Dialogical structure of the brain and the ternary system of the mind: the neurosemiotics of Yuri Lotman

Abstract

Yuri Lotman (1922–1993) was a semiologist, literary critic, and cultural historian from Soviet Russia. He is credited with founding the multidisciplinary Tartu-Moscow School of Semiotics. As a cultural theorist and humanist, he was highly influential across many fields, but his contributions to theories about the brain as a semiotic system have often been overlooked.

Topics such as the asymmetry of the brain hemispheres, the “untranslatable” specialization of their respective “languages”, interhemispheric dialogue, and the unity of consciousness were frequent subjects of discussion within the scientific community that formed around the multidisciplinary Tartu-Moscow (and Leningrad) group. Recently, scholars such as E. Andrews and T.V. Chernigovskaya have highlighted the influence and relevance of the “neurosemiotic” model proposed by Yu.M. Lotman in the late 1970s. However, our impression is that a fundamental aspect, which Yu.M. Lotman considered indispensable for the functioning of any “thinking system”, has been overlooked in the application of this model to contemporary studies of neurophysiology. This aspect is the intersemiotic translation device that Yu.M. Lotman calls the “semiotic boundary”. We can consider this as a “third” structure of intersection between the two hemispheres, which actively operates to translate specialized information systems reciprocally. In this paper, we will attempt to restore its significance according to an interpretation updated to the most recent discoveries in cognitive neuroscience.

Keywords

Yuri Lotman / hemispheric asymmetry / multimodal semiotics / semiotic boundary

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