Note on "Conferential"

As a note to what I wrote yesterday, let me add that Sebeok’s article is still available online. It should come up easily by searching on “Semiotics and the biological sciences initial conditions Thomas A Sebeok” without the quotation marks. If not, I note the link below. Sebeok’s mention of Lotman goes:

The Russian master, Yuri Lotman, has […] taken the boldly original step of doing away with the concept of a “bridge” altogether, replacing it by the semiotically sensitie manoeuvre of transcoding. A main principle of his research method was the elimination of the opposition between the exact sciences and the humanities by treating the fabrics of these complementary domains as if they were readily transmutable from one semiotic system to another (Lotman 1990:271).

Lotman 1990 etc. is the 1990 publication Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Study of Culture.

One of the links to the Sebeok article:

 http://livingbooksaboutlife.org/pdfs/sebeok.pdf