13:30-13:35
Greeting

13:35-14:35
"Forest of Signals: Approaching Semiodiversity"
Jason Parry（Sapienship / Former Visiting Research Fellow of RIHN）

Despite their reputation as places of tranquility suitable for calm reflection, forests are saturated with meaningful signals. Mycorrhizal networks relay electrical messages underground; bird songs with distinct syntactical patterns punctuate the soundscape; and insect pheromones waft through the air alongside volatile compounds emitted by plants. The concept of “biodiversity,” coined in the 1980s, has drawn much-needed attention to the ways in which interrelationships between vastly different species sustain ecosystems. In these remarks, I propose the term “semiodiversity” as a complementary concept, useful to the degree that it foregrounds the importance of the exchange of signs as a crucial component of ecological integrity. Drawing on the lessons of data visualization and contemporary art, I suggest how focusing attention on the diversity of nonhuman sign systems opens up new paths for conservation and for engagement with the more-than-human world.

14:40-15:40
"On the Digitization of the Mediations with Socio-Ecological Milieux. Is the Centralization of Control inescapable?"
Stephane Grumbach（INRIA / Invited Scholar of RIHN）and Anselme Grumbach（Maidsafe, Glasgow）

Human societies evolve by differentiation into increasingly many sub-systems. Differentiation can segment systems into similar units such as factories or schools for instance, or stratify systems into hierarchical units, such as management and production. Emerging with the increase of complexity, functional differentiation separates different functions horizontally, such as accounting, personnel or communication departments. Differentiation is an evolutionary process which operates over a dynamic network of interacting sub-systems, allowing adaptation to environmental (nature, technology, society) change, at the price of destructive creations, the development of social inequalities, power asymmetries, as well as network domination.

In the mid 1990's a new form of functional differentiation unfolded purely based on digitalized information. Platforms progressively kicked out legacy actors from numerous two-sided markets to ensure the mediation between consumers and producers of goods or services. By doing so, they acquired a hyper-centrality in the network, pushing to the periphery public and private actors, condemning many to obsolescence. The resulting extreme concentration of control and power is raising innumerable questions regarding the very core of human societies. While the global financial crisis of 2007-2008 impacted institutional trust, a revolutionary alternative to centralized systems emerged with the invention of Bitcoin. The capacity to perform transactions, such as payments, without trusted third parties is a major innovation that could profoundly transform organizations, thus reversing the current trend of concentration of power and information dominant today.

In this talk, we will present the main technologies, the context in which they emerged, as well as their potential of transformation in the context of the adaptation to planetary boundaries.

15:45-16:00
"Finding a new mode of co-existence between human beings, living things, and machines: From the future fudo perspective"
Masahiro Terada（Visiting Professor, RIHN）

Sustainability for whom? Sustainability is often thought to be that for human beings. In the Anthropocene age, however, it should extend its view onto other than human beings including living beings and non-living agents like machines. To investigate such a new mode of environmental co-existence, this presentation thinks that ‘fudo’ notion gives us a hint. Referring the ‘fudo’ theory developed by Tetsuro Watsuji and Augustine Berque, it wants to elong its perspective into the future.

This is a quest for new concepts and vocabularies plausible for our alternative future. There might be other suitable notions and words similar to and other than ‘fudo’ in this globe. Adoption of the term ‘fudo’ in this paper does not mean to emphasize uniqueness of this East Asian/Japanese philosophical concept, but it intends to stimulate contributions from other cultural traditions.

16:00-17:00
General Discussion