The Machines of Evolution and the Scope of Meaning

Cover
Contents
Preface
Introduction
Part One: Setting Terms
	I. Limits of Transspeciesism
	II. Atoms of Aboutness
	III. Keywords
		Information
		Mediation
		Sign
		Interpretant
		Signal (vs. sign)
Part Two: The Abstract Machines of Evolution
	IV. The Evolutionary Mise en Abyme
	V. Darwin’s Abstract Machine: Natural Selection
	VI. A Post-Darwinian Abstract Machine: Niche Construction
	VII. Extended Evolution and the Mediation Machine
	VIII. Toward the Question of Meaning
	IX. Teleosemantics: Trait, Function, and Meaning
	X. Teleodynamics: Constraint, Work, and Meaning
	XI. The Fourth Machine: Semiosis
	XII. Abstract and Episodic Signs
	XIII. Attention, Situational and Analytic
	XIV. Episodic Memory: Assembling the Index
	XV. Principles
Part Three: Meaningful and Meaningless Complexity
	In the Realm of Aboutness: Songbirds
		XVI. Birdsong Basics
		XVII. Birdsong Meanings and Complexity
		XVIII. Avian Interpretants
		XIX. Metarelations in the Songbird Brain
	Nonsignifying Marvels: Honeybees
		XX. Puzzles of Invertebrate Complexity
		XXI. Sociochemistry of the Superorganism
		XXII. Desemanticizing the Waggle Dance
		XXIII. What a Bee Brain Can’t Do
		XXIV. Meaning and Meaninglessness
Part Four: Outstanding Questions
	XXV. Questions Concerning Evolution
	XXVI. Questions Concerning Technology
	XXVII. Questions Concerning Culture
Acknowledgments
Works Cited
Index