John, I don't think that these opposing views - whether semiosic actions take place within the physico-chemical realm or only begin in the biological realm - can be definitively resolved.
I, for one, like Stan, firmly believe that semiosis operates within the physico-chemical realm; that is, that even an atom emerges within a triadic relation - even if such atom has nil capacity for adaptation within that semiosis - as in the biological realm. As for 'all of science is conducted in signs'...I think this is vague. Science is a human activity. Or, is this statement meant to refer to matter...i.e., all that is material is conducted in signs'. I agree with Frederik that studying semiosic functions within the physico-chemical realm probably does little to provide new knowledge about that realm, but, I agree with Stan that it could examine the emergence of life from that realm. And I'm afraid that my intellectual dimness means that I can't see much difference between your pansemiosis and physiosemiosis...in that both acknowledge that semiosis operates within the physico-chemical realm. After all, physiosemiosis, in order to explore 'where and how', first has to acknowledge that semiosis actually exists in that realm. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Deely, John N. To: Frederik Stjernfelt ; Peirce List ; [email protected] Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2014 10:28 AM Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Physics & Semiosis: the limited realm of physiosemiosis respecting physics Frederik says below: "nature has levels of organization, that the higher ones emerge from the lower ones, and the higher ones add new, organizational objects, relations, processes, combined of entities from the lower ones, but irreducible to them. You could say this implies that the possibility of semiosis lies in physics - but again that does not imply that those possibilities are realized in all physical processes." This is exactly the point of the difference between the term "physiosemiosis", which explores the question of exactly where and how "the possibility of semiosis lies in physics", and the term "pansemiosis", which implies that even in physics semiosis is everywhere to be found. And this is related to another of Frederik's well-made points: "all of science, no exception, is conducted IN signs. But this does not imply that all those sciences are ABOUT signs." Pansemiotics as a term bears connotation which miss this distinction entirely. This term has the fairly inevitable result, as Frederik puts the matter in another post, to "make the project of semiotics seem overblown and irrelevant to a scientific worldview." From: Frederik Stjernfelt [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Saturday, September 13, 2014 07:54 To: Peirce List; [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Physics & Semiosis Dear Clark, lists, Sorry I may not answer to postings chronologically - I have been busy for a couple of days so now there's a whole bundle of postings waiting. Den 11/09/2014 kl. 04.42 skrev Clark Goble <[email protected]>: (Sorry for the length, but it's a subtle point I'm after) On Sep 10, 2014, at 2:31 PM, Sungchul Ji <[email protected]> wrote: According to Edwina, all well-formed formulas of the form y = f (x) implicates semiosis. So my question is "Does entropy or entropy change implicate semiosis ?" (091014-4) If I understand Frederick correctly (and I thank him for his explanations), he is more interested in the sort of "z stands for X for Y." Examples of that sort aren't in physics as normally done. I agree with Frederick there. And again, I agree with Frederick that explanations of that form are rather common in biology. Teleological explanations being the most common example. Now it's true that in the 50's and 60's there was a strong reductionist move to make biology reducible to physics. (Although clearly it goes back long before then) While this movement ultimately failed, I think it did make biologists more careful about their explanations. Especially in evolution. So while biologists will still say things like eyes evolved for mammals to see, when pressed they'll give an explanation in terms of chance, selection and efficient causation. I agree that reduction is impossible. Of course, it is locally possible, but a central issue of biology seems to be that the non-local structures of metabolism and procreation are irreducible. This then leads one to the question of when we are simply using sign-like explanations and when we think they are in the phenomena itself. (The distinction Frederick makes in his last reply to me) I confess that this seems a rather blurry distinction at best. Further it seems a distinction to which we'll give different answers depending upon whether we are descriptive or prescriptive in our pronouncements. I am not sure it is blurry. All thought is in signs, as old P would have it - this implies that all of science, no exception, is conducted IN signs. But this does not imply that all those sciences are ABOUT signs. I am an emergentist - I think nature has levels of organization, that the higher ones emerge from the lower ones, and the higher ones add new, organizational objects, relations, processes, combined of entities from the lower ones, but irreducible to them. You could say this implies that the possibility of semiosis lies in physics - but again that does not imply that those possibilities are realized in all physical processes. Just like hot dogs, wars, and cellphones are possibilities of physics but not realized in the pre-biological universe in any non-trivial sense of the word. It seems undeniable that physicists use teleological language, albeit far less frequently than biologists. (The exception perhaps being cosmology and astronomy) However I'd also say that most physicists would quickly say such language is metaphoric. That is they'd say it is purely pedagogical and not a real description of the physics. On the other hand biologists are quite a bit more willing to say such descriptions are unavoidable in biology. Not just as a shorthand to say things like, "the peacock shows its tail features to attract a mate" but in deeper ways. But that is an example from biology (and I agree that biology can never avoid semiotic and teleological issues) - not from physics. What would be the example from physics? I'll confess a certain sympathy for those who still think biology could use a bit more reductionist fervor. On the other hand it also seems undeniable that when talking about humans or things like human, signs are unavoidable. While it's an article of faith among physicalists that things can be reduced to something like physics, I also confess I'm very skeptical of most forms of physicalism's description of mind. Peirce's view seems the most reasonable to my mind, adopting a position at least somewhat similar to property dualism. (Not properly of course - rather than a dualism Peirce would see a continuum) However I think he sees mind as an irreducible facet of the universe and thus any higher order type of mind would be emergent in more simple says from physical stuff with quasi-mental like properties. That said, if mind or at least quasi-mind is an irreducible facet of the universe, what does that say about physics? I suspect it'll mean that eventually some future physics will have to deal with mind, and thereby signs. Even if, as Frederick correctly recognizes, it looks askance at such notions now. (To say the least) In some sense, I agree with this. Biology (including semiotics) could be said to be a very specialized department of physics. But this will be physics used in another sense of the word. Signs and purposes do exist in nature - they are not human inventions - but it is a pretty special department of nature. The question then becomes whether elements of this quasi-mind are in existing physical descriptions. That's much more controversial. And considering how Frederick is carefully using semiotics, I'd say that right now it's not required. That's not to say it isn't there. I think the observer in some formulations of quantum mechanics and arguably the same in relativity are usually seen as artifacts of thought experiments. The question is, however, given that they seem unavoidable in physical description, aren't they like the teleology in biology? The difference being only that physicists when they use them don't take them seriously? Much like a biologist seeing "the eye is for seeing" as a shorthand for a complex evolutionary process due to efficient causation. Are you referring here to "the observer" in the different interpretations of QM? Most often, "the observer" here just means "instrument of measurement", not any teleological being - the issue is the collapse of the wave function when passing from the QM level to the classic level. I tend to agree with Penrose that this should be seen as a perfectly physical, real process - not something which is connected to "observation" or even "measurement" as anything having to do with human beings or intentions. It is not us who make the wave function collapse . I bring this up since while I can now understand why Frederick makes the point he does, I think it ends up being more about how common a particular stance is within each science. So psychologists, for instance, clearly take signs seriously and physicists tend to see it as an artifact. This means, however, that the ambiguity Frederick raised between "whether there is a sign process going on when we're not looking," and "we use sign-like concepts in shaping our knowledge" hinges upon a perspective about what the final truth of the matter in physics is. Which seems problematic. I do not think it hinges on the supposed final truth. None of us can use that as an argument. My argument is based on the simple observation that physicists do not study cognition and communication processes (or, when they do, it is as auxiliary specialists in other disciplines), while biologists deal with such processes all of the time. That is the best argument, btw, for biosemiotics: as there is so much spontaneous semiotic vocabolary in all of biology, why not take it seriously as technical notions? Best F ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ----------------------------- 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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