What if phenomenal consciousness, signs, communication, and interpretation are fundamental aspects of all living systems, whether or not we can detect brains? This is the departure point of biosemiotics, an interdisciplinary field that combines biology, semiotics (the study of signs and meaning), and philosophy.
Environmental philosopher Dr. Yogi Hendlin is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Biosemiotics and, in this conversation, Hans Busstra talks to him about the widespread meaning-making in nature. All living beings, from bacteria to plants to mammals, have an ‘Umwelt,’ a dashboard representation of the world. In a sense, biosemiotics states that our mind is in the world: we are embodied beings, and with every inhalation 50.000 microbes enter our body, and they communicate to us by influencing our microbiome.
0:00:00 Intro
0:03:20 Does nature speak to us in a language that we forgot?
0:08:18 The decentralization of agency
0:12:31 On the pluri-crisis
0:18:09 What's the measurement problem in biology?
0:23:04 What is biosemiotics?
0:27:23 The overlapping of dashboards, of 'Umwelts'
0:30:13 Semiocide: the killing of meaning
0:32:52 Reality as inhalation and exhalation
0:35:53 Psychedelics are Ecodelics
0:37:50 Hans on the love for a tree
0:43:29 'Shinrin-yoku': forest bathing in Japan
0:47:55 Scrolling on our black mirrors: craving to be seen by the more-than-human world
0:48:55 On spiritual bypassing
0:54:30 The state of emergency we're in
0:58:04 What is the crisis of reason behind the planetary problems we see?
1:07:25 We need to feel again
1:12:07 Hans and Yogi discuss the Mind at Large
1:14:58 How do we 'report back' to the universe?
1:18:19 If you have to suffer, make it beautiful
1:19:51 Yogi on his personal 'dance'
1:24:25 Closing remarks
Links to Dr. Yogi Hendlin's scientific work:
Khumalo, B., & Hendlin, Y. H. (2024). Nonveridical biosemiotics and the Interface Theory of Perception: Implications for perception-mediated selection. Phenomenology and the Cognitive Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11097-024-10013-y
Hendlin, Y. H. (2020). Sunlight as a Photosynthetic Information Technology: Becoming Plant in Tom Robbins's Jitterbug Perfume. In K. E. Bishop, D. Higgins, & J. Määttä (Eds.), Plants in science fiction: Speculative vegetation (pp. 151–175). University of Wales Press.
Hendlin, Y. H. (2020). The human turn in biosemiotics. In Ľ. Lacková, C. J. Rodríguez, & K. Kull (Eds.), Gatherings in Biosemiotics XX. University of Tartu Press.
Hendlin, Y. H. (2023). Object‐Oriented Ontology and the Other of We in Anthropocentric Posthumanism. Zygon. https://doi.org/10.1111/zygo.12864
Hendlin, Y. H. (2021). Surveying the Chemical Anthropocene: Chemical Imaginaries and the Politics of Defining Toxicity. Environment and Society, 12(1), 181–202. https://doi.org/10.3167/ares.2021.120111
Other scientific work referenced in the interview:
Asher Walden's essay
https://www.essentiafoundation.org/the-symbiotic-ecology-of-the-psychedelic-realm/reading/
Primates Meditating
Smuts, B. (2001). Encounters with animal minds. Journal of Consciousness Studies, 8(5–6), 293–309. http://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/imp/jcs/2001/00000008/F0030005/1213
On Human-Dolphin fishing
Zappes, C. A., Andriolo, A., Simões-Lopes, P. C., & Di Beneditto, A. P. M. (2011). ‘Human-dolphin (Tursiops truncatus Montagu, 1821) cooperative fishery’ and its influence on cast net fishing activities in Barra de Imbé/Tramandaí, Southern Brazil. Ocean & Coastal Management, 54(5), 427–432. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ocecoaman.2011.02.003
On 'tree-hugging' in India
Shiva, V., & Bandyopadhyay, J. (1986). The Evolution, Structure, and Impact of the Chipko Movement. Mountain Research and Development, 6(2), 133–142. https://doi.org/10.2307/3673267
On Elephants helping people survive after the Sri Lankan Tsunami
Wikramanayake, E., Fernando, P., & Leimgruber, P. (2006). Behavioral Response of Satellite-collared Elephants to the Tsunami in Southern Sri Lanka1. Biotropica, 38(6), 775–777. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1744-7429.2006.00199.x
Tsunami images under fair use policy
All stock footage licensed under Storyblocks
Music licensed under Soundstripe
Interview content copyright by Essentia Foundation, 2025
www.essentiafoundation.org