Gary F., Howard, lists,
I meant to take this up before but I got busy. I don't think that Howard
was so far off the mark in this. A symbol represents in virtue of a
habit or disposition for its interpretation. Those 1's and 0's are
symbols, or parts of symbols, in virtue of a code that is the habit or
disposition whereby to translate them into the conventional language
signs that the 1's and 0's symbolize. Indeed all the ordinary-language
indices, icons, and symbols are there in the strings of 1s and 0s for
those who can read them. Howard's main point was the efficiency that
symbols permit. This is because the requisite sign-system information is
'front-loaded' into the code and into the mind or quasi-mind that can
read, decode, the encoding. The coding gains efficiency by 'hiding' the
unwieldy qualities and reactions to which it refers, lets them be
translated into signs in another domain. The question of whether the 1's
and 0's should be called _/symbols/_, or parts of symbols, seems
equivalent to the question of whether a vegetable-organismic,
value-laden ('teleonomic') but non-learning inference process should be
called _/semiosis/_. However, even if one denies such semiosis, the
codings have what is needed in order to function as symbols in the same
sense as reactions and factually connected things have what is needed to
function as indices, and things similar to things have what is needed to
function as icons.
[Quote Peirce]
[...] thirdly, by more or less approximate certainty that it will be
interpreted as denoting the object [that's a great efficiency -
B.U.], in consequence of a habit (which term I use as including a
natural disposition), when I call the sign a Symbol. I next examine
into the different efficiencies and inefficiencies of these three
kinds of signs in aiding the ascertainment of truth. A Symbol
incorporates a habit and is indispensable to the application of any
intellectual habit at least. Moreover Symbols afford the means of
thinking about thoughts in ways in which we could not otherwise
think of them. They enable us, for example, to create Abstractions,
without which we should lack a great engine of discovery. These
enable us to count; they teach us that collections are individuals
(individual = individual object), and in many respects they are the
very warp of reason. But since symbols rest exclusively on habits
already definitely formed but not furnishing any observation even of
themselves, and since knowledge is habit, they do not enable us to
add to our knowledge even so much as a necessary consequent, unless
by means of a definite preformed habit. [....]
["Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism", 1906, CP 4.531
http://www.existentialgraphs.com/peirceoneg/prolegomena.htm#Paragraph531
]
Since I've mentioned the vegetable-organismic level, I'd just point out
that life deals not only with messages within the organism, or among
organisms of the same species, etc., with the same special codes, based
on the interests of the given species, but also with mixed and scrambled
messages from material nature and other species, from which a living
thing seeks to extract information. So, allowing at least for
exposition's sake the idea of vegetable-level semiosis, the overall
efficient economy of vegetable-level 'interpretation of signs'
(including indices and semblances in its environment) may not afford, in
an organism, a level or system that deals purely in symbolic
communication with the kind of Shannon-style code, binary, ternary, or
otherwise, that can be used in computer programs, i.e., context, shifts
of context, etc., matter too much for such a thing. At the same time,
the particular efficiency of symbols would seem to place an evolutionary
premium on them.
Best, Ben
On 10/5/2014 4:20 PM, Gary Fuhrman wrote:
Howard,
HP: Suppose, in context of a Dicisign or a proposition, you ask me: Is
it true or false? I can give you a one-bit answer. Isn't that bit some
kind of sign?
GF: My answer to your question is: 1. (as opposed to 0). But without
the symbolic context which makes the bit interpretable *as the answer
to the question*, - part of which context is the legisign establishing
that 1 is in binary opposition to 0 - that bit conveys zero
information and is not a sign of anything.
Can you give me a one-bit question?
gary f.
-----Original Message-----
From: Howard Pattee [mailto:hpat...@roadrunner.com]
Sent: 5-Oct-14 3:53 PM
To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee; 'Peirce List'
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:7097] Re: Natural Propositions,
Chapter 3.6
At 01:15 PM 10/5/2014, Gary Fuhrman wrote:
Nobody (least of all Peirce!) is naming bits "symbols" or
"legisigns". Bits (as the name implies!) can only be small pieces of
symbols in the semiotic sense of the word "symbol"; they are not
symbols in the Peircean sense because a bit by itself, out of any
context, will not and cannot be interpreted as a sign.
HP: Suppose, in context of a Dicisign or a proposition, you ask me:
Is it true or false? I can give you a one-bit answer. Isn't that
bit some kind of sign?
Howard
"There are 10 kinds of people in the world. Those who know binary,
and those
who don't." Don Knuth
At 01:15 PM 10/5/2014, Gary Fuhrman wrote:
Howard,
Nobody (least of all Peirce!) is naming bits "symbols" or
"legisigns". Bits (as the name implies!) can only be small pieces
of symbols in the semiotic sense of the word “symbol”; they are
not symbols in the Peircean sense because a bit by itself, out of
any context, will not and cannot be interpreted as a sign.
Moreover, you can’t make bits into symbols just by stringing them
together. Bit strings can be used to replicate a symbol, such as a
sentence or an email message or a book, but then it is the symbol
that will determine the interpretant, not the bits or bit strings.
It’s true that communication can only take place by physical means
— as Peirce puts it, signs can only exist in replica — but the
material medium in itself can only be a sinsign, not a legisign,
and not a symbol in the Peircean sense. And it won’t even be a
sinsign, won’t be a sign at all, if it doesn’t contribute its bit
to the activation a semiotic system.
gary f.
From: Howard Pattee [mailto:hpat...@roadrunner.com]
Sent: 5-Oct-14 12:11 PM
To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee; biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee; 'Peirce List'
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:7097] Re: Natural
Propositions, Chapter 3.6
Howard, I think this is a good explanation of how the word
“symbol” is used in the language of physics. As such, it explains
why the language of physics is of limited use in semiotics.
HP: Of course it is of limited use. It only explains why the most
efficient and unambiguous communication is by simple coded
sequences with bits that are not icons or indices or tokens with
semantic content.
GF: In discussing _Natural Propositions_, we are deploying
Peirce’s definition of “symbol” as “a sign which is fit to serve
as such simply because it will be so interpreted”
HP: Yes, like bit strings. These physical and information theory
conditions do not depend on Peirce's theory of signs or naming
bits "symbols" or "legisigns". You are free to ignore these laws,
but no semiotic practice can avoid them. In any case, we cannot
continue this efficient communication without bit sequences.
Howard
"In theory, theory and practice are the same. In
practice they are not." Einstein
On 10/5/2014 8:50 AM, Gary Fuhrman wrote:
Howard, I think this is a good explanation of how the word
“symbol” is used in the language of physics. As such, it
explains why the language of physics is of limited use in semiotics.
In discussing _Natural Propositions_, we are deploying Peirce’s
definition of “symbol” as “a sign which is fit to serve as such
simply because it will be so interpreted”
(http://www.gnusystems.ca/KainaStoicheia.htm#3e ).
This post, for example, is a symbol because the semiotic systems
(languages and technologies) at my end are sufficiently similar
to those at your end that I can assume that it will be
interpreted as a sign of what I mean to say. The rules governing
semiotic systems can be called “codes” if you like, and thus as
Bateson put it, All messages are coded. Peirce on the other hand
calls them “legisigns.” (The laws of nature are also legisigns.)
gary f.
From: Howard Pattee
Sent: 4-Oct-14 9:54 PM
To: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee; 'Peirce List'
Cc: biosemiot...@lists.ut.ee
Subject: Re: [biosemiotics:7079] RE: [PEIRCE-L] Natural
Propositions, Chapter 3.6
At 01:39 PM 10/4/2014, Gary Fuhrman quotes Peirce:
Peirce: "When an assertion is made, there really is some
speaker, writer, or other signmaker who delivers it; and he
supposes there is, or will be, some hearer, reader, or other
interpreter who will receive it. It may be a stranger upon a
different planet, an æon later; or it may be that very same man
as he will be a second after. In any case, the deliverer makes
signals to the receiver."
HP: Here is another view of how this works. In our case, from
the moment we type an assertion, draw a diagram, or attach a
photo, all the communicated information is immediately
_/coded/_ into bit sequences by Boolean algebra (not logic) and
transmitted worldwide by Hertzian waves or light (the same
thing at shorter wavelengths). In principle, _/all the coding/_
can be done by Peirce Arrows (NAND gates) and all the electrons
and waves obey Maxwell's equations. At the receiver sequences
are decoded, and the sender and receiver do not care about the
math, physics, or the bit sequences, which is _/precisely/_ why
the bit sequences are pure symbols and not icons, indices, or
any tokens with intrinsic physical similarities or meanings.
_I/n the language of physics/_, the conditions for a _/pure
symbol vehicle/_ with the function of efficiently communicating
information of any type is that neither the physical structure
nor the sequential order of the _/symbols/_ are determined or
influenced by physical laws. That means the sequences do not
differ significantly in energy or forces between them. All
efficient information structures like sequences and memories
are called _/energy degenerate/_.
That does not mean communication is independent of laws. The
2nd law of thermodynamics says that every bit of information
added, erased, coded, decoded or used will dissipate a little
energy (On the Internet this adds up to enormous energy
dissipation). Also, the speed and size of symbol manipulating
chemistry in brains or hardware gates is limited by quantum
mechanics.
_/In the language of Communication Theory/_, for efficient
communication of any type of information, all the meaning
should be _/hidden by codes/_ that translate the information
into meaningless symbols.
Howard
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