Papers by Christophe Menant
Biosemiotics deal with the study of signs and meanings in living entities. Constructivism conside... more Biosemiotics deal with the study of signs and meanings in living entities. Constructivism considers human knowledge as internally constructed by sense making rather than passively reflecting a pre-existing reality. Consequently, a constructivist perspective on biosemiotics leads to look at an internal active construction of meaning in living entities from basic life to humans. That subject is addressed with an existing tool: the Meaning Generator System (MGS) which is a system submitted to an internal constraint related to the nature of the agent containing it (biological or artificial). Simple organisms generate meanings to satisfy a "stay alive" constraint. More complex living entities manage meaningful representations with more elaborated constraints. The generated meanings are used by the agents to implement actions aimed at satisfying the constraints. The actions can be physical, biological or mental and take place in the agent or in its environment. The case of human agency is introduced with meaningful representations that may have allowed our ancestors to become self-conscious by representing themselves as existing entities. This paper proposes to use the MGS as a thread to address the above items linking biosemiotics to constructivism with relations to normativity, agency and autonomy. Possible continuations are introduced.
First-person and third-person perspectives are different items of human consciousness. Feeling th... more First-person and third-person perspectives are different items of human consciousness. Feeling the taste of a fruit or being consciously part of a group eating fruits call for different perspectives of consciousness. The latter is about objective reality (third-person data). The former is about subjective experience (first-person data) and cannot be described entirely by objective reality. We propose to look at how these two perspectives could be rooted in an evolutionary origin of human consciousness, and somehow be connected. Our starting point is a scenario describing how evolution could have transformed a non self-conscious auto-representation into a conscious self-representation (Menant 2006). The scenario is based on the performance of inter-subjectivity existing among non human primates (Gardenfors 2006). A key item of the scenario is the identification of the auto-representation of a subject with the representations that the subject has of her conspecifics, the latter feeding the former with the meaning: "existing in the environment". So during evolution, pre-human primates were brought to perceive their auto-representation as existing in the environment. Such process could have generated the initial elements of a conscious self-representation. We take this scenario as providing a possible rooting of human consciousness in evolution. We develop here a part of this scenario by expliciting the inward and outward components of the non self-conscious auto-representation. Inward components are about proprioception and interoception (thirst, pain, …). Outward components cover the sensory information relative to the perception of the body (seen feet, …) and of its effects on the environment. We consider that the initial elements of a conscious self-representation have been applied to both inward and outward components of the auto-representation. We propose that the application to inward components made possible some first-person information, and that the application to outward components brought up third-person information. Relations between the two perspectives are highlighted. Such approach can root first-person and third-person perspectives in the same slot of human evolution. We conclude by a summary of the above and introduce a possible application of this approach to the concepts of bodily self and of pre-reflexive self-consciousness (Legrand, 2006).
We propose here to clarify some of the relations existing between information and meaning by show... more We propose here to clarify some of the relations existing between information and meaning by showing how meaningful information can be generated by a system submitted to a constraint. We build up definitions and properties for meaningful information, a meaning generator system and the domain of efficiency of a meaning (to cover cases of meaningful information transmission). Basic notions of information processing are used.
It is agreed by most people that self-consciousness is the result of an evolutionary process, and... more It is agreed by most people that self-consciousness is the result of an evolutionary process, and that representations may have played an important role in that process. We would like to propose here that some evolutionary stages can highlight links existing between representations and the notion of self, opening a possible path to the nature of self-consciousness. Our starting point is to focus on representations as usage oriented items for the subject that carries them. These representations are about elements of the environment including conspecifics, and can also represent parts of the subject without refering to a notion of self (we introduce the notion of "auto-representation" that does not carry the notion of self-representation). Next step uses the performance of intersubjectivity (mirror neurons level in evolution) where a subject has the capability to mentally simulate the observed action of a conspecific (Gallese 2001). We propose that this intersubjectivity allows the subject to identify his auto-representation with the representations of his conspecifics, and so to consider his auto-representation as existing in the environment. We show how this evolutionary stage can introduce a notion of self-representation for a subject, opening a road to self-conciousness and to self. This evolutionary approach to the self via self-representation is close to the current theory of the self linked to representations and simulations (Metzinger 2003). We use a scenario about how evolution has brought the performance of self-representation to self-consciousness. We develop a process describing how the anxiety increase resulting from identification with endangered or suffering conspecifics may have called for the development of tools to limit this anxiety (empathy, imitation, language), and how these tools have accelerated the evolutionary process through a positive feedback on intersubjectivity (Menant 2004, 2005). We finish by summarizing the points addressed, and propose some possible continuations.
Entropy, Jun 30, 2003
We propose here to clarify some of the relations existing between information and meaning by show... more We propose here to clarify some of the relations existing between information and meaning by showing how meaningful information can be generated by a system submitted to a constraint. We build up definitions and properties for meaningful information, a meaning generator system and the domain of efficiency of a meaning (to cover cases of meaningful information transmission). Basic notions of information processing are used.
There is an increasing agreement in the cognitive sciences community that our sensations are clos... more There is an increasing agreement in the cognitive sciences community that our sensations are closely related to our actions. Our actions impact our sensations from the environment and the knowledge we have of it. Cognition is grounded in sensori-motor coordination. In the ...
Information, Constraint and Meaning from Pre-biotic World to a possible Post-human one. An Evolutionary Approach , 2017
The presentation proposes to complement an existing development on meaning generation for animals... more The presentation proposes to complement an existing development on meaning generation for animals, humans and artificial agents by looking at what could have existed at prebiotic times and what could be a post-human meaning generation. The core of the approach is based on an existing model for meaning generation: the Meaning Generator System (MGS). The MGS is part of an agent submitted to an internal constraint. The MGS generates a meaning when it receives information that has a connection with the constraint. The generated meaning is used by the agent to implement an action (physical, biological or mental) aimed at satisfying the constraint. The action can be in or out the agent. The purpose of the presentation is to widen the MGS approach in order to reach a coverage for information, constraint and meaning from a pre-biotic level to a possible post-human one. We present the MGS for animals, humans and artificial agents with the corresponding constraints. We then look at what could have been a constraint at a pre-biotic far from thermodynamic equilibrium level. At the other end of the spectrum we look at a possible posthuman status with an evolution of a 'limit anxiety' human constraint and also with AAs submitted to animal or human type constraints. Such approach links information science with physics, evolution, anthropology, semiotics and human mind. Continuations are proposed.
Primatology tells that about seven million years ago a split began in primate evolution, a split ... more Primatology tells that about seven million years ago a split began in primate evolution, a split that led to chimpanzee and human lineages (the pan-homo split). During these millions of years our human lineage has developed performances that our chimpanzee cousins do not possess, like reflective self-consciousness and language. We present here an evolutionary scenario that proposes a rationale for the pan-homo split. It is based on a pre-human anxiety that may have barred access to self-consciousness for the chimpanzee lineage. The starting point of the scenario is the capability that had our pre-human ancestors for an elementary identification with conspecifics. We consider that the evolution of that capability has led to self-consciousness when identifications with conspecifics brought our ancestors to represent their own entity as existing, like conspecifics were represented. But the same identification process also took place with endangered and dying conspecifics. And this has produced a huge anxiety increase, source of important mental sufferings that our ancestors had to limit. Our hypothesis is that different modes of anxiety limitation have led to the pan-homo split. On one side the chimpanzee lineage would have limited an unbearable mental suffering by stopping the development of identifications with conspecifics, and by this also stopping a possible evolution toward self-consciousness. Such anxiety limitation process has led to today chimpanzees which possess a very limited consciousness of themselves. On the other side, our human lineage would have successfully developed anxiety limitation tools like caring, pleasure, anticipation, communication and imitation. With these tools accelerating the evolution of our lineage toward our human mind. The proposed pan-homo split process complements an existing evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness that has positioned anxiety management as a key contributor to the build-up of our human minds. Such overall perspective makes anxiety management a major source to many of our motivations and mental states, much more than assumed so far. Continuations are proposed for a better understanding about our modes of anxiety limitation (including evil behaviors), and also to introduce a possible evolutionary nature of phenomenal consciousness.
Aleksey Voloshin (Ukraine) Lyudmila Lyadova (Russia) Alexander Eremeev (Russia) Martin P. Mintche... more Aleksey Voloshin (Ukraine) Lyudmila Lyadova (Russia) Alexander Eremeev (Russia) Martin P. Mintchev (Canada) Alexander Kleshchev (Russia) Natalia Bilous (Ukraine) Alexander Palagin (Ukraine) Natalia Pankratova (Ukraine) Alfredo Milani (Italy) Rumyana Kirkova (Bulgaria) Avram Eskenazi (Bulgaria) Stoyan Poryazov (Bulgaria) Boris Fedunov (Russia) Tatyana Gavrilova (Russia) Galina Rybina (Russia) Tea Munjishvili (Georgia) Hasmik Sahakyan (Armenia) Valeriya Gribova (Russia) Ilia Mitov (Bulgaria) Vasil Sgurev (Bulgaria) Juan Castellanos (Spain) Vitalii Velychko (Ukraine) Koen Vanhoof (Belgium) Vitaliy Lozovskiy (Ukraine) Krassimira B. Ivanova (Bulgaria) International Journal "INFORMATION THEORIES & APPLICATIONS" (IJ ITA) is official publisher of the scientific papers of the members of the ITHEA International Scientific Society IJ ITA welcomes scientific papers connected with any information theory or its application. IJ ITA rules for preparing the manuscripts are compulsory. The ...
Representing oneself as an existing entity and having intense fear of the unknown are human speci... more Representing oneself as an existing entity and having intense fear of the unknown are human specificities. Self-consciousness and anxiety states are characteristics of our human minds. We propose that these two characteristics share a common evolutionary history during which they acted in synergy for the build-up of our human minds. We present that perspective by using an evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness in which anxiety management plays a key role. Such evolutionary background can introduce new relations between philosophy of mind and psychology. The proposed evolutionary scenario starts at the Pan-Homo split time (about 6my ago) when our pre-human ancestors were able to manage representations while also being able to partly identify with their conspecifics. These identifications allowed our ancestors to merge the representations they had of parts of themselves with the corresponding representations they had of their conspecifics. The scenario proposes that such merger has led our ancestors to progressively build up a representation of their own entity as existing in the environment, like conspecifics were represented as existing. This evolutionary process is considered in the scenario as the source of an ancestral form of self-consciousness. The same process has also produced identifications with suffering or endangered conspecifics which have created in the minds of our ancestors some new anxieties coming in addition to the animal ones. The resulting psychological sufferings had to be limited for evolution to continue. The tools developed to that end by our ancestors (caring, collaboration, communication, ToM, ...) have also procured significant evolutionary benefits with positive feedbacks on identifications. Overall, the evolutionary scenario proposes that the combination of the anxiety management processes with the evolution toward self-consciousness has created an evolutionary engine that has accelerated the coming up of our human self-consciousness. As a result, our today human minds contain important anxieties interwoven with an evolutionary nature of self-consciousness. Such perspective brings to consider that many of our mental states may be unconsciously guided by these evolutionary sourced anxieties (which are still to be clearly understood). Corresponding anxiety management processes are then key contributors to our human feelings and motivations, and to our interpersonal relationship. For instance, the role of Pascalian type diversions can be understood as keeping consciousness away from psychological sufferings produced by too anxious mental states. Also, part of our human sexuality developed during human evolution can be considered as a multidimensional escape and refuge from anxiety. This also brings to look at our psychological well-being and to our mental health as much more related to anxiety management than assumed so far. Dis-functioning of anxiety management processes can then be source of mental disorders and illnesses. On that subject the evolutionary scenario proposes that avoidances of too anxious mental states can lead to evil behaviors. These subjects need more developments. Possible continuations are introduced.
The nature of human mind has been an open question for more than 2000 years and it is still today... more The nature of human mind has been an open question for more than 2000 years and it is still today a mystery. There has been during the last 30 years a renewed interest from science and philosophy on that subject. Among the existing research domains is neurophilosophy, an interdisciplinary study of neuroscience and philosophy looking at neuronal aspects of access consciousness, of phenomenal consciousness and at functional aspects of consciousness. We propose here to look if self-consciousness could have a place in neurophilosophy by using an existing evolutionary scenario that can introduce possible links between neural processing and some aspects of self-consciousness. The scenario is about an evolutionary nature of self-consciousness where evolutions of inter-subjectivity and meaningful representations may have led our ancestors to identify with their conspecifics. The scenario proposes that this process has brought our pre-human ancestors to represent themselves as existing entities like the conspecifics they identified with were represented. Such a representation of oneself as an existing entity may have created an elementary version of self-consciousness that we name "ancestral self-consciousness". But identification with suffering or endangered conspecifics has also produced an important anxiety increase. To limit that anxiety our ancestors have developed mental states and behaviors like caring, imitation communication and simulation. These performances have introduced evolutionary advantages leading to an evolutionary engine that has favored the development of ancestral self-consciousness toward our human self-consciousness. We begin by presenting a model for the generation of meaningful information based on a system submitted to an internal constraint (the Meaning Generator System). We use that model to introduce meaningful representations as networks of meaningful information. We then present the evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness that uses meaningful representations and the performance of intersubjectivity. The scenario leads to propose two links between self-consciousness and neural processes: mirror-neurons as neural introduction to inter-subjectivity and self-consciousness as neural computation on meaningful representations. Possible continuations are highlighted.
The relations between life and cogntion have been addressed through different perspectives [Stewa... more The relations between life and cogntion have been addressed through different perspectives [Stewart 1996, Boden 2001, Bourgine and Stewart 2004, van Duijn & all 2006, Di Paolo 2009]. We would like here to address that subject by relating life to cognition through a process of meaning generation. Life emerged on earth as a far from thermodynamic equilibrium performance that had to maintain herself. Life is charactertized by a ‘stay alive’ constraint that has to be satisfied (such constraint can be included in the constraint of being able to maintain far from equilibrium thermodynamic conditions [Bickhard 2011]). The local ‘stay alive‘ constraint has to be satisfied in an environment containing elements potentially supportive or harmfull. A key activity for the living entity is to characterize these elements in terms of meaningfulness relatively to the ‘stay alive’ constraint. This process can be modeled with an existing tool where a system submitted to an internal constraint generate...
Biosemiotics and Semiotics have similarities and differences. Both deal with signal and meaning. ... more Biosemiotics and Semiotics have similarities and differences. Both deal with signal and meaning. One difference is that Biosemiotics covers a domain (life) that is less complex that the one addressed by Semiotics (human). We believe that this difference can be used to have Biosemiotics bringing added value to Semiotics. This belief is based on the fact that a theory of meaning is easier to build up for living elements than for humans, and that the results obtained for life can make available some tools for a higher level of complexity. Semiotic has been encountering some difficulties to deliver a scientific theory of meaning that can be efficient at the level of human mind. The obstacles come from our ignorance on the nature of human. As it is true that we do not understand the nature of human mind on a scientific basis. On the other hand, the nature and properties of life are better understood. And we can propose a modelization for a generation of meaningful information in the fiel...
Understanding computation as “a process of the dynamic change of information ” brings to look at ... more Understanding computation as “a process of the dynamic change of information ” brings to look at the different types of computation and information. Computation of information does not exist alone by itself but is to be considered as part of a system that uses it for some given purpose. Information can be meaningless like a thunderstorm noise, it can be meaningful like an alert signal, or like the representation of a desired food. A thunderstorm noise participates to the generation of meaningful information about coming rain. An alert signal has a meaning as allowing a safety constraint to be satisfied. The representation of a desired food participates to the satisfaction of some metabolic constraints for the organism. Computations on information and representations will be different in nature and in complexity as the systems that link them have different constraints to satisfy. Animals have survival constraints to satisfy. Humans have many specific constraints coming in addition. A...
Evolutionary advantages of consciousness and intersubjectivity are part of current philosophical ... more Evolutionary advantages of consciousness and intersubjectivity are part of current philosophical debates on the nature of consciousness. Both are linked and intersubjectivity is sometimes considered as a form of consciousness (1). Regarding the evolution of consciousness, studies tend to focus on phenomenal consciousness (2). We would like here to bring the focus on self-consciousness and continue the build up of a corresponding evolutionary scenario. We also propose to introduce a possible evolutionary link between self-consciousness and phenomenal consciousness. Our starting point is the evolutionary scenario based on the evolution of intersubjectivity that goes thru the identification with conspecifics at pre-human primate time frame (3, 4, 5). The scenario considers that such identification with conspecifics brought the non self-conscious auto-representation carried by our prehuman primate ancestors to merge with the representations of conspecifics. The latter transferred to the...
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Papers by Christophe Menant
[1] Introduction to a systemic theory of meaning http://cogprints.org/6279/2/MGS.pdf
[2] Information and meaning http://cogprints.org/3694/"
[1] Gardenfors, Peter (2007) "Evolutionary and developmental aspects of intersubjectivity", in Consciousness Transitions : Phylogenetic, Ontogenetic and Physiological Aspects, ed. by H Liljenstrom and
P. Arhem, Elsevier, Amsterdam. http://project2.sol.lu.se/sedsu/publications/2006-Gardenfors-EvolIntersubj.pdf
[2] Carruthers, Peter (2000). "The Evolution of Consciousness". In Carruthers, Peter, & Chamberlain,Andrew (Eds.), Evolution and the human mind: modulatory, language, and meta-cognition . CambridgeUniversity Press. http://cogprints.org/1205/
[3] Menant, Christophe (2005) "Evolution and Mirror Neurons. An Introduction to the Nature of Self-Consciousness". TSC 2005. http://cogprints.org/4533/
[4] Menant, Christophe (2006) "Evolution of Representations. From Basic Life to Self-representation and Self-consciousness". TSC 2006 poster. http://cogprints.org/4843/
[5] Menant, Christophe (2006) " Evolution of Representations and Intersubjectivity as sources of the
Self. An Introduction to the Nature of Self-consciousness". ASSC 10 poster. http://cogprints.org/4957/
[6] Gallagher, Shaun and Zahavi, Dan (2006) "Phenomenological Approaches to Self-Consciousness
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/self-consciousnessphenomenological/
We propose that these two characteristics share a common evolutionary history during which they acted in synergy for the build-up of our human minds. We present that perspective by using an evolutionary scenario for self-consciousness in which anxiety management plays a key role. Such
evolutionary background can introduce new relations between philosophy of mind and psychology.
The proposed evolutionary scenario starts at the Pan-Homo split time (about 6my ago) when our pre-human ancestors were able to manage representations while also being able to partly identify with their
conspecifics. These identifications allowed our ancestors to merge the representations they had of parts of themselves with the corresponding representations they had of their conspecifics. The scenario
proposes that such merger has led our ancestors to progressively build up a representation of their own entity as existing in the environment, like conspecifics were represented as existing. This evolutionary
process is considered in the scenario as the source of an ancestral form of self-consciousness.
The same process has also produced identifications with suffering or endangered conspecifics which have created in the minds of our ancestors some new anxieties coming in addition to the animal ones.
The resulting psychological sufferings had to be limited for evolution to continue. The tools developed to that end by our ancestors (caring, collaboration, communication, ToM, ...) have also procured
significant evolutionary benefits with positive feedbacks on identifications. Overall, the evolutionary scenario proposes that the combination of the anxiety management processes with the evolution
toward self-consciousness has created an evolutionary engine that has accelerated the coming up of our human self-consciousness. As a result, our today human minds contain important anxieties interwoven
with an evolutionary nature of self-consciousness. Such perspective brings to consider that many of our mental states may be unconsciously guided by these evolutionary sourced anxieties (which are still to be clearly understood). Corresponding anxiety management processes are then key contributors to our human feelings and motivations, and to our interpersonal relationship. For instance, the role of Pascalian type diversions can be understood as keeping consciousness away from psychological sufferings produced by too anxious mental states. Also, part of our human sexuality developed during human evolution can be considered as a multidimensional escape and refuge from anxiety. This also brings to look at our psychological well-being and to our mental health as much more related to anxiety management than assumed so far. Dis-functioning of anxiety management processes can then be source of mental disorders and illnesses. The evolutionary scenario proposes that avoidances of too anxious mental states can even lead to evil behaviors.
These subjects need more developments. Possible continuations are introduced.
(Presentation availabe at http://philpapers.org/rec/MENIR)