Biosemiotics for postdigital living: the implications of the implications

Abstract

Abstract The postdigital condition is discussed from the perspective of Paul Cobley’s biosemiotic approach to culture. While semiotics is often concerned with cultural criticism, there has been no explicit biosemiotic approach to culture, until only recently with Cobley unfurling such a research program. The key to this is the biosemiotic notion of modeling, which accounts for co-evolutionary processes encompassing biology and culture. This approach responds to recent calls in the humanities and social sciences to understand culture as constituted through technology, but also as something not strictly human (more-than-human). By undermining both vitalism and reductionism, biosemiotics avoids biologism and culturalism, which is of much importance for theorizing culture and learning in light of evolution. This has consequences for construing cultural pluralism. Mainstream notions of multiculturalism rely on cultural holism and, hence, advocate the separation of communities and languages for the pretense of maintaining diversity. Cobley’s theory avoids this pitfall, offering a view of cultures as intrinsically heterogeneous and open systems. This suggests further implications for how we understand the aims of literacy and state-run education. We present an account of biocultural learning that accommodates contemporary posthumanist and postdigital orientations. Construing learning as ecologically contextual is necessary for addressing ongoing technological transformations.