Towards an Evolutionary Semiotics: The Emergence of New Sign-Functions in Organisms and Devices

Abstract

Signs, symbols, and signals are essential to the survival and evolution of all complex functional organizations that utilize "information." We discuss basic semiotic relations inherent in signalling systems (communication), scientific models (epistemology), adaptive devices (control), and biological organisms (construction). For each of these different functional realms, basic syntactic, semantic, and pragmatic relations are outlined. An evolutionary semiotics seeks to explain how new semiotic relationships can evolve over time. New signalling channels appear in communications systems by the construction of new ways of sending and detecting signals; new observables appear in scientific models through the physical construction of new measuring devices; new "feature primitives" emerge in devices through adaptive construction of sensors. These physical construction and selection processes have analogues in biological evolution. We discuss the crucial role that symbols play in living organizations (the central role of DNA in the self-production of the organism) and in the evolutionary process (inheritability of plans). "Semiotic evolution" and the "semiotics of evolution" thus point us in a common direction, towards a unified, "evolutionary semiotics."