Energy
Energy

Summary/Abstract: Jesper Hoffmeyer proposes that the optimized environment and organism relationship that has developed via evolutionary mechanisms might be called semiotic fitness, and expresses the fitness ratio with a formula S/E=I (where S is the efficiency of the semiotic control of life processes and E the magnitude of energy flow canalized through the system). Applying the formula to modern times, he finds that the possibilities for extracting ever growing magnitudes of energy that the industrial revolution opened up have not been accompanied by the development of corresponding control mechanisms for directing the energy flows. The latter (lack of) development can thus be seen as one of the major sources of the current environmental crisis.

• Details
• Contents