Pattern Sciences: Toward a Fractal Understanding of Cultures

Introducing a topological perspective, and specifically a systematic attention to the presence and role of fractal patterns in the semiotics of culture, serves a both theoretical and practical purpose. On the one hand, it allows researchers to detect and formalize parallels and divergences among the different layers that compose not only texts, but also entire semiospheres. If singling out the “text of a culture” of a society, that is, its signifying formula, is the ultimate goal of cultural semiotics, that is more easily reached by adopting a common and dynamic analytical framework at both the macro- and the micro- textual level. On the other hand, the topological theory of fractals, even at a relatively superficial level of its mathematical understanding, provides researchers with the ability to intersubjectively formalize their hypotheses about how the internal structure of a semiosphere evolves under the pressure of both external cultural influence and internal rearrangement.