Jon, List,
maybe "every sign´s purpose is to express fact", and "a sign can have any purpose" are not contradicting each other, if you replace "fact" with "any fact". Then there might be a logical transitivity towards "any purpose". In a nonsensible sign, the fact may be chaotic turbulence or other randomness. But then the meaning of "purpose" has to be extended from intention only to reason in general, including chance.
Expectation intuitionally seems to me like a part of an actual sign triad. That is so, because, if it were a determination of the interpreter´s quasi-mind, then Peirce´s method of mentioning only signs, and to leave the interpreter out of consideration (mostly), would not be justified, I feel.
Best, Helmut
Helmut, List:
I already quoted Peirce's explicit statements that every sign's purpose is to express fact and every sign's ultimate interpretant is the Truth. Anyone is welcome to disagree with him about this, but it is fully consistent with his speculative grammar, in which every sign has a final interpretant in the sense of a final cause--the effect that it would have under ideal circumstances, including the shared beliefs of an indefinite community after unlimited investigation. It is also fully consistent with what he called "the Meliorist view" of human knowledge in a still-unpublished manuscript.
CSP: [T]here are in the first place certain real facts, which are as they are quite independently of what you or I or any man may think about them. Secondly, truth, being the agreement of our assertions with those facts, is something definitely one way, and not otherwise. Thirdly, observation and reflection, stimulated by an eager desire to ascertain that truth, gradually lead minds toward it, so that, though ignorance and error always remain in reference to each question, yet they become gradually dispelled. (R 953, c. 1897)
The dynamical interpretant--any effect that a sign token does have in an actual event of semiosis--always succeeds that sign token, while anything that antecedes it pertains instead to its dynamical object (cf. EP 2:410, 1907). It seems to me that an interpreter's expectation, like an utterer's intention, is a determination of that individual quasi-mind by previous signs--not an interpretant of the sign that is currently being uttered and interpreted. The latter is a determination of the commens, "that mind into which the minds of utterer and interpreter have to be fused in order that any communication should take place" (SS 196-7, EP 2:478, 1906 Mar 9).
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
On Thu, Jul 16, 2026 at 12:34 PM Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> wrote:
Correction: Sorry! I meant dynamical interpretant (fat letters in the text below)Jon, List,I guess, the analysis, that AI processes symbols iconically, and does not have access to dynamical objects, is only correct as long as it merely crawls sites and posts in the internet. But what, if AI is connected with mechanical robots that interact in the real world, and have artificial eyes and ears? Maybe this already is so, maybe in Silicone Valley and China there are already some robots striding about?Purpose of a sign: I think, a sensible sign must have a purpose to exist (to be perceived). I don´t think, we can narrow "purpose" to play-impulse, habituation, reasonableness, and the quest for truth. I think, it may be just any purpose. The other requirement of a sign is, that it rings a bell, that it fits to an expectation. This is the requirement for any sign, while purpose is only a reqirement of a sensible sign. A sign, that does not have a purpose, but fits to an expectation, is not a sensible, but a false sign, like a theme conspiracy theorists use to have with numbers or faces in smoke clouds. A sign, that has a purpose, but the purpose is completely different from the expectation, and so from the interpretation too, is also a false sign, but may be corrected in the following semiosis, other than a purposeless sign, whose interpretant, and retrospectively it itself, only can be discarded.In any case, this expectation is a part of the dynamical interpretant, because it cannot be a part of the other two in any case, and neither a part of the object. But this would mean, that a part of the dynamical interpretant pre-exists.Best, Helmut
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