It is the penumbra of everything within the mind that you experience prior to putting a word to it that attests to the independent existence of "uninterpreted phenomena". I think it is for this reason that the writing of words is always a sort of slaying of what was there. This is a temporal event. It proceeds I think from the conscious sense of there being more than one can name and its editing down to one or more terms that is seen to be the named sign. This is my experience of how signs may evolve within consciousness.
*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>* On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 6:19 PM, John Collier <[email protected]> wrote: > Gary f, > > > > This topic has come up before, partly because of my scepticism about > icons. Joe was helpful to me in working out a resolution I could live with. > I suppose that you are familiar with Sellars' "Myth of the given". He > basically denies the independent existence of uninterpreted phenomena. C.I. > Lewis accepted them, but believed they were "ineffable". His reasons for > thinking they existed were entirely theoretical, because being ineffable we > could not experience them without interpreting them. Presumably this is > because it is psychologically impossible - as soon as we have a feeling we > group it with others (a shade of red, a particular tone). Given the way our > neural system works, it is pretty hard to see how it could be otherwise. > Sellers, though, just thinks there is no need to postulate such things as > pure uninterpreted feelings. I think he is right, but still I think we can > abstract the experiential aspect of our mental signs, but it isn't easy. I > like to look at the corner of a room and gradually make it go in, then out > again, then flat, and circle through those more quickly and get confused so > I don't see it any clear way (a third). Normally we can't do this. Most of > our thoughts come fully interpreted, and the neuropsychology of sensory > perception, for example, requires that our experiences are sorted by habits > inherited from our evolutionary past in order for us to perceive things. > There is an exception, called "blindsight", which is processed when the > visual cortex is damaged and lower brain systems are all that can be relied > on. People with blindsight don't have the usual phenomenal experiences we > have, but can still discriminate visual properties to some degree as shown > by their behaviour. Presumably there are visual signs that guide their > behaviour despite the lack of conscious experience of them. All in all, I > am pretty sceptical that uninterpreted icons can be anything more than > confused experiences or abstractions, and that habit rules the day for > mental experience. > > > > John > > > > *From:* Gary Fuhrman [mailto:[email protected]] > *Sent:* July 31, 2014 11:25 PM > *To:* 'Peirce-L' > > *Subject:* RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the > basis for > > > > John, in order to "make sense" (i.e. to convey any information in the > Peircean sense), it must function both iconically and indexically, as a > dicisign. A legisign has to be habitual, but an index *cannot* be > habitual, because it must designate something here and now: an individual, > not a general. This is the germ of the idea that *Natural Propositions* > is about. > > > > gary f. > > > > *From:* John Collier [mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>] > *Sent:* 31-Jul-14 4:31 PM > *To:* Clark Goble; Søren Brier; Peirce-L > *Subject:* RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the > basis for > > > > Clark, I don't think something can be a sign unless it is habitual. How > could it make any sense otherwise? > > > > John > > > > *From:* Clark Goble [mailto:[email protected] <[email protected]>] > *Sent:* July 31, 2014 10:16 PM > *To:* Søren Brier; Peirce-L > *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the > basis for > > > > > > On Jul 31, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Søren Brier <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > My I add a few thoughts? I agree that sign are reals, but when they > manifests as tokens their Secondness must enter the world of physics and > thermodynamics must apply. It is work to make signs emerge in non-verbal > communication or as language from ones feeling and thoughts. Even to > produces thoughts and feeling demands work. That would be a biosemiotic > view (but one that we have not discussed much). But I think you are correct > in saying that Peirce did not do any work on this aspect of sign production. > > > > Again this gets at ontological issues. Remember Peirce's conception of > mind and matter which gets a bit tricky. The world of physics is the world > of matter which is mind under habit. But there can be signs of mind and not > matter. That's more the issue I'm getting at. > > > ----------------------------- > 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] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the > BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm > . > > > > > >
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