A semiotic perspective on the development of (artificial) consciousness

The interactional, intersubjective nature of the evolutionary development of consciousness and intentionality in human beings is one of the most difficult and often subverted aspects of human experience for experts working with modelling systems addressing such problems as natural language processing, development of inferencing and knowledge systems, interface design and indeed, human-computer interaction in general. A semiotic perspective has been chosen for this paper because I believe that semiotics provides an ontological framework that allows the evolutionary development of consciousness as intentionality to be examined within a broad cross-disciplinary framework, and because I believe that working within a semiotic framework is one of the most profitable ways for humanist scholars to approach this particular field of study.