An evolutionary cybernetics perspective on language and coordination

• We identify three open issues in semantics and analyze them from the perspective of evolutionary cybernetics.
• We argue that the origin of semiosis coincides with that of self-regulation.
• We show that coordination between self-regulating systems leads to novel conventional codes during metasystem or “major transitions”.
• Language is the result of a metasystem transition resulting from the coordination of human language users.

Starting from the observation that many open issues in linguistics hinge on problems of semantics, we discuss three core semantic notions: categories, agency, and qualification or semiosis. We argue that the origin of these coincide with the emergence of self-regulatory systems, systems that control their own persistence as localizable dynamical systems. When such systems interact a metasystem transition can occur in which the regulatory capacity per system is increased through the mechanisms of extension and specialization. Newly arising mutual dependencies force the formerly independent systems to coordinate their behaviour which leads them to effectively become a single system – a novel agency at a higher level of organization – thus qualifying the emergence of a novel language or code. We go on to argue that natural languages are instances of such naturally occurring conventionalization processes, corroborating the view that language should primarily be characterized as coordination.