Mimicry and Meaning: Structure and Semiotics of Biological Mimicry

167 Pages·2017·3.503 MB·English

by  Timo Maran (auth.)

Biosemiotics 16
Timo Maran
Mimicry and
Meaning:
Structure and
Semiotics of
Biological Mimicry
Biosemiotics
Volume 16
Series editors
Jesper Hoffmeyer, Professor emeritus in biochemistry, University of Copenhagen
Kalevi Kull, Professor in biosemiotics, University of Tartu
Alexei Sharov, National Institute of Aging, Baltimore
Aims and Scope of the Series
Combining research approaches from biology, semiotics, philosophy and linguistics,
the field of biosemiotics studies semiotic processes as they occur in and among
living systems. This has important implications and applications for issues ranging
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biosemiotics at the cutting edge of the research on the fundamentals of life.
The Springer book series Biosemiotics draws together contributions from lead-
ing scholars in international biosemiotics, producing an unparalleled series that will
appeal to all those interested in the origins and evolution of life, including molecular
and evolutionary biologists, ecologists, anthropologists, psychologists, philoso-
phers and historians of science, linguists, semioticians and researchers in artificial
life, information theory and communication technology.
More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/7710
Timo Maran
Mimicry and Meaning:
Structure and Semiotics
of Biological Mimicry
Timo Maran
Department of Semiotics
University of Tartu
Tartu, Estonia
ISSN 1875-4651 ISSN 1875-466X (electronic)
Biosemiotics
ISBN 978-3-319-50315-8 ISBN 978-3-319-50317-2 (eBook)
DOI 10.1007/978-3-319-50317-2
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016961294
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Preface
This book is a result of 20 years of my interest in reading and thinking about the
bizarre phenomenon of mimicry. This journey has brought me from the standard
scientific world view of animal ecology to a small but friendly community of semi-
otics, in other words, from treating mimicry as a defensive adaptation to recognising
it as a peculiar sign structure in an open semiotic space of ecological relations. The
topic of mimicry made it possible for me to work together with Kalevi Kull, to
whom I owe a lot for his academic guidance. This scholarly cooperation resulted in
the defence of a doctoral thesis on the semiotics of mimicry in 2005 (published also
as Maran 2008a). Since then, I have focused on several related topics and, in the
process, have developed semiotic tools to analyse mimicry, discerning specific sign
structures active in mimicry and locating the phenomenon within the broader eco-
logical framework. The present book elaborates and reorganises texts of my earlier
research papers published on mimicry and also includes materials from several con-
ference presentations and manuscripts that have not been previously published.
Earlier publications have been thoroughly reviewed and updated.
The focus of this book is on mimicry as a sign process. The reader will not find
lengthy discussions on the evolutionary dynamics of mimicry and genetic causes of
specific mimicry cases that often dominate biological literature. Evolutionary per-
spectives on mimicry are discussed with great precision by other authors in other
publications (for overviews, see, e.g., Brower 1988; Ruxton et al. 2004; Wickler
1968; Cott 1957). My emphasis here is mostly on mimicry as a formal communica-
tion structure, in other words, on sign processes that take part in mimicry and their
possible ecological effects. The study of mimicry has a long history that has resulted
in hundreds of books on the topic, but it has also brought along some stereotypical
understandings and concepts. By using biosemiotics as paradigmatic framework,
my attempt is to treat mimicry in a way that could provide some new perspectives.
As for any object of science, the choice of concepts to be used and questions to be
asked partly constrains and influences the results that will be gained.
The present book contains eight main chapters that are accompanied with three
short excursions. In these interludes, I discuss historical and philosophical aspects
of mimicry and open up some premises that have led me to approach mimicry in the
v
vi Preface
way that it is presented in this book. I start the book with an overview of the types
and typologies of the mimicry, paying special attention to how the understanding of
the tripartite mimicry structure was formed. Thereafter, I discuss semiotics of mim-
icry from different viewpoints: disciplinary, structural and communicative. I pay
special attention to the relationship between mimicry and iconic signs. In the second
part of the book, the attention shifts to the dynamics of sign processes going on in
mimicry and what the roles and choices of the different participants are. I also con-
sider the position of the human observer in regard to mimicry and propose semiotic
tools for modelling mimicry. In the final chapters, I discuss some semiotic insights
pertaining to the evolution of mimicry and make propositions to position mimicry
within broader interspecific communication networks of the ecosystems.
For the possibility of writing this book, I owe a debt of gratitude to Kalevi Kull,
Peeter Torop, Riin Magnus, Silvi Salupere, Elin Sütiste and other colleagues at the
Department of Semiotics, University of Tartu, for creating a good academic envi-
ronment, for collegial support and for thinking along with me. Interest in mimicry
has put me in contact with the Prague Biosemiotic School, whose works have been
of great relevance for me. I would especially like to emphasise the long-lasting
cooperation with Karel Kleisner, as well as consultations with philosopher Stanislav
Komárek. In biosemiotics, my major guides and beacons have been Thomas
A. Sebeok, Jesper Hoffmeyer and Almo Farina. I also want to pay reverence to
authors whom I have not met in person, but whose written words have been a great
source of inspiration for my thinking about mimicry: Henry W. Bates, Edward
Poulton, Jakob von Uexküll, Wolfgang Wickler, Malcolm Edmunds, John Maynard
Smith, Adolf Portmann, Richard I. Vane-Wright and Roger Caillois, among others.
In this book, the material from the following papers has been used in a thor-
oughly reviewed and updated form: Maran, T. (2015). Scaffolding and mimicry: A
semiotic view of the evolutionary dynamics of mimicry systems. Biosemiotics
(Springer), 8(2), 211–222; Maran, T. (2012). Are ecological codes archetypal struc-
tures? In T. Maran, K. Lindström, R. Magnus, M. Tønnessen (eds.). Semiotics in the
wild. Essays in honour of Kalevi Kull on the occasion of his 60th birthday. (pp. 147–
156). Tartu: University of Tartu Press; Maran, T. (2011). Becoming a sign: The
mimic’s activity in biological mimicry. Biosemiotics (Springer), 4(2), 243–257;
Maran, T. (2010). Semiotic modeling of mimicry with reference to brood parasit-
ism. Sign Systems Studies (University of Tartu Press), 38(1/4), 349–377; Maran, T.
and Kleisner, K. (2010). Towards an evolutionary biosemiotics: Semiotic selection
and semiotic co-option. Biosemiotics (Springer), 3(2), 189–200; Maran, T. (2007).
Semiotic interpretations of biological mimicry. Semiotica (De Gruyter Mouton),
167(1/4), 223–248; Maran, T. (2007). Mimicry. In P. Bouissac, A. Lewis (Eds.).
Semiotics Encyclopedia Online. E.J. Pratt Library, Victoria University (http://www.
semioticon.com/seo/); Maran, T. (2003). Mimesis as a phenomenon of semiotic
communication. Sign Systems Studies (University of Tartu Press), 31.1, 191–215. I
thank the respective copyright owners for their courtesy for using these materials.
Writing of this book would not have been possible without the all-encompassing
support of my family. I am also grateful to Jamie L. Kruis for her help in language
editing and to the editors in Springer for their technical assistance. I express my
Preface vii
gratitude to the Institute of Philosophy and Semiotics at the University of Tartu,
Estonia, Norwegian-Estonian Research Cooperation Programme (grant EMP151),
Estonian Research Council (grant 2–44) and European Regional Development Fund
(Centre of Excellence in Cultural Theory) for their financial support that made it
possible to do the research on which the present book is based.
Tartu, Estonia Timo Maran
Contents
1 Biosemiotics of Mimicry: Introductory Notes ...................................... 1
1.1 On a Biosemiotic Approach ........................................................... 4
1.2 Defining Biological Mimicry ......................................................... 7
2 First Excursion: The History of the Mimicry Concept ....................... 11
3 The Structure of Mimicry ...................................................................... 15
3.1 Mimicry Types ............................................................................... 16
3.2 Mimicry in Relation to Other Adaptations ..................................... 19
3.3 Typologies of Mimicry ................................................................... 23
3.4 Mimicry Systems—Wolfgang Wickler’s Account ......................... 28
3.5 Critical Discussion of the Triadic Mimicry Model ........................ 30
4 Semiotics of Mimicry .............................................................................. 35
4.1 Semiotic Interpretations of Mimicry .............................................. 36
4.2 Mimicry as a Communicative Interaction ...................................... 38
4.3 Mimicry as a Sign System ............................................................. 42
4.4 T he Umwelten of the Receiver and the Human Observer ............. 49
5 Iconicity and Mimicry ............................................................................ 55
5.1 If Mimic Is a Sign Then What Does It Stands For? ....................... 55
5.2 Peirce’s Second Trichotomy and Animal Communication ............ 58
5.3 Peircean Categories and the Three Basic Mimicry Types ............. 61
6 Second Excursion: Importance of the Object ...................................... 65
7 Different Perspectives in Mimicry System ............................................ 69
7.1 Mimic’s Activity and Intentionality ............................................... 71
7.2 Resembling the Environment and Becoming a Sign ..................... 74
7.3 T he Receiver’s Perspective and Ambivalent Signs ........................ 78
8 Modelling Mimicry ................................................................................. 83
8.1 Toolbox for Modelling Mimicry .................................................... 84
8.2 A pplying Semiotic Modelling to Brood Parasitism ....................... 88
8.3 Towards Comparative Modelling ................................................... 96
ix
x Contents
9 Mimicry and Semiotic Evolution ........................................................... 101
9.1 Semiotic Selection: Definition and Examples ................................ 104
9.2 Mimicry and Semiotic Scaffolding ................................................ 109
9.3 Evolution of Mimicry in the Bio-semiosphere .............................. 115
10 Third Excursion: An Epistemology of the Uncertain .......................... 119
11 From Abstract Mimicry to Ecological Codes ....................................... 123
11.1 A bstract Mimicry: When the Meaning Comes First ...................... 124
11.2 Connecting Umwelten, Sharing Codes .......................................... 128
11.3 Ecological Codes and Archetypal Structures ................................. 132
12 Conclusions .............................................................................................. 137
References ........................................................................................................ 139
Index ................................................................................................................. 157