Cybernetics and Human Knowing. Vol. 27 (2020), no. 3, pp. 33–63 Knowing How to Be: Imitation, the Neglected Axiom Stephen Laszlo Jarosek1 The concept of imitation has been around for a very long time, and many conversations have been had about it, from Plato and Aristotle to Piaget and Freud. Yet despite this pervasive acknowledgement of its relevance in areas as diverse as memetics, culture, child development and language, there exists little appreciation of its relevance as a fundamental principle in the semiotic and life sciences. Reframing imitation in the context of knowing how to be, within the framework of semiotic theory, can change this, thus providing an interpretation of paradigmatic significance. However, given the difficulty of establishing imitation as a fundamental principle after all these centuries since Plato, I turn the question around and approach it from a different angle. If imitation is to be incorporated into semiotic theory and the Peircean categories as axiomatic, then what pathologies manifest when imitation is disabled or compromised? I begin by reviewing the reasons for regarding imitation as a fundamental principle. I then review the evidence with respect to autism and schizophrenia as imitation deficit. I am thus able to consolidate my position that imitation and knowing how to be are integral to agency and pragmatism (semiotic theory), and should be embraced within an axiomatic framework for the semiotic and life sciences. Keywords: autism; biosemiotics; imitation; neural plasticity; Peirce; pragmatism The concept of imitation has been around for a very long time, and many conversations have been had about it, from Plato and Aristotle to Piaget and Freud. Richard Dawkins’s memetic theory incorporates imitation into the Darwinian narrative, and interprets memes, analogous to genes, as cultural replicators. Clearly, Copyright (c) Imprint Academic imitation is regarded as important throughout academia and within contemporary Occidental culture. Yet despite this pervasive acknowledgement of its relevance, there For personal use only -- not for reproduction exists little appreciation of its place as a fundamental principle in the semiotic, cognitive and life sciences. There is little point accruing further evidence to prove imitation’s importance. If our cultural narrative has failed to appreciate its significance by now, after all these centuries since Plato through to contemporary Darwinism and systems theory, then it is unlikely to in the foreseeable future. We need to take a different approach, to interpret imitation more fundamentally, particularly within the context of the Peircean categories. Before addressing terms and definitions in greater detail in a later section, let’s begin by first establishing what the consensus on imitation is, and what it is generally understood to mean. From Wikipedia (2019): Imitation (from Latin imitatio, “a copying, imitation” [Online etymology dictionary]) is an advanced behavior whereby an individual observes and replicates another's behavior. Imitation is also a form of social learning that leads to the "development of traditions, and ultimately our culture. 1. Independent research scholar. Email: [email protected] 34 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek It allows for the transfer of information (behaviours, customs, etc.) between individuals and down generations without the need for genetic inheritance" (Hopper 2010). The word imitation can be applied in many contexts, ranging from animal training to politics. The term generally refers to conscious behavior; subconscious imitation is termed mirroring. (Wikipedia, 2019) 1) Reframing Imitation as a Fundamental Principle 1.1 The Pervasiveness of Imitation A cursory overview of some of the reasons why imitation should be taken more seriously within the life sciences. Here are some contentions that align with the thesis that I am setting out to establish: • Pragmatism within the context of mind-body predispositions (Jarosek, 2013), on its own, does not adequately account for how organisms make choices from their ecosystems. It is necessary to factor in imitation in order to account for the myriads of options that impact on behavior, from animals in the wild and domesticated animals, to humans in culture. • I contend that imitation provides humans with access to an array of options in culture that far exceed the options confined solely to arms-length, mind-body predispositions. Through language, our extended horizon of options enables us to get into the minds of others to apprehend experiences and contexts well beyond our own immediate familial contexts. • My contention is that it is imitation, not instinct, that provides the basis for replicating behavior. More specifically, there is no such thing as instinct. What is often mischaracterized as instinct, in non-human animals, is a category error. Animals without human language are confined to simpler, Copyright (c) Imprint Academic more reflexive actions and responses within a reduced horizon of options. Their behavior is no more confined to instinct than our own. There is nothing For personal use only -- not for reproduction about the instinct fallacy that cannot be addressed in the Peircean categories and our imitation thesis. This places us in a position to address the clumsy instinct-freewill dichotomy that has plagued Occidental science and theology throughout history. • Peirce’s categories are still important, but they are more appropriately interpreted as the filter through which organisms decide what to imitate. For example, humans with female mind-bodies will be predisposed to imitating women, and humans with male mind-bodies will be predisposed to imitating men. • My contention is that imitation, as the driver for conformity, provides the basis for structure, order, and division of labor. Without it, there would be only the chaos of individual needs and, therefore, disorder. Imitation is perhaps the most important solution to the entropy problem, because without it, there would be no colonies or culture. • Imitation, particularly within the existential context of knowing how to be, plays a fundamental role in the major world religions: Knowing How to Be 35 i) There are several references to imitation and leading by example, throughout the Catholic Holy Bible (Smith 2019 and Thomas à Kempis 1989). To follow Christ is to imitate him (Burridge 2007). Drake Williams (2013) explores Ignatius’s interpretation of imitation as a means of identifying with God, with “the person of Christ”, and with reference to human examples. Imitation of Christ as “a general ethical notion related to suffering, love, humility, and endurance.” Imitation as “being like God” and the imitation of “exemplary human beings.” ii) Islam clearly prohibits imitation of the kuffaar, that is, non- Muslims. Reasons revolve principally around identification, for example, “by describing those who imitate the kuffaar as being of them” (Islam Question & Answer, 2012) and “Whoever imitates a people is one of them” (narrated by Abu Dawood, 3512, in Islam Question & Answer, 2012). • Knowing how to be relates to Dasein, which is a concept from the existential philosophy of Martin Heidegger. Dasein is a German word that translates to English as being there, or presence, or existence. Concepts expressed in the context of Dasein include being-in-the-world, knowing oneself (Sichkennen), being-with, uncovering, being-with-one-another, potentiality-for-being, thrownness, modes of being, and these point clearly to the importance of engagement within the world in the course of discovering the kind of person Copyright (c) Imprint Academic that one is to become. Being and Time (Heidegger, 1962) provided the original inspiration for the existentialism of Jean-Paul Sartre, whose “existence precedes essence” relates to the notion that an individual’s essence For personal use only -- not for reproduction emerges with the choices that they make and how they live their life. Knowing how to be therefore relates in a fundamental way to existential philosophy. To have an existential crisis is thus to have a crisis of being—a crisis of knowing how to be. In summary, imitation relates to pragmatism because it is one of the ways in which organisms (as agents) define the things that matter. But imitation extends the narrative from that of individual needs, to that of the whole—the colony, the culture. Imitation is thus integral to knowing how to be, because compliance with the whole implies agreed-upon habits, narratives and assumptions. 1.2 Agency as Knowing How to Be Imitation plays an important role in how we and other entities know how to be, and knowing how to be relates to agency. In order to address the limitations of self-organization from the bottom up, we need to factor in organization from the top down, and this places mind-stuff at center 36 Stephen Laszlo Jarosek stage. An agent must know how to be in order to reliably and consistently gather facts that are relevant and attribute meaning. Kull (2018, p. 452) suggests “shifting the concept of choice to the centre of the semiotic theory of learning”: The model we propose consists in a slight redefinition of the general terms of learning, memory and semiosis. We define these terms bringing in the concept of free choice, which has been downplayed by both the computational and the neo-Darwinian approaches to learning. We observe that, in semiotics, the concept of free choice has not received the attention it deserves. (Kull, 2018, p. 453) By shifting emphasis to free choice, Kull positions the agent at the locus of control, and this aligns the agent’s choice-making with knowing how to be. Okasha (2018, n.p.2) examines the importance of agency and agential thinking in biology, which “involves treating an evolved organism as if it were an agent pursuing a goal, such as survival and reproduction, and treating its phenotypic traits, including its behaviours, as strategies for achieving this goal.” To this end, semiosis, pragmatism and imitation are integral. Heidegger’s Dasein incorporates being in the world into its narrative, and therefore by extension, knowing how to be.