before and after).

Meaning originates in the Encounters. Different Ints with the same Ref make different Meanings, also vice versa, different Refs with same Int. The same Refs with the same Ints will generate the same Meaning again.

Substantification of the "meaning" of mental or symbols is something like the original sin of scientists, both natural scientists and humanists. Meaning is one of these abstraction, we can make to some extent, but should care greatly to never loose the context of its becoming and of its possible futures.

12.4. It is interesting to see that generative Triads can account for both diversity increase (divergence) and diversity reduction (diversity containment) of the Evolutive Process.

This contrasts well with the unsolved problem that a supposedly necessarily lawful universe is subject to occasional chance events; and no arbiter principle reigning above the two. Science seems occasionally to break its proper holy principles.

12.5. Equal Refs and Ints produce equal Pres, varying precursors produce Innovations. (So originates the factual in universalistic so-called natural law.)

Perhaps my denotations of the three roles Semions can enter in Semiosis come from a time when I was working with perception- and IntrO-Processes mainly. My criterion now is more in the idea, that often one of the precursors Semions is more active and the other more passive, but also often they are indistinct in this respect.

More important is here the idea than very stable structures that barely evolve any further, such as most atoms and small molecules may well do the same encounters time and again, readily so as in the atmo- and hydrospheres, to a more restricted extent also in lithospheres; these ubiquitous events may well account for what we think are the basics laws in physics and simple chemistry:the basic transformation processes involving matter and energy

12.6. Affinities and stabilities greatly reduce the effects of contingency.

This is in my opinion a great advance over simple chance principles. Indeed, the Evolutions by simply operating provide for stronger and lighter relatedness or affinities of all Structures generated. When some can only deal in many respect with affine others such as plants with animals or vice versa and have the means to seek them out, chance is no longer chance.

 

Note again that the idea of Structure is neither materialistic nor idealistic. There is no Structure that is not of matter or immediately related to matter such as electro-magnetic or gravitational fields and is not a form specific enough that it can be recognized. And differentiated Structures can Transact and can build their webs through Meaning or Semioses.

13.2. Proto-Evolutions generate:

Of course, all three are not Semioses but base on surface Interactions. In the Proto-Evos we see only encounters of Structures resulting in Structures and Formations that can also to some extent suitably attract or repel each other depending on their electric charges or due to gravitational force. But the chemical and cosmic Evos in essence produces more of the same in relatively few varieties, but huge numbers.

I just want to convey here that causation in the form of triadic Relations attained in encounters of units does already reign in the pre-biotic domains, yet non-semiotic, i.e. based on surface-determined Relations of Structures such as push impulses of atoms or molecules in hydro-, atmospheres, valencies of atoms or ions, or gravitation and inertia motion among stellar bodies,binding forces among molecules in crystal in the lithospheres, etc.

 

 It seems to me essential to think in terms of Semiosis and its variations being also evolutive emergences. When we can so easily apply triadic causation in the pro-organic domain and have such simple criterion as surface/latent Potential differentiation of Structures beginning with life, it appears not too difficult to understand the emergence of Semiosis under these conditions and also to assume that the factual process in these situations is of an enlarged physico-chemical nature; it also introduces history in that Process, in that Singularities become essential. The receptor process using stereo-chemical moments, may be an exemplary starting point for specialists to approach simple processes in possible connection. Our situation in in this respect compares to the situation in the later third of the 18th century, when people thought that human language was a gift of God and Herder for one proposed the notion that it may be humans themselves that essentially invented and constructed it in cooperation.

Affinities of Structures due to co-evolution and heightened chances for encounters in co-evolving species in common biotopes attain a great distance to simple probabilities determining evolutive events. Herein lies a manifestation of what I denote with the terms ecological and ecology.

This evolutive Process describes both Proto- and genuinely evolutive Encounters, with the difference that in Proto-Evolution no branching of the chains can be observed and the memory function of the genuine Evolutions generals, especially with atoms and small molecules, in that one Structure of a type is exchangeable with any other replicate of the same type, whereas in the genuine Evolutions we are dealing with structural singularities, each having and continuing its proper history in a branching tree. In later proto-periods, the structural types can approach singularities, e.g in stars, comets, etc. or concrete crystals which however are not replicable.

It is understandable yet strange that human theorizing about time and temporality has emphasized the generality of one single time scale for everything, but almost totally neglected the before/after perspective (so important in all languages of the world) of the Relations between events in favor of the countability of equal intervals, and has accepted until recently the reversibility of the arrow of time. There is no good reason for that except that it is highly practical for some purposes however fatal for other things. For each set of directly related Structures makes essentially its own time in so far Inter- and Transactions can rarely be immediate. In addition, some Structures such as complex organisms do well by creating in fact their own temporality within but adjusting it to the time of some regular events that may be of import to them, such as e.g. the circadian or the tide cycles. But it is simply a fact that no rotation or motion of any stellar body is coordinated in its cycle duration to those of any other such body, because their rotations and other inertial motions obey various other influences than time. Time is never a cause.

As a consequence, we have no good reason to put Earth rotation at a given time or any particular atomic oscillation at the base of time scales as such except that the former is of great import for most inhabitants of the planet Earth and the latter are very exact and technically useful. The fundamental fact of temporality is then that each Structural connection generates its proper temporality which can often be coordinated with other ones to some extent. In other words, I have come to the conclusion that time, like determination, is local, and should be seen as an inevitable outgrow of the realization of all Inter- and Transactions that cannot be immediate and must follow each other, so that both the before/after Relation of encounters and the process character of all transformation and transportation are the constituents of temporality and time.

Note that a consequence of this conception is that only the Structures and their Interactions, i.e their Encounters are reals; events are only possible in the presences of Encounters. Any Encounter has or is its presence and can leave its traces. The past can exist only symbolized; yet its traces can be reals. The future exists as well only symbolized as possibilities rather than as traces; seen from any presence the future can promise only possible and impossible Structures and Streams. The effect of any presence is to realize just one of all possible futures; it alone in turn becomes a member of the chain of Causation, semiosic or not, and can be pertinent for future things and Structures. Of all possible futures some may be also symbolized by humans in any of their symbolizing systems; impossible futures may be included. But only one of the possible will realize. So temporality is not a vessel with everything in it at certain points. It is better understood as cascades of events, some of them grouped by the Structures connecting them. Its we who attempt to use one such arbitrarily selected cascade of regularly recurring events to picture everything in relation to it, calling it time.

It is obvious in the above perspective of past and future being symbolized only with past fixed and future referring to scores of possibles that what we call human freedom is not an all or none perspective, but a sequence of possible futures many of which can be driven in this or that direction by human individual or collective actions. All what we can do to the world is then in our responsibility. Not only may much of it have effects back upon ourselves; but much may also concern other parts of the world. We shall be barely or not capable of distinguishing what eventually has back effects; so our responsibility is total. No moral instance is needed; this ethic follows from our role in the world, from our possibility to change so much.

 

When I have said above that Evolution is Structure formation and use, I can as well say: Evolution is Memory formation and use.

I think it a very essential insight that Evolution operates as memory building and use by necessarily successive Interaction and Transaction and so constitutes time and presupposes a relative independence or "autonomy" of all Structures and their motions and so constitutes space. The preconditions for this are already attained in the Proto-Evolutions and carried on in the genuine Evos.

Yet in the Proto-Evos memory is primitive and mostly quite stable, no longer evolutive or very slow in many parts of the universe, especially on our planet. Which is essential for the genuine Evolutions which can build upon a quite stable basis.

For example atoms and more of its kind are produced; stellar bodies are formed out of the nebulae and more of their few kinds; minerals are mixed in great varieties with the various components produced in the chemical Evolutions.

The formation of so many different trees of ever new and different evolutive families as evident in the branching trees of biotic lineages are clearly different from what we can see in the Proto-Evolutions.

Mainly based on Cairns-Smith 1986. (see section 5)

Epigenetic contributions, of course, take their place, especially in early development; yet do little if at all in bridging generations; little by increasing survival chances in a given Environment by individual learning and by cultural devices possibly compensating for some fitness deficiencies. Obviously especially the latter can also contribute to these deficiencies.

I have the impression that the Evolution of the Environment, formed in large part by organisms of great variety, is often neglected in our understanding by concentration on the origin of species. Obviously, humans, in particular, have so much contributed to their Environments in so many different ways in the different cultures of the world, that this must be considered as a special case. What I mean here primarily is the fact that for any given living being, all or a large part of all other living beings form its Environment, from which those parts, with which it is in proper connection, form its Umwelt.

I can here give only a few hints at the possibilities of understanding commonalities and differences among the different Evolutions which the present conception of Evolution opens. Variation and Selection processes are common to all genuine Evos, but how they are attained is different in each one of them. The most obvious characteristic of bioevolution is the separation of the variation and the selection phases in two different points in time and its distribution upon two different Structures: variation is of the genome, selection is of the organism.

Thus a second form of Memory is built that does modify or rebuild the biogenetic Memory or is realized in other forms.

Note that I put Individual and Cultural Evolutions in plural. What is often called individual development is in fact an Evolution in each singular Psyche or psychic organization because it is based on Millions of specific Encounters of the given individual with instances and aspects of an Environment, in fact an Individual's Umwelt is constituted by all: the Proto- and Bio-Evolutions, one's own and many other Individuals' Evolutions, the cultural Setting and its Evolution including an important component of the Individual in focus itself; everybody not only selects from and is in many forms selected by that Environment but also contributes heavily to its own making. The same plural form is also justified for the cultural Evolutions, for it is the communicative smaller or larger groups that evolve their proper form of living together.

It is not easy to say what are the cultural groups which evolve their proper Culturality. An important criterion certainly is the intensity of exchange. But Culturality obviously refers to a Process rather than to an object. Thus I avoid the term culture, except in the formula: the cultures of the world. One certainly important moment in forming traditions is language, although there are also many other means such as imitation or works or institutions to attain cultural emergencies. it has been estimated that roughly 8000 clearly distinct languages exist or have existed on planet Earth. Obviously these would constitute a lower limit for the number of cultural forms of living that have or do exist; many subgroups could also be included. In addition, the exchanges of many single cultural features among these groups have also to be considered.

It was Johann Gottfried Herder who roughly one century before Darwin has invented the principles of Evolution; he did it mainly on the level of the transition from individual to cultural Evolutions. He had intuitions about biotic Evolution, but has written about rather indirectly; because this could not be openly discussed at his times and he was in the position of a Lutheran equivalent of an Archbishop. He had a rather clear idea of the principles of Innovation (variation) and Evaluation (selection).

Note that in Individual Evos, variation and "selection", i.e. here reception or invention and retention with integration into the existing system is probably within the same system and often at the same time or almost the same time. This contrast clearly with the separation between variation effected in the genome and selection pertaining to the organism in its Environment in Bioevolution.

Remember that Christianity in particular has promoted an image of humans that is based on a huge gap to animals that hasonly recently begun to be diminished by unprejudiced observation and theorizing.

19.2. Now humans in particular have greatly evolved this rudimentary capacity to transfer their individually acquired habits to their kind, especially the young, with the support of advanced communicative "devices" such as language, tool- other artifact-making, writing, etc. to extents beyond anything seen in animals. This we call Culturality. It enhances greatly what one individual could learn by himself in that the experience from many generations can "live on" in the Traditions in communicative social systems and can be exchanged among them.

I prefer the abstract term Culturality to Culture, because the latter term treats these traditional emergences almost as objects to the disadvantage of the process and its potentials. Culturality points to various living forms that humans have socially acquired and transfer in smaller or larger groups. The point is that modern scientific achievements have not at all adequately treated Culturality due to lack of understanding and honoring the process. It is a great deficiency that the scientific community has not learnt little to understand culturality as the specifically human emergence.

Note that depending on level of differentiation you can easily identify some 6-8000 cultural groups, as indicated by the number of languages spoken. There may towards 100'000 or more different forms of living together, if you consider more details.

In Culturality, variation and selection, here more aptly called innovation and evaluation, are again in separate context, in that usually an individual or sometimes a smaller group innovates something, presenting it to others who do or do not adopt it and often change it in the course of time to often better, sometimes worse.

Let me add, that cultural evolutions are most important for all groups of humans and for their individual members. Imagine how meagre the "content" of our heads and how scare our skills and faculties would be, if there were no culturality. I contemplate ideas like: a non-en-cultured human is in fact an animal, only enculturated s/he becomes a human. I do not understand that human self definition has gotten heavily biological; even much of our law does little to give culturality its proper p

 

(Proto) There is neither Variation nor Selection in the sense given in the genuine evolution; new Structures such as atoms, molecules, stellar bodies, crystals, rock formations, mountain ranges, etc. just arise; some of them further interact, some do not. Of course there is formation of new structures by encounters of Structures extant, the latter differing from their precursors; insofar there is direct variation by encounters. But there is no selection phase eliminating some Structures; further encounters produce further Structures of the same kind. In other words, there is no evolutive chain or stream with ever new Structures

(Bio) in the genome,

(Psy) in the IntrAsystem mainly (P, yet contributions may also come from the Intro- and ExtrO systems),

(Cult) and are started mostly by individuals, sometimes in small groups or teams (in which variation and evaluation phases can melt).

(Bios) in the Relation between organism and the surrounding Environment,

(Psy) in the same IntrA-System and barely distinguishable from the generation of Variation,

(Cult) in the larger communicative groups or the public at large, perhaps initially by leader figures or people near to the variators.

There are no indications presently for separate handling of variation and evaluation in the Psychic system; yet nobody has explicitly searched for such so far systematically. I prefer to think of a highly distributed process for both variation and evaluation in the brain/mind or psychic system, where the two functions are attained together.

22.3. The four consecutive Semioses form consecutive phases, each one basing on the Pre of its precursor Semiosis; together they build one cycle of the Function Cycle; the purple rectangle presents the organism; the green rectangle its Umwelt or aspects of the Environment, for which the respective organism has organs either to sense or to act upon; the large rectangle the individual organism-Umwelt-Ecosystem; the background paper area the Common Environment or (lastly) the world at large (although other organisms are lacking).

22.4. The cycle repeats as long as the organism is alive in spirals through time. In all IntrO- Semioses (yellow) the Umwelt can leave an impression upon the organism, transient or permanent; in IntrA-Semioses (green) the bio-genetically given potential can be overformed and extended as a dynamic individual memory, influences from the lived-in cultures of the world included; in ExtrO-Semioses (blue) the individual can act upon the Environment, eventually changing it and also changing him-/herself in the executive process; in ExtrA-Processes, semiosic or not, the Environment is changed by Interaction (physical etc.) and Transaction (semiosic) among its relatively independent parts.

22.5. In the genuine Evolutions infinite trees of Semiosis are branching in restrained diversification.

22.6. This emblem presents the Semiotic Function Cycle and is a summary of my transfer of Generative Semiotic into the worlds of the genuine Evolutions: of living beings in their Umwelten and Environments (bioevolution), of individual organisms in their Umwelt (individual or psychic Evolutions), and of communicative groups in their cultural traditions (the cultural Evolutions or Culturality for short).

22.7. Also see slides #12 and #23. The conception of Generative Semiosis is generic enough that its principle is applicable to all of three basic functions of any organism on as well material, energetic and information levels: (a) input or reception; (b) internal processing, no matter whether or how this is differentiated into emotion, affect, cognition, and willing, etc.; and (c) output or activities of various kinds such as humoral or other excretions, movements of extremities, facial or positional expression, acoustic expression, linguistic or otherwise. (d) The fourth phase closing the cycle and bringing it to its next turn may concern semiosic transformations of parts of the environment through other living beings, humans in particular, or non-semiosic, purely physical, mechanical or chemical events or other changes happening in the outer world (from the viewpoint of the organism in focus).

22.8. What I call the Function Cycle is an outgrow and extension of Jakob von Uexkülls "Funktionskreis" or function circle consisting of the two complimentary Merkwelt (receptive domain) and Wirkwelt (active domain) connecting any organism to it Umwelt receptively and actively. The Function Cycle, is conceived genuinely semiosic while the function circle has not been originally conceived so but can easily reinterpreted semiosically. One substantial gain of Generative Semiotic lies in the fact that one simple conception can indefinitely be applied to four phenomenologically entirely different phases of being and becoming in the world of organisms, viz.(1) perception or bringing about changes in the organism, (2) hidden mental including cognitive, emotional and any other so-called "mental" processes in the mind/brain including memory understood dynamically, and (3) all activity bringing about minor or major changes into the world.

22.9. The verb to spiral or the gerund "spiraling" may be an neologism; but picturing the sequence of Semioses that alternatingly go through the organisms and its Environment, once into either and once within either, and leaving eventually lasting changes in both, so that the Environment embracing many Umwelten of the former and present inhabitants, and aswell as any individual organism are making each other by these infinite numbers of Semioses form or build or change and maintain each other, is an excellent illustration of what happens in the form or organization of life.

22.10. These two qualifications of Evolution, diversity increase and its containment, happen together inseparably and based on one and the same causation, are responsible at the same time for both manifold innovation not too far away from what already exists and stabilization or order of or in the universe. Semiosis conjoins the Semions Referent and Interpretant generating their Presentant. The four phases IntrO, IntrA, ExtrO & ExtrA forming a cycle.

The SemEco Function Cycle is the Core Concept of the operation of Generative Semiosis in the Genuine Evolutions (Bios, Psyche, Culturality). See also the elucidations in section 20.

Structure Formation both within and around the individual organism occurs in four phases of the Function Cycle spiraling through the Ecosystem, the individual and its Umwelt, and changing both, possibly in the course of every one cycle. Each phase is a Semiosis comprising a Referent, an Interpretant, and a Presentant. IntrO- and ExtrO-Semioses build Structures within and around the organism, respectively. They are the basis of what is phenomenally known as Perception or Reception and Behavior or Action. Already for the most primal organism, ExtrA-Processes, whether of semiosic kind or not, are important; the organism have to remain fit for the respective Umwelt and may adjust genetically if the environment changes beyond their capabilities. For more complex organisms gaining and using individual experience, Intro-Processes, mostly of semiosic kind, become increasingly important and supplement or substitute some of their genetically emerged capabilities such as instincts.

There is no doubt that all IntrA- and much of the IntrO- and ExtrO-processes are realized with most complex physico-chemical events in the neuronal/humoral system of the central nervous system of all "higher" animals or in the humoral processes that operate in "lower" organisms including plants. I understand semiotic parlance as manner of speaking about something that is too complex than that it is possible to understand more than a few details of these processes. Millions of Billions of neurons with one approximately one thousand times as many synapses can be involved in one single phase of the Semiotic Function Cycle.

The diagram points to the crucial SemEco insight that all four phases of the cycle are of the same kind, namely Triadic and Semiosic Structure Formation and Change. This allows overcoming phenomenological constriction of inquiry having resulted in the separate treatment of domains like perception and action, thinking, emotion and motivation, etc. In cultural beings, especially, the ExtrA-Processes are also largely of the semiosic kind and are provided by other individuals, actual or earlier in time, nearby or elsewhere in space with effects into the actual scene.

 

This concerns both, a substantial guess or fact about the probable or obvious vertical organization of organic systems and a methodological principle based upon SemEco:

You can relatively easy observe Semions outside an organism; especially those Refs eliciting a perception and so starting an IntrO-Semiosis; and those Pres resulting from an action or ExtrO. So you can observe little from IntrOs, ExtrOs and nothing from IntrAs, if you want not really relying on immediate experience reports or your own.

It's a fact that our observational possibilities are limited. Simple positivism make blind and deaf.

Pure analysis leads to nowhere. Supplement it by synthesis so that some target result find double ground.

Cultivating details or connection is a matter or taste or habit. We cannot forgo either. With 'Stimmigkeit' I do not mean 'harmony'; rather I conceive of some state of affairs where details known  perfectly fit into everything else of total knowledge. Here ist lastly my motive for my rule of thumb to always inquire on several adjacent levels or horizons of the complex processes.

 

1. SemEco goes beyond interpretation or input into a mind.

2. SemEco accounts for Semion ("sign characters" generically) production as well as “interpretation, i.e. mediation into a new or known Structure.

3. Being truly triadic SemEco can cover generic Evolution and the Evolution of Evolution: Proto-Evos (chemical, stellar, mineral), Bios, Psyche, Culturality.

4. SemEco is based on contingent encounter and affinity rather than necessity.

5. In SemEco one principle accounts for both diversity increase and containment.

6. Meaning can emerge in SemEco from pre-biotic Proto-Evolutive causation.

7. SemEco can cover semiosic IntrO-, IntrA-, ExtrO-, and Extra-Processes.

8. SemEco relates material/energetic aspects intimately with Meaning.

It's not my task to criticize SemEco, I improve it, continually, the 16 ears since I have invented its basics when first reading Peirce. I originally only wanted to introduce culturality combined with methodical rigor into human sciences, psychology. Long before I was clear as to the inevitability of the ecological aspects.Then I saw that Meaning must also play an essential part and got beyond Peirce in introducing generative Semiosis. It has grown much larger into questioning and furthering a long history of thinking, the dualistic understanding or our world and ourselves, forwarding me to drafting a new conceptuality that is simpler and more coherent. There "must be" shortcomings apart from fundamentally breaking old thinking habits.

In consequence of the evolutive conception I gained over some years, I seriously doubt that universalistic natural law conceived as real determinants of what happens rather than as somewhat idealizing descriptions of what happens in an evolutive world. An evolutive world must be determined locally, field effects included. However, in an evolutive world, where should the laws "sit" and how should they be able to determine anytime and everywhere most to everything? Should the laws exist before the settings wherein they are supposed to have their effects, or should they be evolving too? Peirce had already arisen this question in the 1880; alas, without ceasing to proceed as if the world was following universal law.

The goal of scientific endeavors in an evolutive world cannot be prediction. There can be given principles describing on a rather abstract level, how the Evolutions operate; Where Structures as stable as (the lighter) atoms or their major parts or small molecules are operating as they are (such as in energy transformation or basic chemistry, for example), we can expect strong regularity that looks like natural law, but the nature of the evolving principles (in complex and live composita, for example) excludes to predict every step; it is well possible to say what cannot happen and what is more or less probable. But Evolutions do what they do. And to invent reasons or grounds is already counter to their nature.

My radically new conceptuality ascribes those impressive regularities we can observe and those obvious irregularities that are also real to one and the same principles. This is a gain in parsimony and rationality as well as in factuality. I am well aware that most people prefer it otherwise and that there are enormous vested interests in much what makes factual scientific matters fixed, however much improved they could be.