Gary F, list:
Thank you so much for this post - with which I obviously agree - and
I refer to another article from Science [which I get online] - about
which I referred to last week, on mutations in organisms, which can
be compared with Firstness. This suggests that Firstness or
spontaneity is not accidental and undesirable but required within
living organisms, enabling adaptation and evolution.
Certainly, the reality that plants become 'aware' of attacks on them
by predator insects/animals, and thus, react , as you say, by "nervous
system-like signaling in plant defense" has become well-known. I've
referred to this fact often in previous posts - and as you point out,
many researchers moving into this area are not aware of Peirce but I
think that more and more are moving out of the mechanical
infrastructure which has stifled biology for decades and into a
perspective that acknowledges plants as dynamic information
processing systems. Yes, this is pure Peircean - even without the
terms.
But I think that semiotics and biosemiotics has played a role in
opening up this research - I refer to, as I've often done, the work
done by many researchers who attend the conferences put on by Daniel
Dubois, on 'Computing Anticipatory Systems'. Some, as you note, are
indeed influenced by Rosen; others by Complex Systems Analysis; -
some, just a few, by Peirce. A problem with the use of Peirce is
terminology - and my concern is that the focus on 'exact terms' and
'classifications' prevents, actually prevents, the expansion of his
thoughts and infrastructure, into the broader world examination. So-
you are right, biology doesn't need semiosis as a separate field to
investigate, not merely signalling but organic formation and
interaction.
However - I think that semiosis would make such investigations
easier! How? Exactly as you point out: "The value of biosemiotics, in
my view, is its elucidation of those formal patterns, not in the
discovery of specific details of the detailed mechanisms in which
they are embodied in this or that life form. " Exactly. I have found
that when I've presented papers in these areas at various conferences,
I've had to either not use Peircean terms, or reduce them, to enable
more people to understand my outline. BUT, the outline has been pure
Peirce.
And as I suggest, these formal patterns operate, not only in the
cognitive world of individual human thought, but in the
physico-chemical, the biological and the societal realms. That's what
is, to me, interesting, to apply Peircean principles in these areas.
Again, thank you for your post.
Edwina
On Sun 16/09/18 1:38 PM , g...@gnusystems.ca sent:
List,
The current issue of Science magazine features two articles that
provoke me to share a few reflections on the subject line, which
I’ve chosen to represent the recurring calls on this list for more
postings that apply Peircean ideas to “real-world” issues and
investigations (as opposed to postings about the minutiae of
Peirce’s philosophy, including logic as semiotic).
The first Science article is “Gaia 2.0”, by Timothy M. Lenton
and Bruno Latour, which asks the question, “Could humans add some
level of self-awareness to Earth’s self-regulation?” It’s
accessible at http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6407/1066
[1]. I couldn’t help noticing that my blog post of September 5,
http://gnusystems.ca/wp/2018/09/earthtypes/ [2], deals with
essentially the same question. I didn’t share that blog post with
the peirce list, but Gary Richmond posted a link to it along with
some very positive comments about it (thanks Gary R!). It does
incorporate a quotation from Peirce introducing a semiotic idea
(namely the type-token distinction), and tries to apply that concept
to what may be the most significant real-world issue of our time, the
challenge of the Anthropocene.
The Science article does not mention any specifically Peircean
ideas, but “Gaia 2.0” certainly overlaps with them in remarkable
ways. As the authors say, it “establishes a new continuity between
humans and nonhumans that was not visible before—a relation between
free agents. This understanding offers the potential to learn from
features of Gaia to create a Gaia 2.0. We focus here on three of
these features: autotrophy, networks, and heterarchy.” Those are
not Peircean terms, but “continuity” certainly is a central focus
of Peirce, and I certainly see his logic/semiotic as a major
contribution to making visible the continuity between humans and
nonhumans.
I also see Peirce as a major contributor to awareness of the
continuity among various branches of science, notably by laying the
groundwork for what we now call biosemiotics. The authors of “Gaia
2.0” exemplify such continuity: Lenton is a (British) Earth Systems
scientist, while Latour is a (French) philosopher. Does it matter that
they do not mention Peirce or use Peircean terminology? Well, it does
to those interested in the history and philosophy of science who are
concerned with giving credit where credit is due. Does it matter in
terms of facing the challenge of the Anthropocene? I doubt it … but
I’ll come back to this question below.
The other current Science article is about “nervous system-like
signaling in plant defense.” It’s one small contribution to the
literature on plant “signaling” — even plant “intelligence”
— which has become voluminous in recent years. Now, you might think
this is fertile ground for biosemiotics. But in fact, neither this
article nor the two full books about plant semiosis that I’ve
recently read ever mentions the term “biosemiotics,” or cites any
of the ‘usual suspects’ who publish in that field. Neither does
David Attenborough, in his recent television programs which have
dealt with various forms of semiosis observed in the vegetable world.
Why not? I think the answer is simple: biology does not need semiotics
as a separate field to investigate “signaling” in plants.
The Science article I mention here is about the recent discovery
that glutamate, which acts as a neurotransmitter in animals, also
plays an important role in “plant defense,” i.e. in the
relatively fast mechanisms by which a plant’s leaves can be
informed of damage to other leaves elsewhere on the plant, and
respond by activating whatever chemical defenses they may have. The
fact that both plants and animals use the same chemical substance for
similar semiosic purposes does suggest the continuity between these
two aspects of the biosphere, but is (in my opinion) relatively
trivial compared to the more general and formal aspects of semiosis
which apply across the full spectrum of the life sciences. The value
of biosemiotics, in my view, is its elucidation of those formal
patterns, not in the discovery of specific details of the detailed
mechanisms in which they are embodied in this or that life form.
Biology can take care of that and is doing so in laboratories around
the world. The importance of biosemiotics is more philosophical, even
ethical in the sense of ‘global ethics.’ And I think the same
applies to the matter of ‘bringing Peirce into the 21st century.’
Let me explain that by referring to my aforementioned blog post
(and its larger context, the “netbook” Turning Signs). One of the
central concepts in both is what I call “the meaning cycle,” which
I take to be a basic pattern in all forms of semiosis. There’s a
diagram of it in that blog post, and in Turning Signs at
http://gnusystems.ca/TS/mdl.htm#meancyc [3]. In the course of
transcribing Peirce’s Lowell Lecture 7, I came across this passage
which seems to me fully congruent with the concept of the “meaning
cycle,” although Peirce does not mention either “meanings” or
“cycles”:
[[ The course of events by which any new subject gets added to our
knowledge is most clearly marked in the case of an addition to our
scientific knowledge.
In the first place we are already in a previous state of knowledge.
Logic has quite nothing to say concerning the primum cognitum. In
consequence of this we are in a state of expectation concerning a
coming phenomenon,— being that expectation active or passive. If
the phenomenon, when it comes, fulfills that expectation, it
strengthens the habits of thinking on which that expectation is
based, but teaches us nothing new. But if it involves any surprise,
as it mostly does, our habits of thinking are deranged, whether
little or much. We then feel the need of a new idea which shall serve
to bind the surprising phenomenon to our preëxisting experience. One
usual phrase is that we want the surprising fact explained. With
this end in view we are led to frame a hypothesis, and the process of
reasoning by which we come to set up a hypothesis is the kind of
reasoning that I call Abduction. Now this hypothesis is a purely
ideal state of things, and upon the basis of a purely ideal state of
things as a premiss, we can only reason deductively. In fact,
deduction always relates to a purely ideal state of things, in this
sense, that if the premiss of deduction is known for anything more
than that, its being more has nothing to do with the course of the
deduction. The Deductions which we base upon the hypothesis which has
resulted from Abduction produce conditional predictions concerning our
future experience. That is to say, we infer by Deduction that if the
hypothesis be true, any future phenomena of certain descriptions must
present such and such characters. We now institute a course of
quasi-experimentation in order to bring these predictions to the
test, and thus to form our final estimate of the value of the
hypothesis, and this whole proceeding I term Induction. I speak of
quasi-experimentation because the term experiment is, according to
the usage of scientific men, restricted to the operation of bringing
about certain conditions. The noting of the results of experiments or
of anything else to which our attention is directed in advance of our
noting it, is called Observation. But by quasi-experimentation I mean
the entire operation either of producing or of searching out a state
of things to which the conditional predictions deduced from the
hypothesis shall be applicable and of noting how far the prediction
is fulfilled. ] http://gnusystems.ca/Lowell7.htm [4] ]
In Turning Signs I’ve brought in many specific references from
biology, psychology, neuroscience, ecology, even sacred scriptures
and sutras, to show how this basic pattern recurs in all these
fields. I’ve also drawn heavily on Peircean semiotics. But I do not
attribute the “meaning cycle” concept (or my diagram of it) to
Peirce. That’s because I didn’t actually get it from Peirce; I
got it from Robert Rosen’s work on “anticipatory systems”, and
had incorporated it into the book before I found it in Peirce. When I
do quote Peirce in the book (which happens quite a lot), I quote him
for the same reason that I quote other writers: because I find their
words to be clear statements of principles I consider important to
the “ecology of meaning,” as I call it, across the whole spectrum
of semiosis from the human down to the microbial, and from the
collectively cultural to the individual.
To sum up: many of Peirce’s important ideas don’t need to be
‘brought into’ the 21st century because they are already here.
They may not be credited to Peirce, but they are further developments
of thoughts he pioneered or picked up from his predecessors and
carried further. I think our responsibility to Peirce, if we have
any, is to carry his ideas further, and express them in new contexts
which did not exist in Peirce’s time. Whether we mention Peirce or
use his terminology, or cite him as an “authority,” is not all
that important, pragmatically speaking. Each of us needs to adapt
Peircean ideas and terms to the communicational context in which we
find ourselves, in oder to carry them forward. But speaking for
myself, the great value of this list is the contributions of those
who are actively reading Peirce with the aim of refining (and
sometimes reforming) our understanding of what he said. When we find
something in Peirce that offers fresh insights into the Thought
process of Gaia, or of even more inclusive universes, that’s what
motivates us (or me at least) to bring Peirce current dialogues.
Gary f.
} Everything is always becoming something other than what it was
becoming. [Floyd Merrell] {
http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ [5] }{ Turning Signs gateway
Links:
------
[1] http://science.sciencemag.org/content/361/6407/1066
[2] http://gnusystems.ca/wp/2018/09/earthtypes/
[3] http://gnusystems.ca/TS/mdl.htm#meancyc
[4] http://gnusystems.ca/Lowell7.htm
[5] http://gnusystems.ca/wp/
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