**Links to**: [[Semiosis]], [[Tautology]], [[Meaning]], [[Communication]], [[There is no outside-text]], [[Affect]], [[Self-interest]], [[Self]], [[Narrative]], [[Discourse]], [[Aesthesis]], [[Autopoiesis]], [[Semeiotics]], [[C. S. Peirce]], [[Lacan]], [[Deleuze]], [[Derrida]], [[Communication]], [[Transindividual]], [[Vantagepointillism]], [[Attention]]. ### [[Postulate]]: Communication, as the transfer of information between systems, where each has the capacity to _read_ the other one, implies a notion of _meaning_; directionality, valence, etc. Meaning is everywhere and it incessantly self-generates. Meaning-making is not an option but a **condition**. If we can take _communication_ for granted (because we are here), this concept signals an abstract domain where concepts like biological *autopoeisis* (Maturana and Varela), Peirce’s semeiosis, Derrida’s *text*, Deleuze’s affect, all seem to function and flow as one phenomenon.^[Please read the respective entries above in order to get a sense of how they interact.] Eluding the prioritization of speech-discourse and/or word-language as an uninteresting sidenote (see e.g., Cox 2012), the concept points to a realm of aesthesis-generation where a *firstness* unavoidably unfolds unto a *secondness* and a *thirdness* (and more), which is to say: all experience is already experiencing _as_ (Kant, Dewey, Sellars, Merleau-Ponty, Wittgenstein, Gibson, etc., or: active inference). Semeiotic communication between parts—whether this be between agents, neurons, ecosystems—_is_ **autosemeiosis**. It echoes autopoeisis in that it is recursive, it has _chicken-or-egg_ qualities: if two hands attached to the same person touch, what is touching what? Where is communication happening? Where is “touch” to be located? In the diffusion of hormones across biomembranes: where is feedback to be located? In the ensuing cascade of effects? In the moment of membrane-crossing? Etc. While both abstract domains such as semiotics and experimental ones such as biology speak of communication, the _relational_ concept of communication as an effect is taken for granted.^[Autosemeiosis relates to Katya Mandoki’s thoughts on [[Aesthesis]].] ### Communication between parts In certain psychedelic states, this “experiencing as” disappears or becomes challenged: “a reduction in the self-referential awareness that defines normal waking consciousness has been reported with all classical psychedelic drugs (5-HT2A receptor agonists)” (Nour et al. 2016, p. 269). This recursive, “echoing” self-referentiality is what “auto-” part in our concept points to. If meaning-sustaining communication between parts stops, self-consciousness can be understood to stop, too. A similar point is also argued in the context of AI, by Jürgen Schmidhuber: consciousness can be speculated to emerge in cognitive agents because different parts within the same agent relay information to one another in the context of an overarching operation (the agent itself). The common denominator between parts/experiences that is the agent itself, leads to the sustenance/creation/emergence of the agent as an abstraction that _makes_ experience (coherent) (Schmidhuber 2010, p. 4, our convoluted rewording). In “Attention as Practice: Buddhist Ethics Responses to Persuasive Technologies” Bombaerts et al. reflect similarly on the (Buddhist) concept of attention: it is that _apparent phenomenological effort_ which remains the same, despite a changing environment (2023, our paraphrasing). Additionally, they propose that instead of it being worded and analyzed as a commodity to be had or resource to be exploited, a novel approach to attention in terms of a _practice_ might be better suited towards an **ecological** understanding of attention, rather than an **economic** one. The authors also propose that the “individualistic conception of attentional control [which] assumes an atomistic notion of individual preference formation” (ibid. p. 4) is untenable in light of the challenge that is “need to visualize an alternative philosophical background” (ibid. p. 9) in order to structure behavior differently. It is in light of this challenge that _autosemeiosis_ is proposed as a concept that highlights an agent’s—which is, in our context, always to be considered as a [[Xpectator]], a [[Transindividual]] and always a [[Meat puppet]]—embeddedness in an inevitable context of semantic flourishing. Meaning-making is not an option but a **condition**: experience renders inevitable saliences all around. These various aspects of what we call (attentional/agential) experience invite radically abstract interpretation(s) such as this one, while at the same time remaining elusively real: communication, whatever it is, remains a fact (because: here we are). However disparate, charlatanesque or deluded: in a state of “normalcy”: meaning is expected/experienced incessantly, because we are [[Xpectator]]s. This invites criticisms of a telos, oneness or pathology lurking behind the assumptions made, but we leave that for another entry ([[08 Active ignorance]]), and to others. ### Some possible ways of putting _autosemeiosis_ to use Updating the Pascalian heart: the heart moves in ways which reason retroactively observes and narrates. Not to mention that the actual blood pumped from heart to brain, exists at the heart before it cascades upwards into the crevices of pensive matter (see also: [[10 Bias, or Falling into Place]]). As if hearing an echo of itself—considering the brain’s command over rhythm—the brain recursively chews on this shockwave. Updating the heart as the pump of hormones, and taking from personal experiences with corticosteroids (see also: [[A humorous take on hormones]], [[Cortisol]], [[07 Phenomenology of Sick Spirit]]): reasons are always creative inventions (_surprise, surprise_). In a state of hypocortisolism reality takes on an almost _paranoidisiac_ hue (see also: [[000009 The Paradox of Paranoia, and the Paranoia of Paradox]]): in finding oneself unable to cope with stress, all incoming signals turn into signs of danger, all memories haunt, all possible futures lost. The opposite is also true, in states of hypercortisolism a Popeyian spinach-like effect can ensue: risk-taking, memories are all poignantly PSRed, the future is saturated with possibilities. In a state of hypoaldosteronism and/or low sodium the feeling is closer to what is normally called brainfog, a sort of nondialectical confusion where there is no concatenation of events, no possibility of something doubling down on itself. One wants to think, to predict, but it happens in such muddled, trampling tempos that it does not feel like thinking, more like surviving the moment. See also [[Cortisol]] for a story on survival. ### The Human as a Torus ![[The Human as a Torus]] This entry might or might not continue. #todo ### Footnotes