List,
I could give you an example to discuss this issue - a burning candle.
Recently by using this example, I have discussed sophisticated
relationships between theoretical and experimental physics. It could be
interesting to analyze this in your terms.
My starting point is Faraday's book "The Chemical History of a Candle"
(1861). This is a mixture of theory and experiments at the level of
chemistry and continuum mechanics. There are no words about atoms there.
Now there is statistical and quantum mechanics and new experiments
related to this example. Hence our understanding of what is going on in
the burning candle greatly expanded. It gives a good possibility to
discuss this development in semiotics terms.
In my paper there are no equations, but general knowledge of physics is
still required. Provided there is interest and hence questions, I could
answer them here.
Burning Candle and Levels of Organization, 2026, PREPRINTS.ORG,
doi:10.20944/preprints202603.0037.v1
Best wishes,
Evgenii Rudnyi
Am 30.09.2026 um 01:01 schrieb Gary Richmond:
Helmut, Jon, List,
Before turning to the details, I want to thank you, Helmut, for introducing
and developing this topic. It has led me to think again about how semiosis
operates in relation to real-world experience -- something I haven't
considered in quite this way or with this intensity for a long time.
I think your analysis has several strengths. Your distinction between *parallel
signs* and *subsequent signs* seems right as different communities may
indeed attend simultaneously to different aspects of the same object, while
subsequent semioses may enter into an object’s developing history. I also
agree that every kind of generality needn't be called a symbol: that crow
that repeatedly drops walnuts onto a hard surface to break it open has
acquired a practical habit. That habit, while obviously not verbally
symbolized still, in Peirce’s broader sense, functions through a *general
habit* such that the crow’s learned behavior has at least a symbol-like
dimension (although I'm uncertain as to whether that's the optimal way to
express it).
I have a few reservations regarding some of your other remarks. First, I do
not think that every object possesses an 'unchangeable core identity.' That
seems to introduce a fixed essence where, as I see it, continuity itself
may be a sufficient explanation. For example, I remain the same person from
one day to the next, and not because something immutable underlies my
various 'changes' (Phillip drunk today, sober tomorrow in Peirce's famous
example), but because my present condition is historically and bodily
(indexically?) continuous with my earlier states. This is to say that
*identity* may consist in the *continuity of an ongoing history*. I would
be very interested to read Jon's take on this matter.
I also do not think that differences in immediate objects 'migrate via the
interpretant into the dynamical object'. Certainly a given interpretant can
*affect* conduct, and conduct may change the physical or social situation.
But the relation seems to me to be much more indirect: object --> sign
--> interpretant --> *conduct --> changed situation**.* Nothing moves
backwards from the immediate object into the dynamical object. but semiosis
can lead to conduct with which subsequent semiosis has to adapt to.
There may also be counterexamples to what I see as too strict a distinction
between parallel and successive signs. One may interpret the same museum
specimen differently tomorrow without the specimen itself changing --
successive signs needn't involve a changed dynamic object. On the other
hand, 'parallel' interpretations *may* bring about actions that do change
it. For example (although admittedly highly unlikely), the biologist might
analyze tissue samples as at the same time the museum curator makes the
decision to put the specimen on display concurrently with the taxidermist
completing his work.
I think that there are counter-examples to your claim that every object is
a boundary object. Suppose I put a piece of quartz I find in a drawer and
never show it nor mention it to anyone. It remains an object but it does
not mediate between distinct social worlds. It makes more sense to me to
say that virtually any object *can become* a boundary object, but that it
does so only when it functions across different communities while retaining
an identity across their differing practices. Otherwise, it seems to me
that 'boundary object' would become just another name for 'object' so that
the concept of 'boundary object' loses its distinctive -- and potentially
useful -- meaning.
Finally, I also question your claim that 1. an unchangeable core identity,
2. interpretive differences entering subsequent dynamic objects, and 3.
every object being a boundary object can be established by deduction alone.
Certainly deduction can tell us *what follows if those assumptions are
accepted*, but not whether they adequately describe actual experiences.
Indeed, your own abductive and inductive procedure -- forming the
hypothesis and seeking counterexamples -- seems much more methodologically
Peircean. So, I would suggest a narrower conclusion: an object may be
differently represented while remaining identifiable as the same object,
but it becomes a boundary object only when different communities recognize
and use it within their respective communal practices.
Best,
Gary R
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