2022 Vol. 13 №2

The article explores the context important for the analysis of Lotman’s talk at the seminar on the problem of semiogenesis and functional specialization of cerebral hemispheres as a model of intellectual processes, which was held in Tartu. Forty years later, the author anal­yses changes in the viewpoints on the proposed model, taking into account the data of experi­mental neuroscience. The article emphasizes the fundamental value and topicality of Yuri Lotman’s ideas on the production of meaning in individual and cross-cultural space.

The article discusses a possible development of Yuri Lotman’s concept of semiosphere by supplementing it with the idea of semio-poiesis. Analysis of the processes of origination, evo­lution and functioning of the genetic code makes it possible to describe the main mechanisms of these processes. The associations of material phenomena (in this case nucleotides and amino acids) led to the establishment of semiotic links, resulting in mechanisms of information stor­age and transmission, allowing the creation of stable life forms. The increasing complexity of organization leads to the crystallization of informational and semiotic origins. Semio-poiesis, a recursive autoreference of the semiotic system, becomes a form of organization of the bio­world, where such parameters as sense and purpose become determinative. Such an under­standing of these processes makes it possible to develop Lotman’s concept of the semiosphere and, firstly, to confirm his assumptions that semiosis can be preceded only by a previous se­miotic form, and, secondly, to show the original mechanisms of semiosphere self-organization and autonomous functioning. The very dualism of the genetic code, its simultaneous biochem­ical and linguosemiotic organization, and the processes of gene expression can be compared with what Lotman considered to be the basic principle of semiosphere functioning — the in­teraction of oppositely organized heterogeneous mechanisms.

The article presents a reflection on Yuri Lotman’s idea of reorienting semiotics from the analysis of structures to the analysis of texts and their binary diagogical nature. This idea allows correlating Lotman’s approach with Bakhtin’s concept of a continuous, meaning-generating dialogue. The juxtaposition of these approaches opens up new possibilities for ex­panding the semiotic analysis of the processes of meaning formation, metaphorization, the dynamics of culture, and the correlation of social and personal experience in these dynamics. The prospects of expanding the scope of the apparatus of semiotics, such as the narrative ap­proach, deep semiotics, and analysis of the dynamics of social institutionalization of sign structures, are revealed. This, in turn, opens up new horizons for the development of the theo­ry of meaning and understanding, the convergence and juxtaposition of semiotic and herme­neutic traditions, analytical philosophy and phenomenology, abstract modeling and the role of subjectivity (self-consciousness of self). Such extensions and perspectives realize the potential of semiotics as an effective conceptual platform of interdisciplinarity and convergence of sci­entific disciplines in understanding the ongoing transformations and responsible socio-cultural engineering.