The Biosphere and Embedded Semiospheres
Since the Biosphere is primarily water based,
it can be viewed as an extension of the Hydrosphere. It contains the
following sub-spheres:
(Bio- (Oiko- (Semio- (Anthropo- (Ethno- (Noo-
sphere)))))
In this view, the Oikosphere is
just another aspect of the Biosphere, namely its view from the
"inter-organic" domain, ie. the mainfold of all (energetic, material,
chemical...) connections and relations of all organisms with all others. The
Semiosphere is the mainfold of all sign exchange processes of all
organisms. The Anthroposphere is defined after (Gumilev (1987:
360)):
"In this perspective mankind is
regarded as a certain covering of the planet Earth or as part of the
biosphere... the anthroposphere... the biomass of all people together with the
products of their activity... domestic animals, cultivated plants... the
anthoposphere is ... a mosaic [consisting of] ... collections of
persons."
The Ethnosphere is the mainfold of
all human cultural patterns after
Gumilev
(1990: 175),
and the Noosphere is the mainfold of all higher human symbolic
activities. (
Vernadsky
(1997: 155),
Hofkirchner
(1997)).
