Information seen as part of the development of living intelligence: The five-leveled cybersemiotic framework for FIS

Abstract

It is argued that a true transdisciplinary information science going from physical information to phenomenological understanding needs a metaphysical framework. Three different kinds of causality are implied: efficient, formal and final. And at least five different levels of existence are needed: 1. The quantum vacuum fields with, entangled causation. 2. The physical level with is energy and force-based efficient causation. 3. The informational-chemical level with its formal causation based on pattern fitting. 4. The biological-semiotic level with its non-conscious final causation and 5. The social-linguistic level of self-consciousness with its conscious goal-oriented final causation. To integrate these consistently in an evolutionary theory as emergent levels, neither mechanical determinism nor complexity theory are sufficient because they cannot be a foundation for a theory of lived meaning. C. S. Peirce's triadic semiotic philosophy combined with a cybernetic and systemic view, like N. Luhmann's, could create the framework I call Cybersemiotics.