Edwina, Mike, List:
1. Mindful of (and agreeing with) Gary R.'s request for at least a
temporary moratorium on this topic, I hesitated to respond; but I decided
to try clarifying my position once more, since there has been some evident
misunderstanding of it. The referenced paper and subsequent discussion are
about brain *act*ivity, which is always *act*ual, so characterizing it as
*act*ion is not problematic from a Peircean perspective. Moreover, it
falls under the (idioscopic) Special Science of neurophysiology, rather
than (cenoscopic) Phaneroscopy, Normative Science, or Metaphysics. It is
primarily within the latter fields that I believe carefully distinguishing
the Categories from each other is especially important.
2. Again, as far as I know, Peirce never proposed "the triadic spokes or Y
shape" as a representation of the Sign *itself*; only as a representation
of a triadic *relation*, such as the one that the Sign *has *with its
Object and Interpretant. I share the concern about properly capturing
the *mediation
*aspect of semiosis, but I do not see how a Y is any better than a triangle
from that standpoint.
3. I am also uncomfortable with characterizing the Sign as a "function"
that *transforms *"input" (Object) *into* "output" (Interpretant). For one
thing, this has a deterministic connotation--in mathematics, even
non-linear functions always produce the same output upon receiving the same
input. In any case, Peirce's own description was instead that the Sign
*communicates *a Form *from *the Object *to* the Interpretant, in such a
way that the Object is unaffected by the Sign and the Sign is unaffected by
the Interpretant (cf. EP 2:544n22; 1906).
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
On Mon, Aug 20, 2018 at 8:07 AM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
> John, Mike, list
>
> 1] John - thanks for the clarification of your slide #9, Cognitive
> Learning.
>
> I mistook the three slides showing brain activity to refer to the
> Peircean categories - and was puzzled, since Feeling/Firstness does not,
> according to Peirce, require a brain. As he said, 'protoplasm' feels...and
> this is a non-conscious, i.e., non-mental experience. My error regarding
> your slides.
>
> 2] With regard to your slide #4 of machine learning - I've got two points.
>
> I can see, actually, that the triangle is an accurate image in ML, - and
> comment that such linearity is a key problem in ML. That's why I prefer the
> triadic spokes or Y shape provided by Peirce for the semiosic Sign because
> it rejects the linear force - which can be quite overpowering like an
> avalanche - and enables mediation...which is never linear. Machines have
> trouble with mediation!
>
> I don't see, as does Mike, that this is related to the categories, but
> could be wrong, and would also appreciate your clarification.
>
> 3] At any rate, I've suggested years ago, that the semiosic triadic act is
> a function: f{x]=y, where 'f' is mediation. Your slide 5 shows this quite
> well, AND, in addition, shows the vital nature of this mediation or 'hidden
> layer'. What is interesting is that your hidden layer[s] is
> complex/multiple. My view is that this is why Thirdness has three modes:
> 3-3, 3-2, 3-1 - to provide complexity of organization/transformation of
> input to output.
>
> My paper, presented in Dubois' conference on Computing Anticipatory
> Systems, examines the complex actions of this mediation within the three
> modes of Thirdness and as a function...and even, puts these actions on a
> different spatial and temporal zone than the actions of 1ns,2ns.
>
> Note - I've tried to attach my paper, The Sign as a WFF/well-formed
> formula, but this new computer doesn't have all my papers and I'm an idiot
> dealing with computers.
>
> Edwina
>
> On Sun 19/08/18 11:08 PM , Mike Bergman m...@mkbergman.com sent:
>
> Hi John, List,
>
> I appreciate you keep trying to get us back on target with your comments.
>
> I think the reference Edwina brought forward is the best I've seen so
> far for these arguments with respect to the neurophysiology of Thirdness
> mediation. Do you agree?
>
> I think I understand your points on slides 7-11 of your short version
> http://jfsowa.com/talks/vrshort.pdf
> <http://parse.php?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fjfsowa.com%2Ftalks%2Fvrshort.pdf>.
>
>
> However, what stopped me in this deck is slide #4. Framing the ML
> methods into the triadic triangle format you prefer (as do I) seems to
> imply you are relating these ML methods to the universal categories. Is
> that your intent? If so, I'd love to hear the rationale behind that.
>
> Best, Mike
>
> On 8/19/2018 8:56 PM, John F Sowa wrote:
> > On 8/18/2018 5:41 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
> >> I can see from the images that you refer to each of these Peircean
> >> categories taking place in a different part of the brain.
> >
> > That's not what I meant. The categories are correlated with the
> > interconnections of different areas.
> >
> > For further explanation, I'll have to refer to several diagrams.
> > Instead of the 117-slide long version, please download the 21-slide
> > short version: http://jfsowa.com/talks/vrshort.pdf
> <http://parse.php?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fjfsowa.com%2Ftalks%2Fvrshort.pdf>
> >
> > Slide 7 asks "What is cognition?" and summarizes the answer by
> > the psychologist Lawrence Barsalou. That is useful background.
> > After that, slides 8 to 11 discuss the experiment of teaching
> > 14 students about the workings of four devices: bathroom scale,
> > fire extinguisher, disk brake system, and trumpet. At different
> > stages of learning, they asked the students questions about those
> > four devices and recorded the fMRI scans of their brains while
> > they were answering.
> >
> > Instead of showing the scans of the left sides of their brains
> > (which are dominated by the language processing), they showed the
> > scans of the right sides (which are dominated by the processes of
> > imagining and interpreting the images).
> >
> > All 14 students had similar brain activations for the same 3 kinds
> > of questions about the 4 different devices. It's significant that
> > all 168 patterns (14 x 3 x 4) were remarkably similar.
> >
> > For my summary of the study, please review slides 8 and 9.
> > For the full article, the link is at the bottom of slide 8.
> >
> > Then slide 10 summarizes issues about Intentionality, which is
> > the most characteristic aspect of Thirdness. It quotes Brentano
> > and Lynn Margulis before summarizing Peirce's views.
> >
> > Finally, slide 11 relates the brain scans to 1ns, 2ns, and 3ns.
> > Following are three quotations from that slide, each followed
> > by my further commentary:
> >
> > 1. "Perception is based on localized percepts or prototypes. It
> > classifies phenomena by the monadic predicates of Firstness
> > (fMRI image #1)."
> >
> > What is critical here is not which part of the brain lights up,
> > but the fact that only one very narrow area is active. In this
> > case, its the visual cortex, which is active in both direct
> > perception and in mental imagery of remembered or anticipated
> > scenes. Auditory or tactile perception would be localized in
> > different, but equally narrow areas.
> >
> > 2. "Long-distance connections in the parietal lobes support dyadic
> > relations that connect all sensory and motor modalities. They
> > represent the structures of Secondness (image #2)."
> >
> > By long-distance, I mean crossing from one lobe to another.
> > In image #2, the visual cortex is still active, but there is
> > more activation in related areas, especially the parietal lobes,
> > which relate the visual aspects various to kinds of patterns.
> > The tactile and motor areas are also active. This kind of
> > activity would be characteristic of dyadic relations that
> > relate structural aspects of the four devices.
> >
> > 3. "The frontal lobes process the mediating Thirdness in reasoning,
> > planning, causality, and intentionality (image #3)."
> >
> > The frontal lobes, which are the most active, involve the most
> > complex reasoning. The frontal lobes are also adjacent to the
> > tactile and motor areas that are also involved in reasoning
> > about how the four devices work.
> >
> > Mike B
> >> The full paper without charge [on "Gradual Progression from Sensory
> >> to Task-Related Processing in Cerebral Cortex"]
> >> http://www.pnas.org/content/pnas/115/30/E7202.full.pdf
> <http://parse.php?redirect=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.pnas.org%2Fcontent%2Fpnas%2F115%2F30%2FE7202.full.pdf>
> >
> > This paper is consistent with the one about the four devices.
> > Note that image #1 in slide 11 of vrshort.pdf would be the first
> > area to become active when someone is looking at the device.
> > Then images #2 and #3 would become active when thinking about
> > tasks that use the device.
> >
> > John
>
>
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