Dear Clark, Thanks for your response.
What you say below is correct if we accept the meanings of "dissipative" and "equilibrium" structures as you define them in your mind, and this applies to Benjamin's previous response as well. But the point I was making in my admittedly provocative email was based on the meanings of "dissipative" and "equilibrium" structures carefully defined in irreversible thermodynamics by workers such as I. Prigogine (1917-2003) and his school in Brussels and Austin, for which Prigogine was awarded the Nobel Prize for Chemistry in 1977. Anything that disappears in a physical system upon removing energy supply can be identified with dissipative structures, such as the flame of a candle, images on a computer screen, words coming out of the mouth of a person, melodies coming out of a piano, action potential of neurons, the airplane trajectories in the sky, semiosis between persons or between neurons, etc. Conversely, anything that remains unchanged when energy supply is removed would be equilibrium structures, such as an artificial candle or flower, the photograph of a computer screen with images, words written down on a piece of paper (which lasts a much longer time than a spoken word can after it leaves the vocal cord of the speaker), melodies encoded in sheet music, etc. By denying the distinction between equilibrium and dissipative structures in semiotics or philosophical discourse in general, one is denying the fundamental role that energy plays in these disciplines and hence the fundamental neurobiological mechanisms (or underpinnings) supporting such mental activities. It may be useful, therefore, to distinguish between two types of semiotics (or the study of signs) the classical semiotics wherein no energy consideration is necessary, and the neo-semiotics wherein the role of energy dissipation is fundamental, since No energy, no semiosis. (072814-1) which may be viewed as the First Law of Semiotics, in analogy to the First law of Thermodynamics. Coining these two terms, classical vs. neo-semiotics, conceptualizes the dual necessity for semiosis, i.e., the continuity (as expressed in semiotics) and the discontinuity (as expressed in classical vs. neo-), just as the terms, classical physics and new physics conceptualize the continuity of the Newtonian physics and its discontinuity occasioned by the concept of energy quantization, the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and Einsteins relativity. Finally, I would like to suggest the following two statements for possible discussions: Peirces semiotics is a major component of the (072814-2) classical semioticswhile biosemiotics is a major component of the neo-semiotics. Just as classical physics and new physics can co-exist (072814-3) in physics so classical semiotics (e.g., the Peirce-L) and neo-semiotics (e.g., biosemiotics) may be able to co-exist in the semiotics of future. With all the best. Sung ___________________________________________________ Sungchul Ji, Ph.D. Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy Rutgers University Piscataway, N.J. 08855 732-445-4701 www.conformon.net > > On Jul 26, 2014, at 7:28 PM, Sungchul Ji <s...@rci.rutgers.edu> wrote: > >> Peircean scholars and philosophers in general seem to find it difficult >> (or trivial) to distinguish between the two categories of structures, >> equilibrium and dissipative, probably because most philosophies have >> been >> done with written, not spoken, words since the invention of writing. > > A perhaps pedantic quibble. I think philosophy has been conducted with > writing really just since the modern era and even then only on a large > scale in more recent centuries. Its just that the major works of > philosophy that we have recorded are written. However I think for a large > portion of our history (and perhaps arguably even today or at least until > the advent of email) philosophy was dialogical in nature. > > Of course I think theres a continuum between what you call equilibrium > and dissipative (Im a bit unsure what you mean by equilibrium - apologies > if youve clarified this before. Im behind in reading the list) Writing > is frequently lost after all, we reinterpret its meanings as new contexts > are introduced, etc. And of course old recordings degrade over time. Even > data stored on hard drive loses data and can become corrupt. At the end > all we have are traces of the original dialog. To follow Derrida (although > he makes his point in an annoyingly petulant way) all we have are traces > rather than some pure presence of communication we call speech. > > >
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