"Semiosis is the performance element involving signs. Although a human can
communicate many things unintentionally, individuals usually speak or write to
elicit some kind of response. Yet there is little real explanation of how
semiosis produces its effects, which is odd given that the word "sign" is in
everyday use and most people would understand what it means. But semiotics has
not offered clear technical definitions, nor is there agreement about how signs
should be classified.
As an insect or animal, human or otherwise, moves through its environment
(sometimes termed the umwelt), all the senses collect data that are made
available to the brain. However, to prevent sensory overload, only salient data
will receive the full attention of the cognitive elements of the mind. This
indicates that a part of the process must be controlled by a model of the real
world capable of ranking data elements in terms of their significance and
filtering out the data irrelevant to survival. A sign cannot function until the
brain or audience distinguishes it from the background noise. When this
happens, the sign then triggerscognitive activity to interpret the data input
and so convert it into meaningful information. This would suggest that, in the
semiosphere, the process of semiosis goes through the following cycle:The
plant, insect, or animal with the need to communicate (e.g., to recognise an
object of food) will know what needs to be said and assess the best means of
saying it (e.g., starting a searching behaviour);This information will then be
encoded and relevant muscle groups will effect transmission — although to some
extent intentional in the human, the actual movements of the body are
autonomic, i.e. the individual is not aware of moving individual muscles, but
achieves the desired result by an act of will (see H. L. A. Hart on the nature
of an action);The audience filters ambient data and perceives the uttered code
as a grouping of signs;The audience then interprets the signs (sometimes termed
decoding) to attribute meaning. This involves matching the signs received
against existing patterns and their meanings held in memory (i.e. it is learned
and understood within the community). In plants, insects and animals, the
results of a successful interpretation will be an observable response to the
stimuli perceived.In biology, scout bees and ants will return home to tell the
others where food is to be found, the fact of fertility must be announced to
prospective mates from the same species, and the presence of danger must be
passed as a warning to others in the group. Such transmission may be chemical,
auditory, visual, or tactile whether singly or in combination. There is a new
field of research activity termed biosemiotics, and Jesper Hoffmeyer claims
that endosymbiosis, self-reference, code duality, the availability of
receptors, autopoiesis, and others are the general properties of all living
systems. Thomas Sebeok suggests that a similar list of properties for life may
coincide with the definition of semiosis, i.e. that the test of whether
something is alive, is a test to determine whether and how it communicates
meaning to another of its kind, i.e., whether it has semiosis. This has been
called the Sebeok's Thesis.For humans, semiosis is an aspect of the wider
systems of social interaction in which information is exchanged. It can result
in particular types of social encounter, but the process itself can be
constrained by social conventions such as propriety, privacy, and disclosure.
This means that no social encounter is reducible to semiosis alone, and that
semiosis can only be understood by identifying and exploring all the conditions
that make the transmission and reception of signs possible and effective. When
two individuals meet, the ways in which they think, the specific identities
they assume, the emotional responses they make, and the beliefs, motives, and
purposes they have, will frame the situation as it develops dynamically and
potentially test the legitimacy of the outcomes. All these elements are, to a
greater or lesser extent, semiotic in nature in that prevailing codes and
values are being applied. Consequently, where the line is drawn between
semiosis and semiotics will always be somewhat arbitrary."
~ Wikipedia
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