Section A
The Reality: Fact and Fancy.... 5

John Deely
Postmodernism and the Perfusion of Signs....7
The World of Objects..... 8
The Perfusion of Signs.... 11

Mark Bickhard
Representation in Natural and Artificial Agents.... 15
Kinds of Dynamic Systems.... 15
Environmental Sensitivity.... 16
Anticipation.... 18
Interaction Selection.... 18
System Detectable Truth Value.... 19
Environmental Predications.... 19
What About Objects?.... 19
Representing is Dynamic.. 21

Section B
The Relationship: The Need for Interaction .... 27

Denis Brion
The Arrow of Time: The Past and Future Of Law.... 29
Introduction.... 29
History.... 30
Science.... 33
Law.... 34
Complexity.... 39
Meaning.... 45
The Human Condition.... 50

Kalevi Kull
Umwelt and Evolution: From Uexküll to Post-Darwinism....53
Notes on Evolution During the History of Biosemiotics.... 54
Uexküll's View of Evolution.... 58
Outlines for a Post-Darwinian Explanation of Evolution.... 62

Section C
The History of the Two Answers.... 71

Winfried Nöth
Ecosemiotics and the Semiotics of Nature
Ecology and Ecosemiotics.... 73
Ecosemitoics and Cultural Semiotics.... 75
Theoretical Semiotics and Ecological Semiosis.... 77
Biosemiotics of the Relation.... 79
Physicosemiotics: Semiosis in Nonorganic Nature.... 81

Claus Emmeche
The Biosemiotics of Emergent Properties in a Pluralist Ontology..... 89
The Integration Thesis.... 90
The Pansemiotic Thesis.... 91
The Physical Codification Thesis.... 92
The Ontological Level Thesis.... 96
The Biosemiotic Thesis.... 97

Section D
The Triadic Relation as Freedom and Interpretation.... 109

John Collier
The Dynamical Basis of Information and the Origins of Semiosis.... 111
Introduction.... 111
Autonomy: A Key Concept.... 113
Peirce's Categorisaton of Signs and the Pragmatics of Interpretation.... 119
Information and Causation.... 123
The Importance of Dissipativity for the Possibility of Reference.... 128
Some Simple Signs: Nominal and Genuine Signs.... 131
Representational Autonomy.... 133
Conceptional Autonomy.... 134
Conclusions.... 135

Roberta Kevelson
Charles S. Peirce and the Complexity of Ideas.... 139

Jesper Hoffmeyer
The Vague Boundaries of Life.... 151
External or Internal Explanation.... 151
Life: The Invention of Externalism.... 154
The Landscape of Membranes.... 161
Dynamic Boundaries.... 163
Membrains.... 165

Section E
The Nature of Freedom as Evolution: Irreversible Diversity.... 171

Floyd Merrell
Borges and Calvino: Chaosmos Unleashed.... 173
Dimensions and Fractures.... 173

Brooks and McLennan
The Nature of the Organism and the Emergence of Selection Processes and Biological Signals.... 185
Introduction.... 185
Foundations.... 188
Entropy and Energy.... 189
Entropy and Information.... 192
Entropy, Informaton, and Evolution.... 196
Selection.... 198
The Origin of Natural Selection.... 198
Collier's Paradox.... 200
The Origin of Sexual Selection.... 201
The Difference between Natural and Sexual Selection.... 201
The Relative Autonomy of Natural and Sexual Selection.... 204
Signaling.... 205
Origin of Biological Signals.... 205
Intentionality in Biological Signals: The Sender.... 207
Meaning in Biological Signals: The Receiver.... 208
What are the Current Views, and Why do they Fail?.... 209
Conclusions.... 211

Koichiro Matsuno
Material Contextualization in Time.... 219
Introduction.... 219
Grammatical Constraints on Temporality of Interaction.... 220
Contextualization through the Present Tense.... 223
Examples.... 225
Concluding Remarks.... 228

Luis Eugenio Andrade
Semiotic Interactions in Evolutionary Change.... 231
Maxwell's Demons and Selective Activity.... 231
Interactions and Evolutionary Processes.... 233
Biological Codes and Decoder Agents.... 236
Towards a Cognitive Paradigm for Life Sciences.... 238
Peirce's Thirdness, or the Limitations of Information Theory.... 238

Section F
The Relation as Self-Organized: The Emergence of Poetic Order.... 243

Stanley N. Salthe
Energy, Development and Semiosis... 245
Infodynamics.... 245
Earth's Entropic Development.... 249
Development of Semiosis.... 255

Bruce H. Weber and David J. Depew
The Modern Evolutionary Synthesis and Complex Systems Dynamics: Prospects for a New Synthesis.... 263
Introduction.... 263
Dissipative Systems, Autocatalysis, and the Origins of Natural Selection.... 264
Natural Selection Ranges Over Developmental Systems.... 266
Organisms as Nodes in Ecological Systems.... 270
Enhancing the Power of Selection.... 272
Universal and Particular in Evolutionary Biology.... 274

Jonathan D. H. Smith
On the Evolution of Semiotic Capacity.... 283
Introduction.... 283
Entropy, Probability, and Randomness.... 286
Dynamical Systems.... 289
The Two Curves Graph.... 291
Markov Chains.... 292
Growth, Stasis, and Senescence.... 297
The Bifurcation Route to Chaos.... 300
Replication and Complementation.... 305
Semiosis on the Bifurcation Route.... 305
Concluding Remarks.... 307