Pathways to the Origin and Evolution of Meanings in the Universe (eBook)

Alexei A. Sharov is the vice president of bioinformatics at Elixirgen Scientific in Baltimore, USA. He holds a Ph.D. in ecology and entomology from Moscow State University in Russia. He's the editor of Journal Biosemiotics, published 4 books, and 180 peer-reviewed papers. Sharov has organized three conferences on biosemiotics. George E. Mikhailovsky is the president and CEO of Global Mind Share in Norfolk, USA. He has a Ph.D. in biophysics from Moscow State University in Russia and a DSc in systems ecology from P.P. Shirshov Institute of Oceanology. Currently, he is the editor-in-chief of the Journal of Evolutionary Science and has published 5 books and 100 peer-reviewed papers.

Preface xv

Acknowledgments xix

Part I: The Nature of Meaning and Its Components 1

1 Introduction: Towards Integrating Studies of Meanings with Science 3
Alexei A. Sharov

2 Pathways to the Understanding of Signs and Meanings in the Biosphere: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives 27
Donald Favareau and Kalevi Kull

3 Is it a Janus-Faced World After All? Physics is Not Reductionist 55
Bashir Ahmad and Richard Gordon

4 Semiotic Ground and the Hierarchic Nature of Information 71
Terrence W. Deacon

5 Ontology and Semiotics of Memory 85
Anton V. Sukhoverkhov and Arran E. Gare

6 Meanings, Their Hierarchy, and Evolution 101
George E. Mikhailovsky

7 Semiotics of Potential Meanings 137
Alexei A. Sharov

8 A Constructivist Approach to Meanings in the Universe 167
Alexander Kravchenko

Part II: Meanings in the Evolution of Life 187

9 Chemical Origins of Life, Agency, and Meaning 189
Alexei A. Sharov

10 Evolution of Biomolecular Communication 217
Gustavo Caetano-Anollés

11 Meaning Relies on Codes but Depends on Agents 245
Robert Prinz

12 Evolutionary Growth of Meanings in the Relational Universe of Intercommunicating Agents 265
Abir U. Igamberdiev

Part III: Meanings in Organism Behavior and Cognition 279

13 The Sentient Cell 281
Arthur S. Reber, Frantisek Baluska and William B. Miller, Jr.

14 A Hypothesis about How Bacterial Cells Sustain and Change Their Lives in Response to Various Signals 299
Vic Norris and Alexei A. Sharov

15 Self-Reinforcing Cycles and Mistakes: The Emergence of Subjective Meaning 325
Victoria N. Alexander

16 On the Energy-Based Limitations of the Information Capacity and Information Processing Rates in the Human Brain 345
Jack A. Tuszynski

17 The Peculiar Case of Danger Modeling: Meaning-Generation in Three Dimensions 363
Hongbing Yu

Part IV: Meanings in Humans and Beyond 377

18 Anchors of Meaning: The Intertwining of Signs, Abduction, and Cognitive Niches 379
Lorenzo Magnani

19 Levels of Translation, Levels of Freedom? 401
Kobus Marais

20 Towards a Biosemiotic Account of Memes as Units of Cultural Replication and Interpretation 419
Ivan Fomin

21 Astrobiosemiotics and Its Frontier with Astrobiology 439
Julian Chela-Flores

22 Time Horizons and Biosemiotic Adaptation: Taking Seriously Variable Temporalities in the Evolution of Possible Life Forms 453
Yogi H. Hendlin and Constantijn-Alexander Kusters

Declaration 467

References 467

Index 471