The document summarizes a discussion session on the topic of semiotics and theories of representation from an enactive approach. It includes the text being discussed, key points extracted from the text, and questions from students. The moderator outlined breaking into groups to discuss issues raised and reporting back to the full session. The key topics covered in the text and student questions relate to the emergence of meaning and communication through dynamic interaction between organisms and their environment, challenges to the idea of external or universal meaning, and debate around the definition of communication and what constitutes beneficial information exchange.

1. and
Moderated Session: Jeanna Nikolov-Ramirez
Mei:CogSci
Comenius University Bratislava
Supervisor: Martin Takač
Semiotics
Cog. Semantics &
Cog. Theories of Representation:
enactive
approach
Oct 1st, 2015
Image Source: http://inspirationfeed.com/inspiration/illustrations/
bold-black-and-white-illustrations-by-sit-haiiro/

2. https://www.behance.net/gallery/Explaining-Semiotics-Infographic/9474813

3. "Organisms do not passively
receive information from their
environments, which they then
translate into internal
representations.
Natural cognitive
systems...participate in the
generation of
meaning ...engaging in
transformational and not
merely informational
interactions: they enact a
world.”
argues that cognition
arises through a dynamic
interaction between an
acting organism and its
environment.
ENACTIVISM

4. OUTLINE
• The Text (2 min)
• The Key Points? (3 min)
• Student Questions (5 min)
• Breakout group
discussions (30 min)
• Discussion in plenum
(50 min)
4

5. THE TEXT
• Nehaniv, C. L. (2000). The making of
meaning in societies: Semiotic and
information-theoretic background
to the evolution of communication.
Society for the Study of Artificial
Intelligence and Adaptive Behavior,
73-84.
Background: Mathematician
http://homepages.herts.ac.uk/~comqcln//
http://dai.fmph.uniba.sk/courses/CSCTR/

6. SOME KEY POINTS?
• Notions of meaning and information
• “meaningful information for a particular agent is
information that is, in a statistical sense, useful
for the agent in achieving its goal”
• Animals are not concerned with truth, but [... ]
with survival
• “If production of the signal does not on average
benefit the receiver, then this is called
misinformation.”
• Interaction games, Language games, Following,
Discrimination games,…
• Innateness, individual learning and social
aspects
• Degrees of communication: built-in at outset?
• Problems: deixis, predication, compositionality,
grammar > never demonstrated in robotic or SW-
systems

7. STUDENT QUESTIONS 1
1) Interaction versus
instruction?
The author mentions studies in
which animals, e.g. parrots or
chimpanzees, acquire certain
linguistic abilities through social
interaction with humans (section
5, paragraph 4). But what is the
difference between interaction
and instruction? If meaning
arises from embodied interaction
between agents, which role does
the power relation between the
two agents play? What if the
relationship is fairly hierarchical,
as can be assumed in the process
of interaction/instruction between
a human (animal) and an(other)
animal?
2) Emergence
Two contrasting understandings of
the term “emergence” are
mentioned in the paper (section 8,
paragraph 3).
In view of the multitude of
biological, social and other
(interacting) factors that have
potentially contributed to the
evolution of language, is it more
likely that the emergence of
language is simply too complex
to be ever fully understood, or
rather that “not enough effort
has been made in finding
explanatory
mechanisms” (Minsky 1996)?

8. STUDENT QS 2
• Difference (or relationship) between association, predication, and
modification? Examples?
• "shared meaning requires shared experience in a social setting"- Can there
exist a set of universal meanings? How can we account for cross-cultural
communication?
• Why should one completely abandon Platonist notion of universal,
external meaning? At least some of the meanings could be seen as context
(or agent) independent as in formal logic, maths, computer languages.
• How much does selective pressure contribute to convergence to the
same meaning in societies nowadays?
• What factors determine which meanings will "win" in the process of
convergence if agents start with different/conflicting ones?
• Why usefulness is considered to be a defining characteristic of meaning?
• Concept of a “dry” and “wet” information. Is all information, operated by a
machine, “dry" by default? Does the situation change, if the information is
used in a machine context, i.e. it could be analysed and further used only by
machine, not a human?

9. STUDENT QS 3
1. Not sure if I correctly spied some kind of self-reference paradox
here, but isn't it contradictory to assume the impossibility of a
god's eye view when trying to establish a theory of meaning, by
making such a constraint that does demand a god's eye view in
order for the theory to be universal and not relative to our
(understanding of) meaning? In short: does this constraint also apply
to the meaning of this theory? (This would of course not be a
problem if we were either talking about a system of which our theory
itself is not a part of, i.e. some sort of subset of meaning, or if we
abstain from the claim of universal validity for this theory. But when
intending to talk about the general laws of the evolution of meaning,
neither seems to be the case: such a theory will necessarily also talk
about its own meaning.)
2. I find it counter-intuitive that the definition of communication such as
given by Bradbury and Vehrencamp (1998) is based on a pragmatic
notion of information, where "misinformation" is information that the
receiver does on average not benefit from, while in "true"
communication both sender and receiver benefit from information
exchange. Intuitively, the truth content of information shouldn't
depend on its utility for any of the participants of the
communication. Would it not make more sense to assume a
reversed causal relation? If not, how could such a basis be justified?

10. STUDENT QS 4
1) Regarding shared meaning: Is it true that it always requires shared
experience in a social setting? Could we think of other forms of obtaining
the information? (reading books, observation, narratives/story-telling,..)
2) How would levels of competition between/within groups influence the
emerging communication system? This is not explicitly considered in the
text. Does communication have to be goal-oriented? Isn't it possible to think
of a social function of communication that is less goal-oriented but
rather process-oriented? One that could be considered "atmospheric" or
"therapeutic"...like "small talk", chatter and gossip, communication exchanges
as social grooming.
1) Wittgensteins conception of meaning. Discussion about language-
thoughts dynamic with Wittgenstein in mind.
2) Shared meaning: absolutely shared meaning..? (Can we completely
understand the subjectivity of the other person; can we really have a
fundamentally shared meaning?)
1) Why should benefit to both parties be necessary for communication?
(refers to the definition)
2) Since culture affects the making of meaning, is meaning necessarily
useful for the agent?

11. STUDENT QS 5
1) What is the basis of assumption that there are no “specific,
atomic symbols or classes of symbols to which all agents
may have access”; can there be an innate predisposition?
2) Emergence of meaning: formal vs functional models of
language.
1) Is there the possibility of an universal concept of meaning,
disregarding/ignoring the agent (and subsequently the
environment)?
2) Is it true, that in true communication, sender and receiver
both benefit from information exchange or does this only
refer to the non-human animal domain?

12. Q CATEGORIES
• Clarification:
• Dry-wet
• Difference/Examples: association - predication - modification?
• Shared meaning: definition of communication
• Hierarchy and selective pressures, Competition of meaning
• Emergence of meaning: too complex or not enough effort?
• Challenging statements made:
• No external meaning?
• Shared meaning req shared experience? Subjectivity?
• Definition ”Misinformation" is information that the receiver
does on average not benefit from? Benefitting of both parties?
• Are there no “specific, atomic symbols or classes of symbols
to which all agents may have access”?
• Usefulness as criterion?

13. TIME TO BREAKOUT!
• Get together in groups of 3-4 people
• Discuss issues
• After 30 mins report back to plenum, please.
…Pretty Please.

14. PLENUM TIME

15. 15
THANK YOU!
https://hugehill.files.wordpress.com/2015/02/media-semiotics-2.gif