RE: SemEco - function circle in ecosystems / I-E coordination

From: Paul Prior (p-prior@uiuc.edu)
Date: Fri Sep 01 2000 - 04:43:50 PDT


>
>So, is there an organism in a SemEco framework, or would it be more similar
>to the notion of cyborg. Organism - however its defined individual, context,
>culture, society etc - would imply a closure that would interact with other
>organisms-non organisms.

I can't speak for a SemEco framework, but I'm thinking again of Hutchins'
account. He talked about communication and learning as the "propagation of
representational state across a series of media," a propagation that he
wants to see not as moving coded information across boundaries but as
"processes of entrainment, coordination, and resonance among elements of a
system that includes a person and the person's surroundings." (quotes from
pages 117 and 290). As I understand his position, the organism and varied
artifacts do not disappear, but remain, and different media have different
properties that take up, transform, sometimes act on representational
states in different ways.

Paul Prior
Associate Professor (English)
Associate Director, Center for Writing Studies
p-prior@uiuc.edu
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign



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