(1) The Reasoning Behind The Generalisation
Social semiotic systems evolve from categorising the behaviours of interactants — body movements and their products — as meaningful. Semiotic beings, persons, have meaning potential: the potential to express meaning. Since other categorisables are also meaningful, have
potential meaning, they can therefore be categorised as meaning-makers: semiotic beings with
meaning potential, giving rise to a model of the environment as a network of persons.
[1] Such personifications of nature therefore
express meanings which provide the means of learning how to fit into the natural environment. Nature is construed as a resource of meaning potential (a ‘font of knowledge’) for the community to learn from.
(2) The Genesis Of The Model
Clues to the genesis of this model can be seen in current ontogenesis. Firstly, when a semiotic system reaches a threshold level of complexity, in terms of the number of ungrouped choices, it becomes simplified, and so made more efficient, through a process of generalisation. An example of this, in the ontogenesis of English, is the generalisation of the regular past tense morpheme to all verbs, including irregular verbs, by children who had previously used the irregular forms. This is then followed by the gradual differentiation of exceptions to that generalisation. The genesis of the ‘all-as-social-system’ model can be similarly understood as a generalisation that occurred when the model of the perceivable reached a level of complexity that induced simplification through regularisation. The depersonalising of the environment that has occurred since those times can be understood as the gradual differentiation of exceptions to that generalisation.
Secondly, the personification of nonhuman domains is a pervasive feature of adult–child interaction. In many cultures, adults personify other species for children in stories such as nursery tales and fables; they personify bears and trains as toys, they personify the sun and moon, as in drawings, and they personify comforting adult behaviours as the tooth fairy, easter bunny and santa claus, for example.
[2] For their part, children map themselves onto onto nonhuman participants, as when they imagine themselves as lions, elephants and so on. Crucially, children
value the process of personification: they delight in it, which in turn rewards and encourages adults who engage in personification in their interactions with them. If the positive valuing of personifying is biologically heritable, then it suggests that this biasing of semiotic behaviour is a feature of the feedback system between parent and child that guides parenting behaviour in inexperienced adults and increases the survival prospects of children.
The biological value may have been as little as slightly more children surviving in some generations from simply assuming that all noises are caused by personifications of ‘ever-present danger’. But inventing dangerous persons
[3] is an extremely efficient way of managing the behaviour of curious children, since there is no need for adults to answer myriad questions — fear does all the work for them.
[4]
Footnotes:
[1] In a later model, in mediæval Europe, the natural world was interpreted as expressions of the meaning of a personified creator. That is, nature was modelled as the text of a semiotic being.
[2] Mapping the familiar and human onto the alien and inanimate has the interpersonal value of providing comfort.
[3] Interestingly, in raising the bonobo Kanzi in an English-speaking environment, Sue Savage-Rumbaugh invented an unseen dangerous monster as part of his behaviour management.
[4] Just as fear does all the work for politicians trying to manage a curious electorate.
ChatGPT revised:
(1) The Reasoning Behind The Generalisation
Social semiotic systems evolve by categorising the behaviours of interactants — bodily movements and their products — as meaningful. A semiotic being, or person, is one with meaning potential: the capacity to produce meaning. But since other categorisables — animals, rivers, weather patterns, celestial bodies — also exhibit patterned behaviour that can be construed as meaningful, they too can be modelled as semiotic beings. That is, they can be personified: treated as intentional agents in a social network. The environment becomes a network of persons, each with meaning potential.
These personifications of nature thus construe the environment as a source of meaning: a font of knowledge from which communities can learn how to live. The natural world, in other words, instructs. This is not metaphor in the abstract, but a semiotic affordance: the environment is readable because it is interpreted as meaningful — as something that speaks.
(2) The Genesis Of The Model
We can trace the origin of this model in two places:
(i) Systemic simplification through generalisation:
Ontogenetically, when a semiotic system reaches a threshold level of complexity, it becomes simplified by generalising patterns. For example, English-speaking children generalise the regular past tense morpheme (-ed) to irregular verbs (e.g., goed for went), increasing efficiency. This is followed by differentiation as exceptions are later learned. By analogy, when early humans faced a complex array of perceptual phenomena, they generalised the existing model they already understood — social interaction — and applied it to all phenomena. This gave rise to a personified world.
The depersonalisation of the environment over the last few millennia can be understood as a slow differentiation of exceptions to this generalisation, where certain domains (e.g., physics) are carved out as non-agentive — no longer read as personal.
(ii) Developmental patterning in adult–child interaction:
Adults personify the nonhuman world for children: bears and trains talk, the moon smiles, the wind howls. This is not just pedagogic but affective — personification provides comfort. Children, in turn, personify themselves as animals or natural forces. The mutual enjoyment of this process — the child’s delight, the adult’s encouragement — forms a feedback loop that may have evolutionary roots.
If the valuing of personification is biologically heritable, then this behaviour becomes a cultural universal with evolutionary advantages. Even a minor advantage — such as children avoiding dangerous places because they believe a ‘monster’ lives there — could incrementally increase survival rates. Fear, in this model, is not a flaw but a semiotic tool: an early pedagogic technology.
Side Note on Footnotes:
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[1] In medieval Europe, this model matured into the idea of Nature as the Text of God — a divine person with a readable message, aligning the world-as-person model with literate theology.
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[2] The interpersonal value of personification — as comfort and familiarity — reinforces its survival.
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[3] The bonobo Kanzi’s upbringing shows that even non-human primates respond to invented personifications in their behavioural development.
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[4] The political analogy is devastatingly apt: fear does the work of control — be it in caves or campaigns.