*Thomas Albert Sebeok* # Progressive Summary Single theme of this book is that semiosis is life. # Definitions # Chapter Notes ## 0 - Foreward > Sebeok has transformed semiotics back into a 'life science,' hav ing relocated it, in effect, to its roots in medical biology. In other words, he has uprooted semiotics from the philosophical, linguis tic, and hermeneutic terrain in which it has been cultivated for centuries and replanted it in the larger biological domain whence it sprang originally. ## 1 - Basic Notions > The phenomenon that distinguishes life forms from inanimate objects is semiosis. This can be defined simply as the instinctive capacity of all living organisms to produce and understand signs. > Each species produces and understands certain kinds of specific signs for which it has been programmed by its biology. These can range from simple bodily signals to advanced symbolic structures such as words. Signs allow each species to (1) signal its existence, ( 2) communicate messages within the species, and (3) model incoming information from the external world. Semiotics is the science that studies these functions. # Quotes # References