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17More Constraints, More Freedom: Revisit Semiotic Scaffolding, Semiotic Freedom, and Semiotic EmergenceBiosemiotics 16 (3): 395-413. 2023.How semiotic freedom emerges in the evolution and development of organisms through semiotic scaffolding is a core problem for biosemiotics. There is a paradox in explaining this semiotic emergence: reduction in (semiotic) freedom leads to the creation of new semiotic freedom. Semiotic emergence is a species of dynamic emergence. Accordingly, the paradox of semiotic emergence is a species of the paradox of dynamic emergence. The latter paradox claims that reducing lower-level freedom generates ne…Read more
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220Structural, referential and normative informationInformation and Culture 3 (56): 303-322. 2021.This article provides a comprehensive conceptual analysis of information. It begins with a folk notion that information is a tripartite phenomenon: information is something carried by signals about something for some use. This suggests that information has three main aspects: structural, referential, and normative. I analyze the individually necessary and jointly sufficient conditions for defining these aspects of information and consider formal theories relating to each aspect as well. The anal…Read more
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4The Communication of Form. Why Cybersemiotic Star Is Necessary for Information Studies?In Carlos Vidales & Søren Brier (eds.), Introduction to Cybersemiotics: A Transdisciplinary Perspective, Springer Verlag. pp. 283-300. 2021.The chapter first formulates the problems of information and analyzes why they are hard to solve. Then it critically reviews two classes of prevailing theories in information studies arguing that they cannot attain success because the assumptions behind them are too limited. In recent years, some semioticians have rediscovered the theory of information developed by Peirce. Deeply embodied in semiotics, the theory treats information as the communication of form in semiosis, which should be interp…Read more
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46Complementarity in information studiesSynthese 197 (1): 293-310. 2020.The principle of complementarity in physics can be generalized and extended to information studies. It helps explain the dilemma faced by information studies today. The prevailing endeavor that going beyond the limitation of formal theories and to develop a unified theory of information falls in the dilemma which is structurally homologous to the dilemmas in quantum physics. The dilemma is caused by an epistemological paradox called assignment paradox. The paradox can be removed through generali…Read more
Liqian Zhou
Shanghai Jiao Tong University
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Shanghai Jiao Tong UniversityAssociate Professor
Areas of Specialization
Philosophy of Information |
Conceptions of Information |
Biological Information |
Areas of Interest
Philosophy of Information |
Conceptions of Information |
Biological Information |