The semiosphere is a concept in

cultural semiotics Semiotics of culture is a research field within semiotics that attempts to define culture from a semiotic perspective and as a type of human symbolic activity, creation of signs and a way of giving meaning to everything around. Therefore, here cu ...

and biosemiotic theory, according to which - contrary to ideas of

nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

determining

sense A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the surroundings through the detection of Stimulus (physiology), stimuli. Although, in some cultures, five human senses were traditio ...

and

experience Experience refers to Consciousness, conscious events in general, more specifically to perceptions, or to the practical knowledge and familiarity that is produced by these processes. Understood as a conscious event in the widest sense, experience i ...

- the phenomenal world is a creative and logical structure of processes of

semiosis Semiosis (, ), or sign process, is any form of activity, conduct, or process that involves signs, including the production of meaning. A sign is anything that communicates a meaning, that is not the sign itself, to the interpreter of the sig ...

where signs operate together to produce sense and experience.

Overview

Biosemiotic theorists regard the idea of the semiosphere as beginning with continental philosophers' recognition of an

epistemological Epistemology is the branch of philosophy that examines the nature, origin, and limits of knowledge. Also called "the theory of knowledge", it explores different types of knowledge, such as propositional knowledge about facts, practical knowled ...

gap between the

ontological Ontology is the philosophical study of being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of reality and every ...

and the

ontic Ontology is the philosophical study of being. It is traditionally understood as the subdiscipline of metaphysics focused on the most general features of reality. As one of the most fundamental concepts, being encompasses all of reality and every ...

, where it is initially difficult to conceptualize the way that

subjectivity The distinction between subjectivity and objectivity is a basic idea of philosophy, particularly epistemology and metaphysics. Various understandings of this distinction have evolved through the work of countless philosophers over centuries. One b ...

is created in between them. The study of the semiosphere has often overlapped into research made by

symbolic interactionist Symbolic interactionism is a sociological theory that develops from practical considerations and alludes to humans' particular use of shared language to create common symbols and meanings, for use in both intra- and interpersonal communication. ...

s and field theorists. The subject's narrative boundary-understanding of its environment—the

lifeworld Lifeworld (or life-world; ) may be conceived as a universe of what is self-evident or given, a world that subjects may experience together. The concept was popularized by Edmund Husserl, who emphasized its role as the ground of all knowledge in l ...

as proposed by

Edmund Husserl Edmund Gustav Albrecht Husserl (; 8 April 1859 – 27 April 1938) was an Austrian-German philosopher and mathematician who established the school of Phenomenology (philosophy), phenomenology. In his early work, he elaborated critiques of histori ...

, or ''

umwelt An umwelt (plural: ''umwelten''; from the German wikt:Umwelt, ''Umwelt'', meaning "environment" or "surroundings") is the specific way in which organisms of a particular species perceive and experience the world, shaped by the capabilities of ...

'' as proposed by Jakob Johann von Uexküll—is derived through abstract processes of making a phenomenal world of symptoms, signals, icons, indexes, symbols and names—as proposed by

Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce ( ; September 10, 1839 – April 19, 1914) was an American scientist, mathematician, logician, and philosopher who is sometimes known as "the father of pragmatism". According to philosopher Paul Weiss (philosopher), Paul ...

—from the semiosphere's

code In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communicati ...

for interacting with and creating meaning from other ''umwelt''. An analogical concept is Deleuze and Guattari's societal extraction of surplus value of code, where subjects sporadically extract signs—which are externalized as acts and traits—from the code that makes up their environment.

Semiospheric theory

One proposed solution to the socio-spatial problem of

mind–body dualism In the philosophy of mind, mind–body dualism denotes either that mental phenomena are non-physical, Hart, W. D. 1996. "Dualism." pp. 265–267 in ''A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind'', edited by S. Guttenplan. Oxford: Blackwell. or t ...

is of a

narrative structure Story structure or narrative structure is the recognizable or comprehensible way in which a narrative's different elements are unified, including in a particularly chosen order and sometimes specifically referring to the ordering of the plot: ...

within

four-dimensional space Four-dimensional space (4D) is the mathematical extension of the concept of three-dimensional space (3D). Three-dimensional space is the simplest possible abstraction of the observation that one needs only three numbers, called ''dimensions'' ...

, which the idea of the semiosphere makes cohesive. The concept of the process of

has foundations in a variety of continental philosophers; in particular, the common denominators between Freudian unconscious and Jungian unconscious are

myth Myth is a genre of folklore consisting primarily of narratives that play a fundamental role in a society. For scholars, this is very different from the vernacular usage of the term "myth" that refers to a belief that is not true. Instead, the ...

ic structures.

Roland Barthes Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 25 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popu ...

' definition of ''myth'' is the semiological self-mythology derived from everyday life (news, entertainment, advertisements), with its own

codes In communications and information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes shortened or secret, for communication through a communication ch ...

and " whistles". The present-''I''-sign interacts with others through the future-''You''-interpretant to retroactively form the past-''Me''-object. A diagram of the semiospheric relation could be rendered as:

Mikhail Bakhtin Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin (; rus, Михаи́л Миха́йлович Бахти́н, , mʲɪxɐˈil mʲɪˈxajləvʲɪdʑ bɐxˈtʲin; – 7 March 1975) was a Russian people, Russian philosopher and literary critic who worked on the phi ...

's ''chronotope'', or ''time-space'' (

deterministic Determinism is the metaphysical view that all events within the universe (or multiverse) can occur only in one possible way. Deterministic theories throughout the history of philosophy have developed from diverse and sometimes overlapping mo ...

) makes outside-the-semiosphere ( unintelligible) information relevant to the semiosphere through narrative structure. Time (affects-passing) takes on a

protagonist A protagonist () is the main character of a story. The protagonist makes key decisions that affect the plot, primarily influencing the story and propelling it forward, and is often the character who faces the most significant obstacles. If a ...

sensory nervous system The sensory nervous system is a part of the nervous system responsible for processing sense, sensory information. A sensory system consists of sensory neurons (including the sensory receptor cells), neural pathways, and parts of the brain invol ...

(''Umwelt''), based on the "difficult journey" of the monad-sign-operator actively ''reading'' and interpreting co-occurring

''text'' (signs) that parallel the co-occurring

(unintelligible) objects. In the

semiotic theory of Charles Sanders Peirce Charles Sanders Peirce began writing on semiotics, which he also called semeiotics, meaning the philosophical study of signs, in the 1860s, around the time that he devised his system of three categories. During the 20th century, the term "semi ...

, there are trichotomic phenomenological categories: Firstness (feeling), Secondness (relatability) and Thirdness (representation and interpretation). The lifeworld or ''umwelt'' is a cognitive space of semiosis (

hermeneutic circle The hermeneutic circle () describes the process of understanding a text hermeneutically. It refers to the idea that one's understanding of the text as a whole is established by reference to the individual parts and one's understanding of each in ...

of ''text'' (signs))—generating

polysemy Polysemy ( or ; ) is the capacity for a Sign (semiotics), sign (e.g. a symbol, morpheme, word, or phrase) to have multiple related meanings. For example, a word can have several word senses. Polysemy is distinct from ''monosemy'', where a word h ...

from processing multiple sets of

code (semiotics) In the broadest sense, a code is a (learnt, or arbitrary, or conventional) correspondence or rule between patterns. It can be an arrangement of physical matter, including the electromagnetic spectrum, that stores the potential (when activated) to ...

Jesper Hoffmeyer Jesper Hoffmeyer (21 February 1942 – 25 September 2019) was a professor at the University of Copenhagen Institute of Biology, and a leading figure in the emerging field of biosemiotics. He was the president of the International Society for Biose ...

has suggested a ''conscience collective'' variation of the semiosphere derived from

parasitism Parasitism is a close relationship between species, where one organism, the parasite, lives (at least some of the time) on or inside another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life. The en ...

and not bound by linguistics, devoid of the

social alienation Social alienation is a person's feeling of disconnection from a group whether friends, family, or wider society with which the individual has an affiliation. Such alienation has been described as "a condition in social relationships reflected b ...

. A type of

dysphoria Dysphoria (; ) is a profound state of unease or dissatisfaction. It is the semantic opposite of euphoria. In a psychiatric context, dysphoria may accompany depression, anxiety, or agitation. In psychiatry Intense states of distress and uneas ...

, or ''symptom'', occurs from

cognitive dissonance In the field of psychology, cognitive dissonance is described as a mental phenomenon in which people unknowingly hold fundamentally conflicting cognitions. Being confronted by situations that challenge this dissonance may ultimately result in some ...

created by a harmonic dissonance occurring between the semiosphere and the ''umwelten'' (or, the here-and-now ''umwelt''). A ''metatext'' can form out of a historical object/sign, like tea, and the mythopoetics surrounding it.

Semiosphere sub-scapes

The emergent ''soundscape'' is a

facet (geometry) In geometry, a facet is a feature of a polyhedron, polytope, or related geometric structure, generally of dimension one less than the structure itself. More specifically: * In three-dimensional geometry, some authors call a facet of a polyhedron ...

of the semiosphere, or

plane (geometry) In mathematics, a Euclidean plane is a Euclidean space of dimension two, denoted \textbf^2 or \mathbb^2. It is a geometric space in which two real numbers are required to determine the position of each point. It is an affine space, which in ...

of the ''Umwelt''.

=Existential therapy

= Existential therapy utilizes the following sub-dimensions of Dasein (or Being-in-the-world): * ''Lebenswelt'' (beings-in-the-world) ** ''Umwelt'' (physical world) ** '' Mitwelt'' (social fate-world) ** ''Eigenwelt'' (self-relatedness world) ** ''Überwelt'' (spiritual world).

Soft architecture

A semiosphere includes "physical, energetic and material phenomena" that get turned into neural signals and which contribute to processes of

neuroplasticity Neuroplasticity, also known as neural plasticity or just plasticity, is the ability of neural networks in the brain to change through neurogenesis, growth and reorganization. Neuroplasticity refers to the brain's ability to reorganize and rewir ...

. Common representations of the semiosphere are as universes, arts museum halls, or mind palaces. Semiotics studies

aesthetics Aesthetics (also spelled esthetics) is the branch of philosophy concerned with the nature of beauty and taste (sociology), taste, which in a broad sense incorporates the philosophy of art.Slater, B. H.Aesthetics ''Internet Encyclopedia of Ph ...

and

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and construction, constructi ...

, among many other fields. Influenced by

Office for Metropolitan Architecture The Office for Metropolitan Architecture (OMA) is an international architectural firm with offices in Rotterdam, New York, Hong Kong, Doha, and Australia. The firm is currently led by eight partners - Rem Koolhaas, Reinier de Graaf, Ellen va ...

, acting as a type of post-modern flâneuse, the 'pataphysical poet Lisa Robertson has researched the ''

aboutness Aboutness is a term used in library and information science (LIS), linguistics, philosophy of language, and philosophy of mind. In general, the term refers to the concept that a text, utterance, image, or action is or something. In LIS, it is of ...

'' of a city's semiosphere by

parody A parody is a creative work designed to imitate, comment on, and/or mock its subject by means of satire, satirical or irony, ironic imitation. Often its subject is an Originality, original work or some aspect of it (theme/content, author, style, e ...

ing " reductionist scientific analysis". Another notable figure is

Erín Moure Erín Moure (born 1955 in Calgary, Alberta) is a Canadian poet and translator with 18 books of poetry, a coauthored book of poetry, a volume of essays, a book of articles on translation, a poetics, and two memoirs. She has translated or co-tran ...

Atmosphere

Soft architecture's observational focal point is the observer's

sense organs A sense is a biological system used by an organism for sensation, the process of gathering information about the surroundings through the detection of stimuli. Although, in some cultures, five human senses were traditionally identified as su ...

. The self-world can have an

atmosphere An atmosphere () is a layer of gases that envelop an astronomical object, held in place by the gravity of the object. A planet retains an atmosphere when the gravity is great and the temperature of the atmosphere is low. A stellar atmosph ...

that has a mood. Meaning can come from ''atmosphere''. The origin point of a semiosphere etherealizes itself in the atmosphere of its environment; the ''umwelt'' uses

monosemy Monosemy means 'one-meaning' and is a methodology primarily for lexical semantic analysis, but which has widespread applicability throughout the various strata of language. Originator Despite several precursors, monosemy as a theoretical mode ...

to derive

from the process of

encoding In communications and Data processing, information processing, code is a system of rules to convert information—such as a letter (alphabet), letter, word, sound, image, or gesture—into another form, sometimes data compression, shortened or ...

and

. An implication of the semiosphere is also the

emergence In philosophy, systems theory, science, and art, emergence occurs when a complex entity has properties or behaviors that its parts do not have on their own, and emerge only when they interact in a wider whole. Emergence plays a central rol ...

of something that is more than the sum of its parts; at its largest, it becomes a global village, or ''second-degree semiosphere''.

The room

The concept of ''the room'' in stand-up performance is a specific artistic rendering of the

sociology of space The sociology of space is a sub-discipline of sociology that mostly borrows from theories developed within the discipline of geography, including the sub fields of human geography, economic geography, and feminist geography. The "sociology" of ...

within a specific

social space A social space is physical or virtual space such as a social center, online social media, or other gathering place where people gather and interact. Some social spaces such as town squares or parks are public places; others such as pubs, we ...

and has historically been used in casual social interactions and niche places such as

pleasure garden A pleasure garden is a park or garden that is open to the public for recreation and entertainment. Pleasure gardens differ from other public gardens by serving as venues for entertainment, variously featuring such attractions as concert halls, b ...

s and traversable art installations.

Digital semiosphere

John Hartley, Indrek Ibrus and Maarja Ojamaa built on the original concepts of

biosphere The biosphere (), also called the ecosphere (), is the worldwide sum of all ecosystems. It can also be termed the zone of life on the Earth. The biosphere (which is technically a spherical shell) is virtually a closed system with regard to mat ...

(

Vladimir Vernadsky Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky (), also spelt Volodymyr Ivanovych Vernadsky (; – 6 January 1945), was a Russian, Ukrainian, and Soviet mineralogist and geochemist who is considered one of the founders of geochemistry, biogeochemistry, and radio ...

) and semiosphere ( Juri Lotman) and linked these to the studies of cultural globalisation, datafication, platformisation, mediatisation and the evolution of

digital culture Internet culture refers to culture developed and maintained among frequent and active users of the Internet (also known as netizens) who primarily communicate with one another as members of online communities; that is, a culture whose influence ...

. They demonstrated how the semiosphere could be seen as a causal force shaping not only global communications and political fluctuations, but also the biosphere and geosphere and such also the evolving

Anthropocene ''Anthropocene'' is a term that has been used to refer to the period of time during which human impact on the environment, humanity has become a planetary force of change. It appears in scientific and social discourse, especially with respect to ...

History

The term ''semiosphere'' is a

neologism In linguistics, a neologism (; also known as a coinage) is any newly formed word, term, or phrase that has achieved popular or institutional recognition and is becoming accepted into mainstream language. Most definitively, a word can be considered ...

coined by Juri Lotman in analogy to

's concepts of ''biosphere'' and ''noosphere'' and

's concept of ''logosphere''. It was first introduced in a 1984 essay "On the semiosphere", and then further elaborated in the collection of Lotman's writings published in English under the title "Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture." Just as Vernadsky revolutionised the field of biogeochemistry by considering not individual organisms but the whole of life as a single, linving matter devoted to a single function, and inhabiting a single functional space, the biosphere, Lotman proposed a similar revision of the main concepts of semiotics by beginning his investigation not from the single texts, but from the space where all these texts exist. Therefore he definied the semiosphere as the "semiotic space, outside of which semiosis itself cannot exist." Some critics see Lotman as having difficulties in abstracting semiosphere from ''biosphere'' and as characterizing semiospheres as feminine and inert, needing to be penetrated with information.

Discussion

Kalevi Kull Kalevi Kull (born 12 August 1952, Tartu) is a biosemiotics professor at the University of Tartu, Estonia. He graduated from the University of Tartu in 1975. His earlier work dealt with ethology and field ecology. He has studied the mechanisms of ...

argues that this suggestion is not consistent with the nature of semiosis which can only be a product of the behaviour of the organisms in the environment. It is the organisms that create the signs which become the constituent parts of the semiosphere. This is not an adaptation to the existing environment, but the continuous creation of a new environment. Kull believes that it is only possible to accept Hoffmeyer's view as an analogy to the concept of an ecological niche as it is traditionally used in

biology Biology is the scientific study of life and living organisms. It is a broad natural science that encompasses a wide range of fields and unifying principles that explain the structure, function, growth, History of life, origin, evolution, and ...

, so that the community develops according to the semiotic understanding of the processes which are responsible for the building of Umwelt.

Discussion bibliography

*Kull, Kalevi. "On Semiosis, Umwelt, and Semiosphere". ''Semiotica'' vol. 120(3/4), pp. 299–310. (1998) *Lotman, Yuri M. "Universe of the mind: a semiotic theory of culture" (Translated by A. Shukman) (1990)London & New York: I. B. Tauris & Co Ltd. *Lotman, Yuri M. "O semiosfere". ''Sign Systems Studies'' (''Trudy po znakovym sistemam'') vol. 17, pp. 5–23. (1984) *Lotman, Jur
On the semiosphere
(Translated by Wilma Clark) Sign Systems Studies, 33.1 (2005) *Tataru, Ludmila, and José Angel García Landa (eds.). ''Семиосфера нарратологии: диалог языков и культур / Semiosphere of Narratology: A Dialogue of Languages and Cultures''. Balashov: Nikolaiev. (2013)

References

Russian formalism Environmental studies Semiotics Social theories Daseinsanalysis ref>{{cite journal , last1 = Zylko , first1 = Boguslaw , date = 2001 , title = Culture and Semiotics: Notes on Lotman's Conception of Culture , url = https://www.jstor.org/stable/20057664 , journal = New Literary History , publisher = The Johns Hopkins University Press , volume = 32 , issue = 2 , pages = 391–408 , doi = 10.1353/nlh.2001.0024 , jstor = 20057664 , s2cid = 143028763 , access-date = 11 May 2021 , quote = The breakthrough took place in his treatise ''On Semiosphere'', a work vital for the development of cultural semiotics., url-access= subscription