Hi Evgenii,Your candle analysis is fascinating and I appreciate your exploration of the physical, phenomenological, and physical laws. I can see how this thread caught your attention and interest in learning more about Peirce's possible take on these questions.
Almost universally you will hear that Peirce's emphasis on signs is a good lens for interpreting his thoughts on how to view the world. But, as in the case of your candle example, I think that is not yet the deep enough level to understand how Peirce might provide insight to your questions. I would start more fundamentally, with his universal categories of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness.
To see things in this light -- which extends from possibilities and qualia, through actual physical things and relations, to ideas, abstractions and concepts -- needs an understanding of "things" and "concepts" that are more akin to Markov blankets [1] than to actual physical boundaries or membranes. There is an internal aspect of the thing, an external aspect of the thing, and then a boundary that plays an interesting role of mediating between the two.
Driving the analysis down to the fundamental level of the universal categories leads to an interesting interface between the potential and the actual, which is, in essence, a Markov blanket between Firstness and Secondness. Many Peircean scholars have likened this boundary to explaining the transition from Firstness to Secondness, that is, in your terms, from quantum physics to classical physics.
Peirce's sign metaphors certainly provide a richness of language-based means for understanding (or getting a very meaningful perspective on) the universal categories, but I think you might find the categories themselves a more fruitful target of Peircean inquiry.
Best, Mike[1] A Markov blanket is the statistical interface that separates a system’s internal states from external states. Conditioned on the blanket, the two sides are independent. Karl Friston treats that partition as the thing that lets a system persist, self-evidence, and look as if it is doing active Bayesian inference. Michael Levin uses the same construct for the scale-free “computational surface” of a self—from cells and tissues up through organisms—so the boundary of agency is not required to coincide with a crisp membrane. Chris Fields treats the interface as a holographic screen: information exchanged across the boundary is limited in the spirit of the Bekenstein–Hawking / holographic bound. As generalized, a Markov blanket can represent concepts as easily as actual things. The name and the original definition of a Markov blanket come from Judea Pearl’s work, where the basis for bounding something depends on its Bayesian free-energy active-inference. These boundaries are conditional interfaces between the internal and external that have no time, spatial or scale limits. Though never expressed as such, these are very Peircean concepts.
On 9/30/26 05:50, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
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.v1Best 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 semiosisoperates 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 *parallelsigns* and *subsequent signs* seems right as different communities mayindeed 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 crowthat repeatedly drops walnuts onto a hard surface to break it open has acquired a practical habit. That habit, while obviously not verballysymbolized still, in Peirce’s broader sense, functions through a *generalhabit* such that the crow’s learned behavior has at least a symbol-likedimension (although I'm uncertain as to whether that's the optimal way toexpress 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.' Thatseems to introduce a fixed essence where, as I see it, continuity itselfmay be a sufficient explanation. For example, I remain the same person fromone day to the next, and not because something immutable underlies myvarious 'changes' (Phillip drunk today, sober tomorrow in Peirce's famousexample), 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 wouldbe 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 semiosiscan lead to conduct with which subsequent semiosis has to adapt to.There may also be counterexamples to what I see as too strict a distinctionbetween 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 otherhand, 'parallel' interpretations *may* bring about actions that do change it. For example (although admittedly highly unlikely), the biologist mightanalyze tissue samples as at the same time the museum curator makes thedecision to put the specimen on display concurrently with the taxidermistcompleting 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 andnever 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 tosay that virtually any object *can become* a boundary object, but that it does so only when it functions across different communities while retainingan identity across their differing practices. Otherwise, it seems to methat 'boundary object' would become just another name for 'object' so that the concept of 'boundary object' loses its distinctive -- and potentiallyuseful -- 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 thehypothesis and seeking counterexamples -- seems much more methodologicallyPeircean. 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 recognizeand use it within their respective communal practices. Best, Gary R_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► 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]";>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.
-- __________________________________________ Michael K. Bergman 319.621.5225 http://mkbergman.com http://www.linkedin.com/in/mkbergman __________________________________________
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► 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]";>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.
