Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: In the humanities the applications of catastrophe theory and other models stemming from "dynamic systems theory", a field of applied mathematics based on topology and differential calculus, was the first theoretical innovation since the computer/mind-boom which began in the sixties and brought many research fields to public recognition and institutional success which exploited the metaphor of the computer as mind or artificial intelligence; cf.AI and the Chomsky paradigm.The rise of dynamic model designs began in the late sixties with the publications of René Thom, a Fields Medal winner in mathematics, and Christopher Zeeman, a renowned researcher in applied mathematics (mostly in biology and psychology/neurology).The French and English endeavor received much support after 1974-1977 culminating in a joint conference in Cérisy-la-Salle in 1982.The first sections review this development, the catastrophe controversy 1978-1980 and later developments mainly in the work of René Thom and his major followers (Petitot, Wildgen, & Brandt).Thom's new impulse, his "semiophysics" (Thom, 1988), and the research which followed are summarized and the notions of "saillance"-"prégnance" (perceptual salience and biological relevance) including its evolutionary aspects are sketched.A specific application to the concept of sign applying the hyper-cycles proposed by Eigen and Schuster (1979) is put forward.Eventually, a new application by the author called "movie physics" is described, which gives a hint to further evolutions of this new field of semiotic theorizing, mainly in the media.
Source: Language and Semiotic Studies
Author: Wolfgang Wildgen
Institution: University of Bremen
Language: English
Subfield: Literature and Literary Theory
Field: Arts and Humanities
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: bronze
OpenAlex ID: W4366708397