ABSTRACT
Despite the distinct sociocultural and disciplinary origins of neurosemiotics and ideology, these two concepts have a deep affinity. In this chapter, we argue that ideology is a natural consequence of the emergent complexity of language, as it evolved from proto-language to become the multidimensional semiotic system of modern language. Given the pervasiveness of ideology, we further claim that the ideological creativity of humans and human languages must be explicable in terms of properties of the human brain, including its metastability and complexity, and in terms of principles that explain neuronal dynamics, such as degeneracy. As a result, we chart new intersections among research on language, ideology, and the human brain.
