Gary, Jon, Jack, List The question whether semiosis is cognitive or experiential, I’d extend more broadly to the relationship between the known and the unknown. This requires considerable unpacking… also if you can please excuse my clumsiness in expression, as I am not a Peirce scholar!
Extending semiosis to all levels, including the subatomic, confronts a most important relationship: The tension between the known and the unknown. Reflective persons can find this tension easy enough to intuit, in the context of culture, and the relationship between self (personal identity) and culture (cultural identity). It becomes even more interesting in the context of gender roles in culture, where one gender prioritizes the known (security, traditions, values, continuity) and the other gender prioritizes the unknown (risk, success, competition, change). This tension between the known and the unknown, I conjecture, is also relevant to the quantum void, where primal “somethingness” first attempts to manifest out of the “nothingness”… in this context, virtual particles and the Feynman diagrams relate. This notion of the “creative void” has its counterpart in Eastern mystical traditions (Buddhism, Hinduism) and Sunyata. It is worth paying close attention to Sunyata (śūnyatā), because this is where questions of primal phenomenology first manifest. This is the “knowing how to be” and Dasein, Being versus Not-Being - and the Peircean triadic scheme - at their most primal. [Footnote: Carlo Rovelli’s Relational Quantum Mechanics – RQM - caught my attention recently, and I think that this merits the close attention of Peirce scholars, as it neatly does away with the physicalism that has dominated the narratives in the likes of the Copenhagen Interpretation, Schrodinger wave equation, etc] On the question whether semiosis is cognitive or experiential, my conversation yesterday with ChatGPT might resonate. My question references the XVIVO video, “Inner Life of the Cell” (see below for the link). I asked CGPT the following question (relating to semiosis at the molecular level): “What narrative in quantum mechanics is most representative of this XVIVO** video? Can Carlo Rovelli's RQM, for example, be reframed to accommodate "The Inner Life of the Cell"? If not, what about other QM interpretations? It seems that there exists quite a leap from "the creative void" implied in the Feynman diagrams, to then extend it to the structured, productive antics playing out in "The Inner Life of the Cell". How do we cross this bridge?” An excerpt of ChatGPT’s response: “That XVIVO Inner Life of the Cell animation is a tour-de-force of molecular choreography: protein motors walking vesicles like little delivery trucks, ribosomes translating RNA into proteins, cytoskeletal filaments assembling and disassembling like living scaffolding. There’s an apparent intentionality in all that motion — not “purpose” in a conscious sense, but a deeply structured coordination. […] The bridge is in understanding how patterns of relational constraints scale up from quantum to biochemical to cellular organization.” My conversation with ChatGPT centred on the tension between the known and the unknown, and integral to it is the notion that everything is relational. As an example, CGPT describes the kinesin motor protein’s function in this relational context: “For example, a kinesin motor protein’s “function” is only defined relative to the microtubule track it’s on, the ATP molecules fueling it, and the vesicle it’s hauling. This is exactly RQM’s relational ontology at a biochemical scale.” This *relational* (associational) aspect aligns with our cognitive/ experiential question because whether or not an event is cognitive or experiential is contingent on the relation/ association (its context) manifesting. In the case of the kinesin motor protein, it would certainly not be “cognitive”, but can it be said to be experiential? (DEFINITION SPECIFICS: Should we define relational (association) as the generic, and cognitive/ experiential as the specific?) My conversation with CGPT yesterday was rather extensive, much too long to post here. But directly related is Carlo Rovelli’s *RQM* emphasizing that everything is, well, relational… everything exists always relative to something else, and from this relation, *meaning* (semiosis) is attributed. So, is that meaning cognitive in the sense of associating two events to synthesize a third, as what brains do? Or is it experiential, in the sense of a kinesin motor protein making its way along a microtubule track, without giving it a thought as to what it is doing? I thus reaffirm my opening contention: relational/ associative is the generic and cognitive/ experiential is the specific. Semiosis, reframed generically, is relational/ associative. The tension between the known and the unknown is semiosis at its most primal. Cognitive and experiential are what mind-bodies do when intercepting their experiences. REFERENCE: **XVIVO Scientific Animation. (2011, July 11). The Inner Life of the Cell Animation. [YouTube]: https://youtu.be/wJyUtbn0O5Y sj From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Gary Richmond Sent: 9 August, 2025 3:18 AM To: [email protected]; Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] If not Cognitive/Experiential, then what is Semiosis? Jon, List, Referencing your post yesterday, you and I agree that, as Peirce argues, Kant's Ding an sich is conceptually incoherent, that when we perceive something that we are directly perceiving it even as our conceptual hold is -- as it must be -- incomplete and imperfect, sometimes confused or distorted. Further, that "anything that exists can be denoted in a proposition" and if it can’t be indicated, it can’t be denoted; so, the Ding an sich can’t be indicated; therefore it doesn’t exist. Continuing that line of argumentation in your post today, I found it helpful for you to have included multiple short Peirce passages demonstrating that Peirce rejected the incoherent idea of an 'absolutely unknowable reality' which, again, is incoherent . I also certainly agree that Peirce’s ideal of infinite inquiry (truth as the eventual hypothetical consensus of all investigation) is not, as was suggested, subject to falsification, because, as you remarked, it is merely a regulative ideal which 'plays out' in an asymptotic manner, not at all a prediction of an actual end state that will ever be reached. Truth is what an ideal community of investigators would ultimately agree upon if research could proceed indefinitely under improving conditions of reasoning, evidence, and freedom from bias. Meanwhile our knowledge remains fallible and provisional and is always subject to correction and revision. It follows that progress toward truth is a communal effort, the “community of inquirers” over many, many generations, pushing knowledge forward. I thought this had been hashed out in the literature so that there was consensus on what Peirce meant by infinite inquiry. I liked your simple and concise explanation that experience is strictly cognitive while semiosis is not, that is as you put it, that while all cognition is semiosis, not all semiosis is cognition (again, that being exactly Peirce's 'broader conception') and why Peirce argues that something like thought appears in natural processes, not just our human brains. I fail to see why some find that difficult to comprehend; but, of course, even Peirce despaired of making his broader conception understood as you noted. But we are in the 21st century after over a century of Peirce scholarship. . . In my view, any contemporary attempt to limit semiosis to human cognition would be a step backward in semiotic. And as I noted in an earlier post, even some contemporary professional linguists, like Michael Shaprio, have embraced Peirce's semeiotic, including his 'broader conception', into their work. As I see it, the matters summarized above are all clearly Peirce's views, well established principles that, whether they are expressed as direct quotes or paraphrases, are recognized by many Peirce scholars as expressing his considered and weighed views on those matters (whatever questions there may be about other aspects of his philosophy). Now whether one agrees with them or not is another matter. But to suggest that everything I wrote in the first half of this message is just an individual, personal 'interpretation' of Peirce is, in my opinion, pure nonsense. Yet it would appear that, for some, one is damned whether they include direct quotes in a post or paraphrase Peirce. Heavens, there'd be few -- I mean no -- books rooted in what Peirce thought if both weren't included as standard operating procedure in scientific and philosophical literature. But your post today contains ideas that I have expressed reservations regarding at least some of the implications of Peirce's claim that “the universe is a vast representamen” (<-> your "single immense sign") and that all signs are interconnected in a vast continuum. You state that Peirce argues that every entity is a token of a type (so not only the word 'rose' but any particular actual🌹that one might single out, say point to in a garden) and, further, that every interaction is a degenerate form of a continuous triadic semiosis (where does Peirce argue that, may I ask?) That would seem to follow from semeiotic principles applicable to language and through--but to every interaction? Of course I'm eager to read you next post, as your argument that semiosis pervades the "single immense sign" which is the cosmos, that everything and every event participates in a continuous, unbroken web of semiosis, and I assume, semiotic meaning (or, perhaps, potential meaning) would seem to sum up the matter. But evidently there is more. . . While you've written about it here before, I still don't quite understand how that 'vast representamen' and much 'within' it (continuous with it?) evolves so I hope you're planning to discuss that further. (For the nonce I won't touch the theosemiotic conclusions you've drawn in other posts, although, as I recall, they are quintessential in your argument concerning the 'how' of evolution.) I very much appreciate the clarity of your last posts. Thanks, Gary R On Fri, Aug 8, 2025 at 2:12 PM Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Jack, List: For the record, this is your statement that I found (and still find) inscrutable, in case you would now like to clarify it. JRKC: I can prove that to/through (mediation) the human being, the thing cannot be what it is in asbentia of that relation nor need it even be similar or remotely equivalent. I did not invent the notion that it blocks the way of inquiry to claim that there is something real that is absolutely unknowable, it comes directly from Peirce. "The second bar which philosophers often set up across the roadway of inquiry lies in maintaining that this, that, and the other never can be known" (CP 1.138, EP 2:49, 1898). "The absolutely unknowable is a non-existent existence. The Unknowable is a nominalistic heresy" (CP 6.492, c. 1896). "[A]n unknowable reality is nonsense" (CP 8.43, c. 1885). By contrast, he never suggests that it blocks the way of inquiry to claim that something does not exist, as long as one has good reason for taking that position--which he does in the case of the thing-in-itself, as spelled out in my post earlier today (https://list.iu.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2025-08/msg00035.html). There is nothing self-contradictory about my statement in a post on Wednesday (https://list.iu.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2025-08/msg00017.html) that "experience is a strictly cognitive phenomenon, but semiosis is not." It neither says nor implies that "semiosis ... cannot be cognitive or experiential," only that semiosis (unlike experience) is not strictly cognitive. All experience is cognitive, and all cognition is semiosis, but not all semiosis is cognition. This is Peirce's "broader conception," and responses to it like yours are why he despaired of making it understood. We primarily study and discuss human semiosis because of its familiarity, but then we generalize it to other contexts. That is exactly what Peirce does when he asserts, "Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world" (CP 4.551, 1906). He is plainly characterizing those phenomena themselves as manifestations of thought, not referring to our cognitions about such things. All cognition is thought, but not all thought is cognition. Peirce adds later in the same paragraph (and elsewhere) that "there cannot be thought without Signs," i.e., all thought is semiosis; so, he is effectively saying that all physical processes are semiosis. Again, this is a reformulation of his "objective idealism, that matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws" (CP 6.25, EP 1:293, 1891). "Accordingly, just as we say that a body is in motion, and not that motion is in a body we ought to say that we are in thought and not that thoughts are in us" (CP 5.289n, EP 1:42n, 1868). That is why Peirce explicitly (and quite famously) states, "the Universe is a vast representamen" (CP 5.119, EP 2:193, 1903). This is almost exactly synonymous with my "Peirce and I" example yesterday that apparently caused some consternation, "the entire universe is one immense sign." I almost included the parallel quotation in my post to demonstrate that my summary was accurate but left it out because I figured--wrongly, as it turned out--that it would be familiar enough to most people on the List to preclude any controversy. He goes on to say that the universe is "working out its conclusions in living realities. Now every symbol must have, organically attached to it, its Indices of Reactions and its Icons of Qualities; and such part as these reactions and these qualities play in an argument, that they of course play in the Universe, that Universe being precisely an argument" (CP 5.119, EP 2:193-4). Hence, describing the universe as one sign is fully consistent with Peirce's statement elsewhere "that all this universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs" (CP 5.448n, EP 2:394, 1906). According to him, "There is a science of semeiotics whose results no more afford room for differences of opinion than do those of mathematics, and one of its theorems ... is that if any signs [plural] are connected, no matter how, the resulting system constitutes one sign [singular] ... and the entire body of all thought is a sign, supposing all thought to be more or less connected" (R 1476:36[5-1/2], 1904). "Consider then the aggregate formed by a sign and all the signs [plural] which its occurrence carries with it. This aggregate will itself be a sign [singular]; and we may call it a perfect sign, in the sense that it involves the present existence of no other sign except such as are ingredients of itself" (EP 2:545n25, 1906). In summary, if indeed the entire universe is perfused with signs, all of which are connected to each other, then it also constitutes one immense sign. It thus conforms to the definition of a continuum given by Kant and endorsed by Peirce as one aspect of his late topical conception--"that of which every part has itself parts of the same kind" (CP 6.168, c. 1903-4). As I said in my other post yesterday (https://list.iu.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2025-08/msg00023.html), "the upshot is that every individual existing thing is a token of a type, an instance of a sign, an actual exemplar of a real general; and ... every dyadic reaction between such discrete things is a degenerate manifestation of continuous and triadic semiosis." In other words, thought/semiosis (but not cognition) "appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world." Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt <http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt <http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Fri, Aug 8, 2025 at 7:20 AM Jack Cody <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Jon, List 1: I have used a second email to post this as not sure what was happening with my primary? Many technical issues (not just with the list) there. Anyway, this post hit the forum, which I think few read, but was not being circulated on the email-list which is primary. I think this an important thread and would like to encourage definitional/descriptive discussion regarding a series of key terms which JAS and myself intentionally and inadvertently introduced within various premises in previous posts. I merely I have changed the thread title as I'm not sure if my reply was sent or not last night (was having general computer problems it seems and no idea as to the status of that). Nonetheless, I think this deserves its own thread for clarification. It is the bold/underlined/italic which requires clarificaiton (for me at least) because as of now it signifies a categoricl error (a few) and I have to assume I am misunderstanding something for lack of context — I've read the Peirce citations attached but that does not go coeval with the alleged statement qua "congition", "experience", and "semiosis". Thus: JAS: Your first statement below is inscrutable to me, but for "the tree example," you initially said the following off-List. JRKC: Humans may use representational sign-systems but there is zero proof (and none possible) that trees and so forth do. The tree's reality may have no "representation" at all. And, insofar as it could, it would always be beyond us to ever know. Not surprisingly for someone who has apparently embraced not only Kantian epistemology and metaphysics, but also Saussurean linguistics, this reflects a fundamental misunderstanding on your part — experience is a strictly cognitive phenomenon, but semiosis is not. "It appears in the work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world; and one can no more deny that it is really there, than that the colors, the shapes, etc., of objects are really there" (CP 4.551, 1906). At this point, I join Peirce in despairing of making this "broader conception" understood, at least in your case. As you said later, "we probably diverge and that's fine." _____ ME: I have highlighted the bold, because that's the part I find incomprehensible. If semiosis occurs in crystals, and “experience is ... strictly cognitive...” but “semiosis is not [cognitive],” then we have a clear contradiction. These two propositions in the same statement — “experience is... strictly cognitive” and “semiosis is not [cognitive]” — make no sense together. If semiosis is not cognitive (as JAS wrote), then by his own definition it cannot apply to “experience,” which he says is strictly cognitive. So how can semiosis be part of experience if it is not cognitive? I would add that "experience" as "strictly" cognitive is one view among a great many. It is somewhat dualist unless you suppose all is cognition to erase the dualist distinction, but that is not your position here — though, in that Peirce passage you quote, it does seem much closer to what Peirce seemed to think: that semiosis is "cognitive" (signs corresponding with thought — within that exact citation you provide). Nonetheless, as for semiosis being present in crystals, I have little to no idea what that means, and the explanation above does not clarify it. I maintain that there is no proof that semiosis exists in crystals, however fascinating the idea is, but more fundamentally, I must now ask JAS this: What exactly is semiosis if, by what is posted above, it is constrained so it cannot be cognitive or experiential? What then remains of its meaning? Edwina is right — definitions provided in the discussion must be much clearer. Simply citing a series of quotations is insufficient, especially when the claim itself appears logically contradictory. JAS, I have to believe you are fundamentally mistaken in your reply — it makes no sense, regardless of what version of Peirce you might cite. And if you dismiss the ding-an-sich because it is incognizable, then how can you accept semiosis when you say it is neither cognitive nor experiential, as such. Unless it's just a logical mistake where you equate experience strictly with cognition and say semiosis is not [cognitive]? I add that semiosis in a crystal, to me, is what a person might "think" is happening with respect to a crystal but need not be what is actually true at all. I have spoken with people off-list who have helped clarify what Peirce might mean and I respect their views, but given the glaring logical contradiction here, I must ask JAS to clarify. To be clearer in his use of terms. That is, I must be missing something Jon would otherwise say/mean here, I do not doubt, because those two propositions in the same statement make no sense, within any Peircean system I can agree or disagree with, so I merely ask for clarity. Best wishes, Jack _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> . ► <a href="mailto:[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> ?subject=SIG%20peirce-l">UNSUBSCRIBE FROM PEIRCE-L</a> . But, if your subscribed email account is not your default email account, then go to https://list.iu.edu/sympa/signoff/peirce-l . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . ► <a href="mailto:[email protected]?subject=SIG%20peirce-l";>UNSUBSCRIBE FROM PEIRCE-L</a> . But, if your subscribed email account is not your default email account, then go to https://list.iu.edu/sympa/signoff/peirce-l . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
