At 02:57 PM 12/17/2014, Gary Richmond wrote:
From the operational criterion comes the basic notion, expressed in the Syllabus (1903) that iconic signs are the only kind of sign which gives information . . .
But Peirce also said: "the idea embodied by an icon . . . cannot of itself convey any information, being applicable to everything or to nothing" (CP 3.433, 1896).
HP: The concept of information has two theoretical aspects that are often confused because they appear to have incompatible conditions. Peirce obviously used both, although these two theories of information were not explicit in his time. One aspect developed in communication theory is about the storage and communication of uninterpreted information that tries to maximize alternatives. The other aspect, used in measurement and control theory is about interpreted information that tries to minimize alternatives. Thus, we say genetic and human languages have an unlimited information capacity or varieties of expression, while we say the information in a specific genome or sentence leaves no variety (except for ambiguity)
Combining physical laws and information requires that insofar as icons and indices are physically restricted by similarity or connection with their object, they have no heritable information capacity, according to communication theory. Peirce, above, agreed, recognizing that the communicative function of information requires alternatives. This is because communication theory is about information vehicles that are not interpreted.
It is significant that communicable information from the oldest genes to the latest news (and all our Internet discussion) is stored and communicated by linear sequences of a few simple discrete symbol vehicles (Syntactic coding, transmission protocols, and error correction are not simple, but are still all symbolic.)
Frederik quotes Peirce:
"For a great distinguishing property of the icon is that by the direct observation of it other truths concerning its object can be discovered than those which suffice to determine its construction." GR: This leads Frederik to remark that not only is the icon the only sign which gives information, but that "it is also the only sign by the contemplation of which more may be learned. . " so that, according to him, the decisive test of whether a sign is an icon or not is "whether it is possible to manipulate or develop the sign so that new information as to its object appears" (208).
HP: This is certainly not a useful or decisive test. The contemplation and manipulation of signs is what all brains do, and the "new information" that can be developed is limited only by the memory and imagination in each individual brain. Peirce even considered mathematical symbols as icons. So by this non-discriminate test of iconicity what cannot be iconic?
Howard
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