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From reviews for the bestselling Danish edition:"... dashing and idiomatic language that is a pleasure to read." -- Berlingske Tidende"... an appetizer and eye opener... Hoffmeyer is a modernistic pioneer in the wide open spaces of the natural sciences... " -- Politiken"... extremely well written and interesting manifesto for a bioanthropology... " -- Inf."It should be read by anyone who likes to be wiser and at the same time to be challenged in his habitual conception of the relations between culture and nature." -- Weekend AvisenOn this tour of the universe of signs, Jesper Hoffmeyer travels back to the Big Bang, visits the tiniest places deep within cells, and ends his journey with us -- complex organisms capable of speech and reason. What propels this journey is Hoffmeyer's attempt to discover how nature could come to mean something to someone -- by telling the story of how cells, tissue, organs, plants, animals, even entire ecosystems communicate by signs and signals.
E-Book Content
Jesper
TIlANSLATED aT
BARBARA
J. HAVE LAND
SIGNS
OF
MEA NING IN THE UNIVERSE
TRANSLATED BY BARBARA
ADVANCES IN SEMIOTICS Thomas A. Sebeok, General Editor
T.
HAVELAND
INDIANA UNIVERSITY PRE S S Bloomington eJ Indianapolis
En Snegl p" Vejen: Betydningens naturhistorie ©1993 by jesper Hoffmeyer Rosinante, Kobenhavn Translation © 1996 by Indiana University Press All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopyitlg and recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher. The Association of American University Presses' Resolution on Permissions constitutes the only exception to this prohibition. The paper used in this publication meets the minimum requirements cif for Information Sciences-Permanence of Paper for Printed Library Materials, ANSI 239.48-1984.
og Mllflksgaard/ PREFACE
vii
On lumps in nothingness, on "not" 1
SIGNIFYING
2
FORGETTING
3
REPEATING
4 INVEN TING
S
OPENING
On history and codes: The dialecticcifoblillion 11
On Nature 's tendency to acquire habits 25 On life and self-riference, on subjectivity 39
up On the sensory universe cif creatures: The liberation oj the semiosphere 52 American National Standard
I
CONTENTS
I
Mamifactured in the United States of America
Library cif Congress Cataloging-itl-Publicatiotl Data
6
The mobile brain: The language oj cells 68
0 EFINING
7 CONNEC TING Hoffmeyer, [En snegl pa vejen. English] S(gns cif meaning in the u"iverse I jesper Hofm f eyer by Barbara J. Havelatld. p. cm. Ineludes bibliographical references and i"dex. ISBN 0-253-33233-8 (el : alk. paper) 1. Life (Biologyj--Philosophy. 2. Biology-Philosophy. 3. Semiotics. 1. Title. QH501.H6213 1996 574'.01-dc20 96-14287 1 2 3 4 5 01 00 99 98 97 96
On the triadic ascendance oj dualism 89 jesper.
8
SHARING
On language: Existential bioanthropology 97
9
UNITING
; translated Consciousness: The bodily governor within the brain 113
10
HEALING
On ethics: Reuniting two stories in one body-mind 129
NOTES
147
BIBLIOGRAPHY INDEX
163
155
This book deals with something for which there is, as yet, no standard word in layperson's language, though there most definitely ought to be. Please forgive me therefore for introducing, right at the outset, the word we lack: Semiosphere.! The semiosphere is a sphere just like the atmosphere, the hydro sphere, and the biospher