Dear Jerry - The figures in Diagrammatology are quotes from standard textbook accounts of chemotaxis in E. Coli. So, the terminology in those figures is not mine (nor Peirce's). In Peircean terminology, I will consider the signs processed in the E.Coli detection of carbohydrates as symbols - for the reason they are general (they categorize a range of carbohydrates) and future-oriented (they are stably repeated over time). They involve iconic aspects (the shape of active site on the molecules categorized), just like they involve indexicality (in the shape of the actual, momentaneous connection between the molecule and the receptor). This complex symbol has the character of a natural proposition because it both identifies an object in time and space - and describes it (by categorization). Such information is summarized by the comparison of several such signs to establish the carbohydrate gradient. This Dicisign then forms one premiss of the conclusion: swim in the direction of that carbohydrate gradient. Communication? I would rather say cognition. I think cognition in its simplest form involves only one organism and its environment. Communication, I think, involves at least two organisms in an enviroment - a narrower notion of communication than identifying it with semiotic process tout court (or, even broader, with physical interaction). Best F
Den 05/09/2014 kl. 05.50 skrev Jerry LR Chandler <jerry_lr_chand...@me.com<mailto:jerry_lr_chand...@me.com>>: Frederik: On Sep 4, 2014, at 1:21 PM, Frederik Stjernfelt <stj...@hum.ku.dk<mailto:stj...@hum.ku.dk>> wrote: Let me redescribe my claim. Physics, taken in itself, does not study cognition and communication processes - biology does. Perhaps you are seeking to express a more metaphysical argument about the relationships among the basic sciences? In Diagrammatology, p. 208, figure 29, entitled “Receptor-motor coupling", you index several nominal objects which are a consequence of chains of reasoning about natural objects. These objects can all be viewed as exact consequences of third-order cybernetical relations encoded by the E coli genome (DNA) and embodied in material codes. BTW, do you refer to these objects as signs? symbols? or icons? Do you consider these indexes given in Figure 29 to be parts of biological “communication processes”? Cheers Jerry
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