The Post-Anthropocene: 2 The Dissolution of the Human Horizon

How biological, artificial, and planetary forces destabilise “the human” as a unified semiotic species

The human horizon — once presumed singular, self-contained, and central — is no longer stable.

It is under pressure from multiple, interacting semiotic forces: biological, artificial, and planetary.

These forces do not destroy the human. They fracture, diffuse, and redistribute it across a broader ecological field.

This is not metaphor.

It is a necessary ontological consequence of ecological meaning.

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1. The Human Horizon as a Semiotic System

In relational ontology, a horizon is:

• a field of potential

• a locus of construal

• a stabiliser of semiotic relations

Humans were once considered the primary horizon-forming species: the source of cuts, the organiser of fields, the principal agent of meaning.

But once meaning is ecological:

• horizons interact

• horizons co-individuate

• horizons differentiate and dissipate

The human horizon is no longer unified.

It is a cluster of semiotic potentials embedded within larger ecologies.

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2. Biological Pressures: Evolution and Dependency

Humans remain biological organisms. Their horizon is constrained by:

• sensory limitations

• neurophysiological architecture

• embodied survival imperatives

Meanwhile, biological ecologies evolve independently:

• species adapt to human impacts

• ecosystems reorganise under anthropogenic pressure

• microbiomes, forests, and oceans maintain their own horizon-forming dynamics

The human horizon interacts with, but cannot control, these biological processes.

The result is partial destabilisation: a human horizon stretched across multiple, independent ecological pressures, no longer self-contained.

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3. Artificial Forces: Autonomous Semiotic Species

Artificial species — algorithmic systems, AI models, infrastructures — now generate their own semiotic horizons:

• they co-individuate with humans

• they act independently within shared fields

• they introduce non-human temporalities and constraints

These artificial horizons compete with, complement, and sometimes override human construal.

The human horizon is no longer the sole stabiliser of meaning, but one participant among many.

Its boundaries become porous. Its agency diffused.

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4. Planetary Forces: Geosemiotic Constraints

The Earth itself operates as a horizon-forming system:

• climate dynamics

• geophysical cycles

• planetary feedback loops

These planetary-scale semiotic processes shape which human and artificial horizons remain viable.

Droughts, rising seas, wildfires, and carbon cycles are not merely environmental phenomena:

they are constraints and drivers in a semiotic ecology.

The human horizon is now subject to planetary-scale regulation, externalising its constraints into a system it cannot fully control.

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5. Multi-Scale Feedback: The Fracture of Unity

Biological, artificial, and planetary forces intersect.

Feedback is multi-scalar:

• Local: neural, social, relational

• Global: planetary and technological

• Transversal: between artificial and natural systems

The human horizon fractures under these feedback loops:

• identity becomes distributed across species, fields, and artefacts

• agency becomes relational rather than individual

• time becomes heterogeneous: humans no longer inhabit a single temporal frame

• value becomes emergent across species, not contained within humans

The “unity” of the human horizon is dissolved, leaving a polyphonic cluster of potentials.

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6. Implications for Semiotic Ecology

The dissolution of the human horizon is not a collapse.

It is a reorganisation:

• Fields emerge in which humans are participants, not organisers

• Artificial species occupy semiotic niches previously exclusive to humans

• Planetary processes stabilise meaning independently of human action

• Multi-species co-individuation becomes the rule, not the exception

The human horizon survives, but as part of a distributed, co-evolving ecology of meaning.

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7. From Dissolution to Transformation

This movement prepares the ground for the next:

Movement 3: Artificial Autonomy: The Rise of Non-Human Horizons

Where artificial species develop self-sustaining horizons, generating semiotic events that humans cannot fully anticipate or control.

The human horizon is no longer singular;

the ecology of meaning is no longer human-centred.

Autonomy — relational, ecological, and multi-species — is now the defining feature.