The Symbiotic Semiosis of Symbols in Society (or, the strange world of biosemiotics)

When we state that culture and nature are markedly different, we take steps towards stopping the incessant entropy of nature. But the distinction between culture and nature is sometimes flimsy, a result of notions that seem hard-coded on us about where we begin and where we end. Semiotics, though more commonly known as a discipline in the humanities that deals with cultural objects, can also say interesting things about how we relate to nature, and how we build our theories about nature. Signs--the main object of study of semiotics--become a building block for how we relate to our social and physical environments. This presentation will then give an introduction to what biosemiotics does, how, and why when we talk about signs, we don't just mean things like "Stop" signs. Instead, we can talk about all sorts of signs, including those that interact with us from nature itself. By putting signs of nature with signs of culture together, we form a semiotic symbiosis that forms a wider sense of both nature and culture.

Přednáška proběhne v anglickém jazyce. Akce je vhodná pro širokou veřejnost.