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Synthesizing the findings from a wide range of disciplines – from biology and anthropology to philosophy and linguistics – the emerging field of Biosemiotics explores the highly complex phenomenon of sign processing in living systems. Seeking to advance a naturalistic understanding of the evolution and development of sign-dependent life processes, contemporary biosemiotic theory offers important new conceptual tools for the scientific understanding of mind and meaning, for the development of artificial intelligence, and for the ongoing research into the rich diversity of non-verbal human, animal and biological communication processes. Donald Favareau’s Essential Readings in Biosemiotic...
This intellectual biography covers the trajectory of Bateson’s career, from his anthropological work in Bali alongside his wife, Margaret Mead, to his contributions to family therapy in the United States, and to studies of recursion as a feature of communication patterns in both the human and in the animal world. Layers of feedback with their many differing contexts, highlight the presence of meaning in social relations in contrast to that absence of meaning, purposefully proposed, within information theory. Throughout the human and in the animal world, recursion of feedback accounts for grasp of patterns, their difference, and with ability to communicate, enable transduction of perception...
A renaissance of virus research is taking centre stage in biology. Empirical data from the last decade indicate the important roles of viruses, both in the evolution of all life and as symbionts of host organisms. There is increasing evidence that all cellular life is colonized by exogenous and/or endogenous viruses in a non-lytic but persistent lifestyle. Viruses and viral parts form the most numerous genetic matter on this planet.
Plants are sessile, highly sensitive organisms that actively compete for environmental resources both above and below the ground. They assess their surroundings, estimate how much energy they need for particular goals, and then realise the optimum variant. They take measures to control certain environmental resources. They perceive themselves and can distinguish between ‘self’ and ‘non-self’. They process and evaluate information and then modify their behaviour accordingly. These highly diverse competences are made possible by parallel sign(alling)-mediated communication processes within the plant body (intraorganismic), between the same, related and different species (interorganismi...
The matsutake mushroom continues to be a highly sought delicacy, especially in Chinese, Japanese, and Korean cuisine. Matsutake Worlds explores this mushroom through the lens of multi-species encounters centered around the matsutake’s notorious elusiveness. The mushroom’s success, the contributors of this volume argue, cannot be accounted for by any one cultural, social, political, or economic process. Rather, the matsutake mushroom has flourished as the result of a number of different processes and dynamics, culminating in the culinary institution we know today.
Based on the biblical commentaries of rabbis and writers who were exiled from Spain in 1492, The Land Is Mine presents late medieval and early modern Iberian Jewish intellectuals as deeply concerned with questions about human relationships to land.
Modern thought is characterized by a dichotomy of meaningful culture and unmeaning nature. Signs in the Dust uses medieval semiotics to develop a new theory of nature and culture that resists this familiar picture of things. Through readings of Thomas Aquinas, Nicholas of Cusa, and John Poinsot (John of St. Thomas), it offers a semiotic analysis of human culture in both its anthropological breadth as an enterprise of creaturely sign-making, and its theological height as a finite participation in the Trinity, which can be understood as an absolute 'cultural nature'. Signs in the Dust then extends this account of human culture backwards into the natural depth of biological and physical nature....
All coordination between cells, organs, and organisms depends on successful biocommunicative processes. There are abundant cases of communication in the biological world, both within (intraspecific) and between (interspecific) single-cell and multicellular microorganisms and higher animal forms.Split into two parts, this book first looks at the history, development and progress within the field of biocommunication. The second part presents real-life case studies and investigation into examples of biocommunication in the biological world. Among the organisms covered are bacteria, fungi, plants, terrestrial and marine animals, including bonobos, chimpanzees and dolphins, as well as a new theory of communication between parts in developing embryos (cybernetic embryos). Contributions from international experts in the field provide up-to-date research and results, while in depth analysis expands on these findings to pave the way for future discoveries. As the first comprehensive review of its kind, it is perfect for undergraduates, graduates, professionals and researchers in the field of life sciences.
A visionary book for our wild times. Scott Ludlam draws on his experience as a senator and activist to capture our world on a precipice and explore what comes next. One way or another, we are headed for radical change. We are now in the Anthropocene – humans are changing the earth’s climate irreversibly, and political, human and natural systems are on the cusp of collapse. Ludlam shines a light on the bankruptcy of the financial and political systems that have led us here: systems based on the exploitation of the earth’s resources, and 99 per cent of the world’s population labouring for the wealth of 1 per cent. In Full Circle, Ludlam seeks old and new ways to make our systems humane...
Max Weber and Charles Peirce: At the Crossroads of Science, Philosophy, and Culture shows that a relational conception of science is implicit in Max Weber’s reflections on scientific inquiry as a bridge between the Geisteswissenschaften (soft sciences) and Naturwissenschaften (hard sciences). Because he is not a trained philosopher, Weber does not have the precise philosophical language in which to articulate his ideas clearly. Consequently, his relational vision of science remains obscure. Basit Bilal Koshul brings clarity and precision to Weber’s insights using the pragmaticist philosophy of Charles Peirce. He makes explicit the phenomenology, semiotics, and logic that are implicit in ...