Pre-individual origins of semiosis: Gilbert Simondon on the sign as a transductive operator

In contemporary semiotics and philosophy of consciousness, representative (Peirce, Saussure) and structural-systemic (Luhmann) models of the sign dominate, failing to explain its genesis from pre-logical, affective-bodily, and materially-technical processes. The growing interest in non-representational, processual, and enactive approaches in cognitive science, media theory, and biosemiotics necessitates a reconsideration of the ontology of the sign. The philosophy of Gilbert Simondon, which remains underappreciated in semiotic studies, offers a radical alternative by situating the origin of semiosis in the pre-individual field—a metastable area of tensions and potentials that precede subject-object relationships. The key subject of analysis is the sign as an "operator of transduction," crystallizing in the act of individuation to resolve metastability and transfer energy between heterogeneous orders of reality. This approach opens up prospects for analyzing sign processes in contemporary material-technical environments (digital platforms, neurointerfaces, biotechnologies), where semiosis functions as a mechanism of continuous transduction between affect, collective imagination, and technological systems. The research methodology is based on the sequential application of the following complementary methods, appropriate to Simondon's processual ontology: genetic reconstruction of the concept, conceptual analysis, transdisciplinary synthesis, and the principle of genetic methodology. This complex of methods aims to trace the immanent logic of the formation of the Simondonian concept of the sign, avoiding its reification and maintaining a focus on its operational nature as a tool for understanding dynamic processes. This approach allows not only for the reconstruction of the original theory but also for the explication of its heuristic potential in developing a non-reductionist semiotics in relevant philosophical and interdisciplinary contexts. The scientific novelty of the work lies in the deconstruction of the representative paradigm: the sign is interpreted not as a carrier of meaning but as an event of transformation, fulfilling the function of practically resolving tensions. For the first time in semiotics, the connection of the sign with the metaphysically primary, pre-individual level is ontologized, and technical objects are interpreted as active co-agents of semiotic transduction. This approach paves the way for a non-reductionist semiotics of life, significant for philosophy, cognitive science (as an alternative to computational models), and media theory (analyzing digital technologies as environments of continuous individuation). Meaning (signification), according to Simondon, arises at the intersection of affect, gesture, collective, and machine. This allows for the study of semiosis not as a static representation but as a dynamic ecology of becoming.