Gary F - nowhere in my post did I disagree with Peirce that 'icons commit themselves to nothing at all'. Where do you come up with that conclusion? Nor do I disagree with the 'fortuitous variations in reproduction' play a role in adaptation. I've constantly focused on the vital role of chance/Firstness. My comment was on the nature of the connections, where I pointed out that the function of Thirdness was not merely mediation but also continuity of type. It isn't easy for novelty to get Thirdness to change! Therefore, chance - if we consider it only as randomness (and I don't think it is)...is necessary restrained within the general constraints of Thirdness.
Constructive deviations do not, in my view, emerge within random chance mutations -- and Peirce also rejected that evoluation/adaptation was guided only by mechanical randomness and held that an agapastic 'connected and informed' force was the key agent in adaptation/evolution). Chance or Firstness is a much stronger force than mere mechanical randomness. Its connectedness enables it to offer informed potentiality rather than mechanical uninformed randomness. As for my disagreement with your 'Man-as-Sinner' - we'll have to leave it at that. I disgree and point to the various research on complex adaptive systems which disagree with the one-way linearity of your view. I strongly promote CAS (complex adapative systems) functioning in all realms - biological as well as societal, economic, etc..and view semiosis as the basic process in the CAS....lots of articles on biology as a CAS and the saltational dynamics that take place. ----- Original Message ----- From: Gary Fuhrman To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee ; 'Peirce List' Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2014 11:50 AM Subject: RE: [biosemiotics:7072] Re: [PEIRCE-L] Natural Propositions, Chapter 3.6 Edwina, I guess you don't agree with Peirce that icons "commit themselves to nothing at all" (MS 599, as quoted). You also seem to disagree with his suggestion that "fortuitous variations in reproduction" (or what you call "deviations from the norm") play a role in evolution analogous to the role of icons in cognition (and the role of chance as Firstness in Peirce's cosmology). This may well indicate a major difference between you and Peirce concerning Firstness as a mode of being. I'm more surprised, though, at your denial that this is an age of mass extinction in biology - the seventh in the history of the planet, by the usual count of evolutionary biologists, and the first to be caused mainly by a single species (guess who). What I hear from biologists is that biodiversity is in steep decline. I'd like to see your evidence that the complexity of the biosphere is increasing . but not at the cost of distracting the list from the main argument of NP. So I'll just leave it at that. gary f. From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca] Sent: 4-Oct-14 10:38 AM To: Gary Fuhrman; biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee; 'Peirce List' Subject: [biosemiotics:7072] Re: [PEIRCE-L] Natural Propositions, Chapter 3.6 Gary F wrote: 1) "Icons, representing Firstness, commit themselves to nothing, but their connection (Thirdness) with experiential external Secondnesses constitutes information. The Dicisign is the kind of sign which actually makes such a connection. The generalized (and fallible!) commitment to that connection is what we call "knowledge" or "belief" and is represented by assertion as a speech act. The analogous commitment in biology is the adaptation of the species, which furthers the survival of its form (sometimes by modifying it)." I think that Icons commit themselves to connectivity and thus continuity- even though in themselves they convey no information; what is vital is their role of connectivity. And this connectivity is to Thirdness which functions as the general communal long term mode of identity. Therefore, this is not merely to promote adaptation of the species, which I suggest is informed more by deviations from the norm; it functions to promote continuity and robust stability of the species. Deviations emerge within connections with other Sign systems that provide their information to the 'home system'. 2) I don't think we live in a 'biological age of mass extinction'. Species always die and new ones or adaptations of the old, emerge. I'd say we are living in a biological age, as always, which operates as a complex adaptive system - and this complexity is increasing, which promotes both increasing decay and diversity. [I'd certainly agree with the 'information overload' comment!] Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Gary Fuhrman To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee ; 'Peirce List' Sent: Saturday, October 04, 2014 10:14 AM Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Natural Propositions, Chapter 3.6 Section 3.6 of NP takes up the predicate part of the proposition and "The Iconical Side of Dicisigns". As Frederik remarks, "the important and controversial idea here is that general, schematic images play a central role in logic and cognition" (p. 61). The part of Peirce's Syllabus (EP2:282) quoted on p. 62-3 is crucial, of course, but I'd like to focus on the two excerpts from MS 599, "Reason's Rules" (1902?), which Frederik includes in this section. The first is this: "All icons, from mirror-images to algebraic formulae, are much alike, committing themselves to nothing at all, yet the source of all our information. They play in knowledge a part iconized by that played in evolution according to the Darwinian theory, by fortuitous variations in reproduction." The relation between semiosis and evolution will be taken up in later chapters. Here we might say that life commits itself (always temporarily!) to selected forms through the evolutionary process of elimination (of forms which don't pass the viability test). In the analagous process of cognition, "knowledge" is a commitment to those forms which are not eliminated by the pragmatic test of experiment/experience, but instead continue to guide our interactions with the real world. Icons, representing Firstness, commit themselves to nothing, but their connection (Thirdness) with experiential external Secondnesses constitutes information. The Dicisign is the kind of sign which actually makes such a connection. The generalized (and fallible!) commitment to that connection is what we call "knowledge" or "belief" and is represented by assertion as a speech act. The analogous commitment in biology is the adaptation of the species, which furthers the survival of its form (sometimes by modifying it). This analogy is of particular interest to us, I think, living as we do in a biological age of mass extinction coupled with a cultural age of "information overload". But getting back to the proposition, here's the other excerpt from "Reason's Rules" in NP 3.6: A proposition never prescribes any particular mode of iconization, although the form of expression may suggest some mode. [...] ... it is true (and a significant truth) that every proposition is capable of expression either by means of a photograph, or composite photograph, with or without stereoscopic or cinetoscopic elaborations, together with some sign which shall show the connection of these images with the object of some index or sign or experience forcing the attention, or bringing some information, or indicating some possible source of information; or else by means of some analogous icon appealing to other senses than that of sight, together with analogous forceful indications, and a sign connecting the icons with those indices. ("Reason's Rules", 1902, Ms 599, 5-7) This brings us to the syntax of the sign which Peirce later named "Dicisign." That syntax (which should not be confused with the syntax of a sentence) is the subject of the next section of NP, 3.7. gary 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 peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu 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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