From the Greek satyr to the American Mickey Mouse and from the Chinese dragon to the Egyptian Sphinx, animals and animal/humans have come throughhuman imagination into myth, legend and story. This combination or fusion of animal and human in literature presents a double signification. At the same time that our attention goes to the animality of the human, we may also entertain the human(al)ity of the animal. Besides blending of physical and psychological characteristics, these ancient and modern characters of world (...) texts may embed authentic experiences of communion or communication between humans and animals. The texts may be understood as signifying the limits of both the human and the animal and the possibility of the humanimal. Humanimality signifies the fusion of human and animal which dissolves the ordinary dualism of human subject and animal object and allows for intersubjectivity unmarked by specific biological limitations. This kind of intersubjectivity occurs in the contact of communication and is often an occasion for awe on the part of the human if not of the animal. We may understand such awesome communication as imitation, non-verbal cooperation, and as teaching and learning. Three poems by the author, reproduced in the Appendix, “The Ravens Fly Yet,” “Neighbors,” and “The Lesson,” provide the literary fields in which humanimal phenomena may appear. (shrink)

From the Greek satyr to the American Mickey Mouse and from the Chinese dragon to the Egyptian Sphinx, animals and animal/humans have come throughhuman imagination into myth, legend and story. This combination or fusion of animal and human in literature presents a double signification. At the same time that our attention goes to the animality of the human, we may also entertain the humanity of the animal. Besides blending of physical and psychological characteristics, these ancient and modern characters of world (...) texts may embed authentic experiences of communion or communication between humans and animals. The texts may be understood as signifying the limits of both the human and the animal and the possibility of the humanimal. Humanimality signifies the fusion of human and animal which dissolves the ordinary dualism of human subject and animal object and allows for intersubjectivity unmarked by specific biological limitations. This kind of intersubjectivity occurs in the contact of communication and is often an occasion for awe on the part of the human if not of the animal. We may understand such awesome communication as imitation, non-verbal cooperation, and as teaching and learning. Three poems by the author, reproduced in the Appendix, “The Ravens Fly Yet,” “Neighbors,” and “The Lesson,” provide the literary fields in which humanimal phenomena may appear. (shrink)

This essay uses semiotics and complexity theory to examine processes of sign formation. Simplicity and complexity, construed as differences in configuration of elements, are then applied to sign formation. Sign formation is understood as the effort of one entity to gain the attention of another entity. Examples such as signs of wild animals also show that the signifying functions of signs always happen in time. Simplification of commercial signs can be interpreted as the use of lowest common denominators in human (...) transactions. Analysis of interaction between large numbers of humans and behaviour shows simplification of sign formation and illuminates social-cultural and political processes including the dynamics of violence. (shrink)

The transition from modernity to post-modernity features changes in values amplified by an enormous increase in visual stimuli. This increase motivates analysis of the power of attention to create the present. Complexity theory illuminates this power and leads to the startling conclusion that we spend much of our waking life in a gap of nonexistence.

The continuing growth of semiotics signifies increased awareness of global communicative processes. Expansion of the communicative universe through semiotic research furthers the transformation of our contemporary experience. Semiotics thus provides a means to articulate transmodernity. We validate this assertion through semiotic analysis of an everyday object, by which we discover an infinite horizon. With that horizon, we transcend the global culture of addiction and reach the spiritual science that is necessary to develop a lasting paradigm for humankind.

This essay uses semiotics and complexity theory to examine processes of sign formation. Simplicity and complexity, construed as differences in configuration of elements, are then applied to sign formation. Sign formation is understood as the effort of one entity to gain the attention of another entity. Examples such as signs of wild animals also show that the signifying functions of signs always happen in time. Simplification of commercial signs can be interpreted as the use of lowest common denominators in human (...) transactions. Analysis of interaction between large numbers of humans and behaviour shows simplification of sign formation and illuminates social-cultural and political processes including the dynamics of violence. (shrink)