On the Origin of Language

Barbieri, Marcello

doi:10.1007/s12304-010-9088-7

Cited by 32 publications

(12 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…He is expelled from the uterus when his foetal development is barely half-way through, and the two animal modelling systems cannot help him because they are not yet fully in place (Barbieri 2010). In that situation a human baby has no choice but resorting to something else, and that is why he starts building a third modelling system from the very moment he is born.…”

Section: The Codes Of Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to Code Biology

Barbieri

2014

Biosemiotics

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Section: The Codes Of Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Introduction to Code Biology

Barbieri

2014

Biosemiotics

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“…There is the same logic, the same underlying principle behind the origin of life and the origin of mind. This is the code model of mind, the idea that there was a neural code at the origin of mind as there was a genetic code at the origin of life (Barbieri 2006(Barbieri , 2010.…”

Section: The Intermediate Brainmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A modification of the epigenetic conditions of embryonic development is clearly an extremely powerful tool of change, and may well be the key to human evolution. The foetal development of our brain has been split into two distinct processes, one within and one without the uterus, and this is a condition that can be referred to as cerebra bifida (Barbieri 2010). It is similar to cardia bifida, except that in the case of the heart the two organs arise from a separation in space whereas in cerebra bifida they are produced by a separation in time.…”

Section: The Uniqueness Of Languagementioning

confidence: 99%

Origin and Evolution of the Brain

Barbieri¹

2011

Biosemiotics

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Modern biology has not yet come to terms with the presence of many organic codes in Nature, despite the fact that we can prove their existence. As a result, it has not yet accepted the idea that the great events of macroevolution were associated with the origin of new organic codes, despite the fact that this is the most parsimonious and logical explanation of those events. This is probably due to the fact that the existence of organic codes in all fundamental processes of life, and in all major transitions in the history of life, has enormous theoretical implications. It requires nothing less than a new theoretical framework, and that kind of change is inevitably slow. There are too many facts to reconsider, too many bits of history to weave together in a new mosaic. But this is what science is about, and the purpose of the present paper is to show that it can be done. More precisely, it is shown that the whole natural history of the brain can be revisited in the light of the organic codes. What is described here is only a bird's-eye view of brain macroevolution, but it is hoped that the extraordinary potential of the organic codes can nevertheless come through. The paper contains also another message. The organic codes prove that life is based on semiosis, and are in fact the components of organic semiosis, the first and the most diffused form of semiosis on Earth, but not the only one. It will be shown that the evolution of the brain was accompanied by the development of two new types of sign processes. More precisely, it gave origin first to interpretive semiosis, mostly in vertebrates, and then to cultural semiosis, in our species.

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“…writes phenomenologist David Abram (2010)-for us humanized animals, who "spend much of our time deploying a very rarefied form of intelligence, manipulating abstract symbols while our muscled body is mostly inert." As Marcello Barbieri (2010) points out, no animal makes an extensive use of symbols in any way comparable to the symbolicity implicit in human language. 4 Since symbols partake in arbitrary (conventional) relationships, there is a clear connection between this arbitrariness and our human 'freedom' vis-à-vis nature, as opposed to the animal state of being 'captive' in an apparently closed, rather than open lifeworld.…”

Section: The Value Of Naturementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The Umwelt transition at hand here is in a sense that of becoming human (or rather becoming a particular human being, in its earliest stage). "In all other mammals", in the words ofBarbieri (2010), "the wiring of the brain takes place almost completely in the dark and protected environment of the uterus, whereas in our species it takes place predominantly outside the uterus, where the body is exposed to the lights, the sounds and the smells of a constantly changing environment." 11 As a result, large groups of domesticated animals held for their meat never live to experience adulthood.…”

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confidence: 95%

Steps to a Semiotics of Being

Tønnessen

2010

Biosemiotics

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The following points, which represent a path to a semiotics of being, are pertinent to various sub-fields at the conjunction of semiotics of nature (biosemiotics, ecosemiotics, zoosemiotics) and semiotics of culture-semioethics and existential semiotics included. 1) Semiotics of being entails inquiry at all levels of biological organization, albeit, wherever there are individuals, with emphasis on the living qua individuals (integrated biological individualism). 2) An Umwelt is the public aspect (cf. the Innenwelt, the private aspect) of a phenomenal/experienced world that is organism-specific (rather than species-specific) and ultimately refers to an existential realm. 3) Existential universals at work on Earth include seeking out the edible, dwelling in a medium, holding a phenomenal world (possibly an Umwelt) and being endowed with life, and consequently being mortal. 4) Human Umwelten include speechless Umwelten, spoken Umwelten and alphabetic Umwelten. 5) An Uexküllian phenomenology-stating that semiotic states represent the general class to which all mental/cognitive states belong-can draw on the works of the phenomenologists David Abram and Ted Toadvine (The notion of semiotic states is treated in Tønnessen 2009a: 62-63. For an introduction to eco-phenomenology, see Brown and Toadvine (eds.) 2003). 6) A task for such a phenomenology is to portray the natural history of the phenomenal world. 7) An imperative task in our contemporary world of faltering biological diversity is that of Umwelt mapping, i.e. a mapping of ontological niches. 8) The ecological crisis is an ontological crisis with historical roots in humankind's domestication of animals and plants, which can be taken as archetypical for our attempted planet-scale taming of the wild. 9) The process of globalization is expressed by correlated trends of depletion of semiotic diversity and semiotic

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On the Origin of Language

Cited by 32 publications

References 36 publications

Introduction to Code Biology

Introduction to Code Biology

Origin and Evolution of the Brain

Steps to a Semiotics of Being

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