On 4/2/2017 11:04 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
I like your terms and yes, Peirce has indeed used all of them. My question is: What would your definition be of a 'sign'? You use it often in the chart but it has no definition.
I'm glad that you approve of the choice of terms. Re definition of sign: I agree with all of Peirce's definitions. He used different words and phrases on various occasions, but I believe that they are consistent ways of expressing the fundamental relationships. In "Signs and Reality", I quoted one of them (CP 2.228), but it uses the word 'person', which would exclude computers. Later, I quoted “Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain” (CP 4.551). And I also believe that his term 'quasi-mind' is important for biosemiotics and computer systems. In short, I evaded the issue. But I think that Peirce also evaded the issue -- for a very good reason: Within a particular formal system (axioms in some version of logic), it's possible to state necessary and sufficient conditions that cover all and every use of a term within that system. But the question of how or whether a particular formal theory applies to some aspect of the real world is an empirical issue. Nobody knows what kinds of quasi-minds might exist somewhere in the universe. Even within our own brains, neuroscientists are constantly discovering unexpected features. If a single bacterium could be considered to have a quasi-mind, what about a single neuron in the brain? A single eukaryotic cell has several organelles, derived from more primitive cells that have been "swallowed" and incorporated into the larger cell. Are those organelles also "quasi-minds"? Marvin Minsky coined the term 'Society of Mind'. Are our brains societies of billions of quasi-minds (neurons), each of which is a society of even smaller quasi-minds? John
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