Workshop Description
For reasons of a natural and continuous (i.e. Darwinian) evolution, representations
must have emerged via self-organization from non-representational systems. Major
steps may have been the evolution of molecules, macromolecules, life, and finally
cultural and symbolic systems. For this reason representations and signs are parts
of a huge, possibly branching “ladder of beings” (cf. the corresponding
medieval notion).
Our basic purpose is to bridge the gap between self-organization in non-living systems,
biological systems (up to large brain creatures like primates and man) and symbolic
cultures (producing language and art).
Three groups of semioticians from Groningen, Aarhus and Bremen and contributors
from the natural sciences and semiotics will explore the possibilities of such an
endeavor and contribute to its advance in the realm of linguistics and semiotics.
The topic of “meta-representation and consciousness” lies at the heart
of behavioral and symbolic systems and will be considered more specifically.
Images representing images, language about language and language-use, thoughts about
thoughts – meta-representation is a fascinating theme within such diverse
areas of research as philosophy, literature, theology, anthropology, neuroscience,
psychology and linguistics. Questions relating to meta-representation regard:
- The evolution of representation from animals to humans: could meta-representation
be the characterizing quality of human representation?
- The evolution of culture: can the evolution of culture be analyzed in terms of a
growing and / or changing place of meta-representation?
- The problem of consciousness and self-consciousness: is meta-representation an necessary
and sufficient condition for (self-)consciousness?
- The theory of mind: how does the theory of mind relate to theories of meta-representation?
- Mimesis and art: is art a form of meta-representation? How do different forms of
meta-representation relate to each other (such as art, ideology, science) as well
as to other forms of culture?
- Meta-representation and language: does meta-representation allow for recursive structures
in language?
The workshop aims at contributing to the furthering of our insight into the interrelationship
between nature, semiosis, meta-representation and (self) consciousness, and into
the place of meta-representation in semiotic evolution.
This workshop is part of a series which began 2005 in Aarhus (Indexicality) and
will be continued 2007 in Groningen.