Publication 5163

Alfred Korzybski’s map-territory metaphor and his time-binding notion are presented here as a potential framework for the explanation of the role of recursion in biological processes of cognition. Korzybski’s self-reflexiveness principle is related to Gregory Bateson’s ‘ecology of mind’ and ‘radical constructivism’ in the work of Heinz von Foerster and Ernst von Glasersfeld. From this point the author postulates the possibility of metalogy as a recursive, topologically inspired model of the cognition in living systems. Cognition is understood as a self-referential, circular activity whose topological form avoids solipsism. Subsequently, the article considers the code-duality principle in biosemiotics of Jesper Hoffmeyer and Claus Emmeche. Second order code-duality serves as an explanatory principle for self-as-other-coding, where a ‘self’ is being established in ontogeny as a form of a dynamic stability of self- and other-reference on different logical levels, thus confirming the central role of recursion in the biological processes of cognitive development.