Cybernetics as a source of Czech semiotics
Cybernetics as a source of Czech semiotics

Summary/Abstract: It is clear that biosemiotics should not be limited to the obvious relationship between biology and semiotics but rather acknowledge and explore the fact that cybernetics is also one of its relevant sources (Cannizzaro 2013). The benefits of collaboration between biosemiotics and cybernetics have been demonstrated several times (cf. Brier 2008, Sharov 2010). This paper focuses on one small and local chapter from the history of relations between cybernetics and (bio)semiotics during the formation of Czech semiotics (elsewhere I call it the Czech theory, see Gvoždiak 2016, see also the English review by Velmezova 2016) and especially Kybernetické modelování [Cybernetic Modeling] by Jiří Klír and Miroslav Valach (Klír, Valach 1965). Of course, given that more than fifty years have passed since its Czech edition, Cybernetic Modeling cannot be expected to bring a significant contribution to current questions in biosemiotics, and the Czechoslovak cybernetics of the 1960s itself can hardly be considered a direct and explicit source of current (Czech) biosemiotics. Cybernetic Modeling can nevertheless be seen as a way – albeit imperfect – of framing biosemiotic questions, and in the case of the Czech theory it may even play a constitutive role.

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