Unlimited Semiosis Research Articles

Перспективы антропоцентризма в оптике цифровой эпохи

The article discusses the prospects for using the concept of “thinking together-with-complexity” as a tool for forming the prerequisites for a critical dialogue with the post-anthropocentric philosophy of post-humanism of the digital age. This is the central problem of philosophical understanding of the phenomenon of man in the era of the Anthropocene, which is becoming artificial intelligence, the world of co-evolving neuromorphic networks. One of the “entry points” to the understanding of thinking-together-with-complexity is the concept of E. Moren’s complexity paradigm, as well as focusing on Deleuze’s key idea; The idea of the need to “think in the between”. Another entry point is Spencer-Brown’s Laws of Form. And, finally, the third entry point is the philosophy of G. Simondon, which focuses on the principle of individuation of beings, overcoming the binary hyleomorphism of matter and form of Aristotle and interpreting individuation as an ontogenetic, form-creating process of becoming unfolding between pre-individual and transindividual. It is emphasized that thinking together-with-complexity is a procedural, non-reductionist, recursive-temporal thinking “between” order and chaos, subject and object, mechanical and organic, system and its surroundings (environment), between network and hierarchy, between being and becoming, conscious and unconscious, observer and observed, as well as between simplification and complication. This is thinking of open post-classical rationality (Vyacheslav S. Stepin): it is focused on abductive search, thought experiment, contact with the Other, construction of means of dialogical connection between different conceptual perspectives and it is important to emphasize, connection as a process of unlimited semiosis according to Peirce.

Encoding Memory through Multimodality in Modern-Day Memorial Museums

The article is devoted to the use of technology in memorial museums, particularly in those related to genocide.
 The authors use a multidisciplinary theoretical framework using a diverse toolkit from Semiotics, Communication Studies, and Philosophy to explain the benefits and dangers of implementing technology in a memorial museum. The framework makes particular use of Peirce’s idea of unlimited semiosis, Eco’s considerations about the multiplicity of meanings and the “open text”, the existence of not one but two narratives in museums—especially in memorial museums—and Heidegger’s writings on technology especially enframing and revealing which are invoked in order to explain the interplay between technology and memory. 
 Being based in Yerevan, Armenia, the authors formulate their ideas with the Armenian Genocide Museum Institute (AGMI) in mind. This results in practical recommendations of how technology could be implemented in modern-day memorial museums, and identifies the benefits and dangers that must be kept in mind when doing so.
 The specific subject matter of the AGMI plays a part in how this discourse evolves and the framework is assembled through an exploration of the term genocide, the historical events and artifacts that are presented in the museum and the current setup of the museum.

Multimodality of the TV Format

This article analyses the multimodal construction of various global TV formats and the modes through which the format negotiates reinforcement of its ideological bases, innovation, change and unlimited semiosis. Theoretically, this work draws on social semiotics, multimodality and political economy. Methodologically, it applies semiotic analysis to really popular global formats. The results show that the format is an extraordinary and powerful example of multimodality which speaks the global language of signs. On the one hand, different languages and forms of communication reinforce its ideologies, such as competition, primacy of money, objectification of human bodies and consumerism; but the format also puts forward a kind of self-propaganda; in many cases, in fact, its communication aims to support and promote itself, even when this contradicts other messages of the system; it is by being successful that producers make more money, become more successful, may further influence the audience, and so on. On the other hand, the languages and the forms adopted continually renew the format, change the relationships between signifier and signified, and create new symbols. This unlimited semiosis allows the format to refresh or adapt its image, get more audience and remain competitive in the market. Keywords: TV format, who wants to be a millionaire, wheel of fortune, multimodality, social semiotics

Semiosic Processes and Design Processes. Inventiveness, Dialogue, Narrativity, Translation

Design semiotics could lead to two lines of research: the study of design products and the study of design processes. As much as the analysis of artifacts has significance, the survey about semiosic processes inside design processes is the one that defines the unique nature of semiotics in the design context. This investigation follows “the pragmatist route” to design semiotics, for two reasons: (1) because it understands design as an activity that leverages the concept of inventive abduction and can provide answers to cognitive challenges; (2) because the work of design is never to be conceived as concluded in the final result, but embedded in a f low of unlimited semiosis. I will focus on the concept of semiosis according to Peirce’s semiotics, understood as a process of production of sense. In this way, I will deal with the following four processes: Inventiveness, whose logical model refers to abduction, the process that enables exploration of the ways to possible meanings. Based on Bakhtin’s literary theory and Bohm’s epistemology, dialogicity, which will be considered as the social interaction model underpinning every social idea of design. Narrativity, understood as the general scheme that is implemented in a project, understood as a series of actions leading to the achievement of a goal, and as a process of transformation. Translation, considered not only as an interpretation process that takes place between different forms of expression, but especially as a transition from a problem or desire to an “interpretant artifact.”

Culture as Unlimited Semiosis(review of the joint monograph: Semiosis and Culture: Modern Cultural Practices [Digital Resource]: text research digital publication accommodated on a CD-ROM / ed. by L. V. Gurlenova, G. L. Tulchinsky; Federal State Budget Educational Institution of Higher Education “Pitirim Sorokin Syktyvkar State University”)

Culture as Unlimited Semiosis(review of the joint monograph: Semiosis and Culture: Modern Cultural Practices [Digital Resource]: text research digital publication accommodated on a CD-ROM / ed. by L. V. Gurlenova, G. L. Tulchinsky; Federal State Budget Educational Institution of Higher Education “Pitirim Sorokin Syktyvkar State University”)

Psycho-semiotic model of thinking. Combining Klein and Peirce theory of symbol for more comprehensive model of mind

Thesis: Aim of the paper is to present Melanie Klein and Charles S. Peirce concept of symbol in order to combine them into scheme that presents conscious and unconscious aspect of thinking through symbolic signs (signs based on convention).
 Presented concepts: Paper presents concept of symbol in psychoanalytical and semiotic perspective. Psychoanalytical view is based on interpretation of symbol according to object relation paradigm proposed by Klein. There are two reasons for selecting her theory for the model: it is most closely bound with interdependency between communication and thinking plus her concept of proper symbol fulfills definition of symbolic sign in Peirce theory, due to deployment of matter of absence in substitution process. Peirce theory however is selected to present semiotic perspective not only for its good linkage to Klein’s “proper symbol” but also for its accurate understating of object representation in quasi- mind through Representamen and as a result recognition of symbol embedment in code through unlimited semiosis. Chosen concepts are consolidated into psycho-semiotic model of thinking which recognizes symbol to be co-created by unique internal world of unconscious phantasy with simultaneous employment of semiotic devices oriented to external, group order perspective.
 Results and conclusions: Proposed psycho-semiotic model of thinking enhances psychoanalytic view, based on drive for object, by recognizing communication means required for meaningful relation and with that for thinking itself. As a result conceptualizing thinking processes is enriched with semiotic discoveries such as mechanics and structure of Representamen and Interpretant, along with indispensable code rules, with unlimited semiosis at its core. In turn psychoanalytical view adds to semiotic perspective sensitivity to individual potential and constrains when code is in use and with that raises precision of exploration in the field.
 Contribution to the field: Proposed model enriches theory of thinking based on object relations with semiotic sign theory, which being focused on communication serves as a frame for establishing object relations and their conceptualization. In turn employing psychoanalytic perspective into semiotic field brings back code theory to actual code usage, and by that expands it to various unconscious forces, which ultimately determine Interpretant

The semiotic web of the research proposal

Abstract Signs in the early stages of research (e.g. pathways, thoughts/ideas, and structured feedback) form a web that we call the semiotic web of the research proposal. This web is based on the unlimited semiosis of signs, the semiotic square of education, and the semiotic web of law. We start weaving this web by formulating a raw thought and a number of research ideas. Βy travelling various pathways, we develop patterns of thinking which in turn lead to several potential research proposals, one of which will become the chosen research proposal. We use the concept “semiotics of education” as our theoretical base for a heuristic tool, the semiotic web of the research proposal, to explore an aspect of educational research methodologies. Recognizing that overcoming habitual dualisms is a distinguishing feature of the semiotics of education, we open up the discussion about the extent to which the research proposal should be an integral part of the main supervision process and explore some of the possibilities surrounding this goal. The study highlights the evidence arising from a lifelong distance-learning programme in research proposal development and provides illustrative examples of the way in which educational principles have been translated into practice in a Greek university. This article is based on our presentation “The semiotic web of the research proposal” delivered at the conference Semiosis in Communication – Knowing and Learning, Bucharest, June 16–18, 2016.

Rhythm as iconic self reference: a brief definition and some possible consequences

This paper's main goal is to show that rhythm can be defined and understood, in Peircean terminology, as iconic self-reference. This bears the immediate consequence that rhythm offers a way of –temporarily– escaping the process of unlimited semiosis (CP 2,303; 2,92). Within rhythm, iconic self-reference may create a recurrency of likenesses, suspending further reference to any third element external to rhythm. This paper will argue that some well known cognitive and emotional consequences of rhythm stem from this phenomenon, as semiotically defined here. In order to maintain consistency, I set a Peircean theoretical framework for this paper.

Interpretácie v boji o skutočnosť

The article is a discussion of the relationship between interpretation and extra-textual reality. The first part focuses on the concepts of unlimited semiosis and intertextuality, which poststructuralist theorists believe guarantees the exclusion of references. The article considers the criticism of this understanding of unlimited semiosis (Umberto Eco) and intertextuality (Antoine Compagnon). As an example of a text that tries to introduce a new reality, the author of the article analyses Voltaire’s Candide against the background of Leibniz’s philosophy. In the last part, the article looks at Barthes’s return to Realism in literature.

The Impasse of Metaphorical Essentialism

Abstract This paper anatomizes the cognitive theory of metaphor from the perspective of Peircean semiotics. As is defined by Peirce, iconic reasoning is the underlying logic of metaphor, which is open ended and heterogeneous, and therefore no particular metaphorical schema can be said to claim a monopoly over the structuring of our thinking and behavior. Lakoff and Johnson’s cognitive theory, however, seems to follow the Platonic line of ontological realism, which advocates that concepts expressed in a language correspond to real states of things or affairs that exist independently of language. By viewing their “master tropes” as fundamental and prerequisite schemas, Lakoff and Johnson presume the ontological existence of some metaphorical concepts. Such an a priori assumption is not compatible with the polysemous nature of the sign. Consequently, this essentialist approach makes their postulation on metaphor unfalsifiable. What is missing from their framework is a structural space for dynamic interpretation on the part of metaphor users. Peirce’s theory of unlimited semiosis can remedy this deficiency through introducing the concept of “interpretant” as a mediating thirdness, where innumerable semantic features of objects or life situations are rhizomatically linked on the basis of encyclopedic knowledge shared by members of a particular culture.

Cuencas de atracción y semiosis ilimitada

This paper argues in favor of the ambiguity in the interpretive process and mechanisms that can lead to stop the so-called unlimited semiosis. As we shall see, our way of approaching the problem can be used in other contexts, and the resulting conclusions can be applied to text, artwork, spoken messages, and to any sign to be interpreted.

Cuencas de atracción y semiosis ilimitada

En este trabajo se argumenta en favor de la ambigüedad existente en el proceso interpretativo de textos y los mecanismos que pueden llevar a detener la denominada semiosis ilimitada. Como veremos, nuestro modo de abordar el problema puede servir en otros contextos, y las conclusiones resultantes pueden ser aplicadas a textos, obras de arte, mensajes orales, y cualquier signo en general a ser interpretado.

Rhythm as iconic self reference: a brief definition and some possible consequences

This paper’s main goal is to show that rhythm can be defined and understood, in Peircean terminology, as iconic self-reference. This bears the immediate consequence that rhythm offers a way of –temporarily– escaping the process of unlimited semiosis (CP 2,303; 2,92). Within rhythm, iconic self-reference may create a recurrency of likenesses, suspending further reference to any third element external to rhythm. This paper will argue that some well known cognitive and emotional consequences of rhythm stem from this phenomenon, as semiotically defined here. In order to maintain consistency, I set a Peircean theoretical framework for this paper.

Una revisión de la Cadena Datos-Información-Conocimiento desde el Pragmatismo de Peirce

La Cadena Datos-Información-Conocimiento (DIC), denominada “Jerarquía de la Información” o “Pirámide del Conocimiento”, es uno de los modelos más importantes en la Gestión de la Información y la Gestión del Conocimiento. Por lo general, la estructuración de la cadena se ha ido definiendo como una arquitectura en la que cada elemento se levanta sobre el elemento inmediatamente inferior; sin embargo no existe un consenso en la definición de los elementos, ni acerca de los procesos que transforman un elemento de un nivel a uno del siguiente nivel. En este artículo se realiza una revisión de la Cadena Datos-Información-Conocimiento examinando las definiciones más relevantes sobre sus elementos y sobre su articulación en la literatura, para sintetizar las acepciones más comunes. Se analizan los elementos de la Cadena DIC desde la semiótica de Peirce; enfoque que nos permite aclarar los significados e identificar las diferencias, las relaciones y los roles que desempeñan en la cadena desde el punto de vista del pragmatismo. Finalmente se propone una definición de la Cadena DIC apoyada en las categorías triádicas de signos y la semiosis ilimitada de Peirce, los niveles de sistemas de signos de Stamper y las metáforas de Zeleny.

Hadis “Man Baddala Dînahû Faqtulûhu”: Telaah Semiotika Komunikasi Hadis

This article attempts to understand the hadith Man baddala dînahû faqtulûhu, with the communication semiotics of hadith adopted from the theory of communication semiotics of Umberto Eco. to this study, I conclude that the Prophet as delivered sources of the tradition toward our semiotic mind as the destination through some communication components. After the processing of unlimited semiosis in the destination, the appeared understanding fabric related to the word faqtulûhu in the tradition refer to the meaning “warn him”, and then it could be saying “give him advice.” And further reinterpretation to be “honor him. “The latter Interpretant could be the final logical interpretant that has a great contribution to the modern context.[Artikel ini mencoba untuk memahami hadits Man baddala dînahû faqtulûhu, dengan menggunakan pembacaan semiotika komunikasi hadits yang diadopsi dari teori semiotika komunikasi Umberto Eco. Dalam penelitian ini, saya menyimpulkan bahwa Nabi sebagai sumber penyampai hadis pertama disampaikan melalui alam pikiran semiotik kita melalui beberapa komponen komunikasi. Setelah melalui proses semiosis yang tak terbatas di dalam tujuan komunikasi itu, ada pemahaman muncul terkait dengan kata “faqtulûhu” dalam hadis merujuk pada makna “memperingatkan dia”, dan bisa juga bermakna “memberikan nasihat kepadanya.” Adapun penafsiran selanjutnya menjadi “menghormati dia.” Tafsiran yang terakhir dianggap cukup masuk akal dan banyak memberikan kontribusi besar bagi kehidupan konteks modern.]

Lady Gaga as (dis)simulacrum of monstrosity

Lady Gaga’s celebrity DNA revolves around the notion of monstrosity, an extensively researched concept in postmodern cultural studies. The analysis that is offered in this paper is largely informed by Deleuze and Guattari’s notion of monstrosity, as well as by their approach to the study of sign-systems that was deployed in A Thousand Plateaus. By drawing on biographical and archival visual data, with a focus on the relatively underexplored live show, an elucidation is afforded of what is really monstrous about Lady Gaga. The main argument put forward is that monstrosity as sign seeks to appropriate the horizon of unlimited semiosis as radical alterity and openness to signifying possibilities. In this context it is held that Gaga effectively delimits her unique semioscape; however, any claims to monstrosity are undercut by the inherent limits of a representationalist approach in sufficiently engulfing this concept. Gaga is monstrous for her community insofar as she demands of her fans to project their semiosic horizon onto her as a simulacrum of infinite semiosis. However, this simulacrum may only be evinced in a feigned manner as a (dis)simulacrum. The analysis of imagery from seminal live shows during 2011–2012 shows that Gaga’s presumed monstrosity is more akin to hyperdifferentiation as simultaneous employment of heterogeneous and potentially dissonant inter pares cultural representations. The article concludes with a problematisation of audience effects in the light of Gaga’s adoption of a schematic and post-representationalist strategy in the event of her strategy’s emulation by competitive artists.

Lady Gaga as (Dis)Simulacrum of Deleuzian Monstrosity

Lady Gaga’s celebrity DNA revolves around the notion of monstrosity, an extensively researched concept in post-modern cultural studies. The analysis that is offered in this paper is largely informed by Deleuze & Guattari’s notion of monstrosity, as well as by their approach to the study of sign-systems that was deployed in Thousand Plateaus (1987). By drawing on biographical and archival visual data, with a focus on the relatively underexplored live-show, an elucidation is afforded of what is really monstrous about Lady Gaga. The main argument that is put forward is that monstrosity as sign seeks to appropriate the horizon of unlimited semiosis as radical alterity and openness to signifying possibilities. In this context it is held that Gaga effectively delimits her unique semioscape, however any claims to monstrosity are undercut by the inherent limits of a representationalist approach in sufficiently engulfing this concept. Gaga is monstrous for her community insofar as she demands of her fans to project their semiosic horizon onto her as simulacrum of infinite semiosis. However, this simulacrum may only be evinced in a feigned manner as (dis)simulacrum. The analysis of imagery from seminal live shows during 2011-2012 shows that Gaga’s presumed monstrosity is more akin to hyperdifferentiation as simultaneous employment of heterogeneous and potentially dissonant inter pares cultural representations. The article concludes with a problematization of audience effects in the light of Gaga’s adoption of a schematic and post-representationalist strategy in the event of her strategy’s emulation by competitive artists.

Abstraction as a limit to semiosis

In highly evolved culture, discourse is made up of complexes of implicit and explicit inter-textual relations, which form the meanings for new signifiers. Meanings for common abstract nouns are derived from the modeling of typical situations in everyday narratives. However at a further level of abstraction, models of discourses, which themselves contain abstract concepts, provide meanings for what are called “hyper-abstract” nominals. Here a certain limit is reached, and it is argued that this diachronic, onomasiological process provides a constraint on the notion of “unlimited semiosis.” This constraint has both natural and ethical aspects.

The Myth of Otherness: Goethe on Presence

The Myth of Otherness: Goethe on Presence Frauke Berndt Western culture is dominated by representation—however, in 1993 in a series of essays, Jean-Luc Nancy counters this paradigm of all signification processes from a culturally critical perspective with a new paradigm, and proclaims “the birth to presence.”1 In the course of this paradigm shift from representation to presence and as a consequence of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht’s work, contemporary literary criticism has also taken an interest in “what meaning cannot convey.”2 Yet, to speak of a “new” paradigm implies a kind of mastery, since presence basically represents an outdated paradigm in two respects. In the hermeneutic tradition, whose roots are deeply grounded in the philosophical aesthetic of the nineteenth century, the concept was, first, used for the direct experience of meaning, most importantly in the realm of art. Second, as understood by poststructuralist thinkers—especially in the field of deconstruction—hermeneutics was then seen to be motivated by a disproportionate or even false desire for presence. Since the 1960s, in the wake of these investigation into representation, the paradigm fell into oblivion or even disrepute. Hermeneutics seemed to be a mode of engaging with texts that sought to secure the full presence of signification, a pleroma of meaning. In contrast, the emphasis among poststructuralists was on the dark stain of the signifier, the operation of the trope, the play of textual signs deferring any arrival at a fullness of meaning. If, in the age of post-hermeneutics,3 presence is now invoked as a counterforce to hermeneutics, there seems to be a peculiar anti-deconstructive twist at work in much of this new thinking. To the extent that the return to presence employs a concept that deconstruction has deemed obsolete, the new focus on presence entails neither a turn nor a return leading into the past. Instead, this return opens up a future potential without requiring or anticipating any dialectical reconciliation in the synthesis of hermeneutics and deconstruction. The new paradigm is not only outdated in two respects, but the return to presence is in two respects also a defensive gesture. On one hand, this gesture is directed at hermeneutics, which, at the expense of meaning, excludes everything that cannot be converted into meaning. On the other hand, the defense is directed against the poststructuralist interpretative practice of deconstruction, which in itself is not less obsessed with meaning. In order for the unlimited semiosis process to unfold smoothly, deconstruction also has to exclude all other material aspects of such processes that then become the focus of attention with the return to presence: I [End Page 49] would like to call this phenomenon, which has been integrated into the theoretical settings of various disciplines since the turn of the century, “the other of meaning.” With this in mind, and considering the broader context of the material turn, cultural theory puts a fundamentally new orientation related to the history of ideas on its agenda alongside the new paradigm which already integrates considerable research. In the new discourse of presence, then, the deferral and difference to which poststructuralists have drawn their attention become the very site of an encounter with presence as radical otherness. Presence cannot be thematized or converted into what is familiar—“semblable”—and it is located not so much in the “thickness” of the sign, but rather in a semiotic and sensual surplus that inheres in aesthetic and ethical experience. This new form of attentiveness plays out against the backdrop of twentieth-century theory, established above all by Martin Heidegger, and calls upon the entire retinue of philosophers, psychoanalysts, and cultural theorists from Jacques Lacan to Emmanuel Lévinas. In particular, Dieter Mersch has integrated this semiotic approach and thereby has set an important cornerstone for the revision of the new paradigm in aesthetics and ethics: in the poststructuralist tradition, his considerations are based on the negativity of the sign. Signs are, in short, neither what they stand for, what they clarify, present, or identify, nor are they that with which the signata demarcate or differentiate themselves from one another. The reverse side of this negativity is the affirmation of phenomenal individuality that comes into view with...

On the Problem of Origin in Sartre's Phenomenology: Essentialism versus Unlimited Semiosis

On the Problem of Origin in Sartre's Phenomenology: Essentialism versus Unlimited Semiosis