Seminario di Dipartimento (SeRiC): "Functional explanation and semiotics"

Partecipanti: Lukáš Zámečník. - Department of General Linguistics - Palacký University in Olomouc

Is it possible to use any functional explanation aiming at bridging the epistemic cut between physics and semiotics?
The seminar will concern a seemingly peripheral problem of contemporary biosemiotics and semiotics in general. The relationship between the physical and semiotic levels of the semiotic system description seems to be the problem interfering into the field of the philosophy of science. The fundamental innovation of Howard Pattee’s approach is distinguishing between physical laws and restrictive conditions to apply these laws (laws x constraints). This distinction, in combination with von Neumann’s finding that self-replication requires the existence of an independent symbolic notation, is considered by Pattee as the confirmation of the compatibility of the physical description and simultaneous semiotic description.
We will develop these initial findings in three respects. (1) We will be interested in the extent to which Pattee’s differentiation of laws and constraints is a sufficient condition for the compatibility of these descriptions, as long as we observe the nature of different types of constraints. (2) We will analyze Von Neumann’s condition of self-replication to determine whether it is a semiotic or logical condition. (3) We will move from the consideration of the compatibility of physical and semiotic descriptions to consideration of the compatibility of physical and semiotic explanations. The common platform for this compatibility will be sought in a functional explanation. 

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Von Neumann, J.: Theory of Self-reproducing Automata. Urbana: University of Illinois Press 1966.
Zámečník, L.: Nature of Explanation in Synergetic Linguistics, Glottotheory, 5, pp. 101-120, 2014.