Re: [PEIRCE-L] Stjernfelt Seminar: Chapter 7, Dicisigns Beyond Language ~ 7.1

[Frederik Stjernfelt]

Dear Doug, lists,

Thanks for a good summary of Ch. 7.
Here a few comments.

F

Den 12/12/2014 kl. 03.57 skrev Douglas Hare 
mailto:ddh...@mail.harvard.edu>>:


Stjernfelt Seminar: Chapter 7: 7.2-7.3

How should we classify the various different types of diagrams which can serve 
as predicates? According to our author, “Linguistic predicates seem to form one 
end of a range with very detailed, essentially continuous predicates like 
Myers' 4-D computer model or topographical maps in the other end” (NP, 188). It 
remains unclear to me why we should accept this linear description. I'm also 
curious why Stjernfelt does not discuss Peirce's late theory of hypoicons 
(images/diagrams/metaphors) at this point or mention his late realization of 
the importance of general icons.

Perhaps the author feels as if he has already covered this technical material 
in Chapter 4 of Diagrammatology, but I would like to know if he has changed his 
mind since he wrote in 2007 “that the category of pure diagrams is coextensive 
with mathematics as such. This implies that the question of pure diagram 
taxonomies is inevitably entangled in the large questions of the foundations of 
mathematics" (Diagrammatology, 111).

You're right, I think i already covered the images/diagrams/metaphors 
trichotomy in Diagrammatology. I do not think I have changed my mind about pure 
diagrams since 2007 - "pure" meaning diagrams without reference to empirical 
matters-of-fact.

What is clear is that the author defines a continuous diagram as one in which 
“every connected part of the same dimension is, in itself, a diagram” (NP, 
188). Of course, this quality often comes up against the limitation of 
granularity, usually the fact that sometimes we cannot “zoom-in” any more based 
on observatory or technical limitations when viewing images. An interesting 
relation seems to hold between Dicisigns with continuous predicates and 
linguistically-stated or algebraic-expressed propositions. For example, a 
computer model like that of Myers can be conceived as one Large Dicisign given 
“the continuity of its predicate and the unambiguousness of its object 
reference to a duration of space-time embedding the assassination event. Such a 
Dicisign directly refers to a whole continuum of objects present in the 4-D 
space-time slice which is depicted” (NP,188).

Although the Myers' model allows for Euclidean translations of objects across 
diagram space, it apparently does not allow us to vary object shapes within the 
experiment.

No, that would infringe on the purpose of that diagram - to establish as 
detailed as possible facts on the ground during the assassination. This aim 
involves the idealized (but not unreasonable) assumption that the involved 
objects are stiff during the small timeslice charted. Allowing for the 
variation of object shapes would prevent this purpose.

As example of diagram types which do admit variation, the author points to both 
pure and empirical examples: the triangle, the elephant species Loxodonta 
africanus, the structure of Congress and makes a brief comparison to Husserl's 
notion of eidetic variation. But given that a taxonomy of subtypes of diagrams 
is a desideratum of future research, in 7.2 we are not treated to an exhaustive 
outline but rather a “sketch” of vistas for more clearly elucidating 
structures, objects of, and purposes of diagram predicates given a Peircean 
reading of modern cognitive fields.

I do think a taxonomy of diagrams is a huge desideratum - and there is no lack 
of existing proposals for such a taxonomy. Most probably,  several such 
taxonomies will have to be combined. But the close relation of pure diagrams to 
math implies - I think that diagram taxonomies must be connected to issues in 
the foundations of mathematics. So I think the development of diagram 
taxonomies requires far more than Peirce scholarship …
Here, I limit myself to discussing the much simpler issue of possible 
text-image-gesture combinations within the framework of Dicisigns - also to 
avoid the obvious trap of assuming the painting-with-a-legend example to 
indicate that text subjects/image predicates should be the typical or even the 
only such combination.

In Section 7.3: Propositions in the Wild—Combining Available Signs into 
Dicisigns, we find that subject-predicate Dicisign structure does not map 
isomorphically onto word-image conglomerates in mixed-media, but rather offers 
different possibilities for fulfilling the truth-bearing role of the functional 
doubleness of Dicisigns (NP, 190). Beyond the permutations of subject/predicate 
coupling already discussed, we also find various S-P combinations in which 
gestures play both roles (c.f. the typology on NP, 190).

As suggestions for further taxonomical advances, the author suggests more 
nuanced distinctions between diagrams and pictures, the introduction of 
sense-modalities on top of vision, a finer distinction between diagrams 
depicting the passage of t

[PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:7841] Re: Natural Propositions Chapter

[Howard Pattee]

Frederik and lists,

Thank you for the clear answers. I am enjoying NP 
and am impressed by its scholarship. I think 
there is still one issue that is most important for biosemiotics.


At 06:48 PM 12/26/2014, Frederik wrote:

Linear discrete storage is of paramount 
importance but still only one side of the coin - 
the other being spatial information, e.g. in 
visual, continuous icons. One of the early 
important papers in biosemiotics (by Hoffmeyer 
and Emmeche, in Semiotica, around 1990) made the 
point that information inheritance in biology is 
double. One part is the discrete information in 
the genes - the other the continuous information 
incarnated in the structure of the cell.


HP: The empirical issue is: How important for 
evolution are continuous dynamic icons? Of course 
evolution has discovered all kinds of epigenetic 
inheritance effects.This has been a hot topic 
since Lamarck. Today there is even a Journal, 
Non-Genetic 
Inheritance, (only one issue per year!). A 
critical review of "soft  inheritance" is in 
Proc.Roy.Soc.B 
6/28/2012 by Dickins and Rahman.


FS: So here I (with Hoffmeyer and Emmeche) 
disagree with Howard: the egg cell itself forms 
part of the inherited information (in gendered 
organisms) - in simpler organisms, the cell 
structure is inherited by the simple duplication of it.


HP: What structures making up an egg are not 
under genetic control? Clearly the atoms, C, N, 
O, H, etc. are not. They are fixed parts of any 
gene-controlled molecule. But when a cell divides 
do you want to say carbon atoms in the new cells are inherited?


In any case, this is not the fundamental 
biosemiotic issue. From the physicist's point of 
view (e.g., Boltzman, Schrödinger, von Neumann, 
Wigner, et al) life is a fundamental problem 
because it increases or maintains intricate, 
non-statistical structured order in a very noisy 
universe -- noise which causes all other ordered 
structures to eventually dissipate, or dissipate 
faster than life (eventually, nothing escapes dissipation).


The first level answer was grasped by Darwin. 
There must be a heritable memory that maintains 
structures (growth and metabolism). But this 
answer still has the noise problem. Why is the 
memory reliable? The second level answer should 
be a biosemiotic principle. It is supported by 
all kinds of evidence: The only sufficiently 
reliable evolvable memories are discrete linear 
symbol systems. That is not the only condition. 
To be evolvable in an open-ended sense, the 
symbol system must form a language with unlimited 
expressive power (e.g., 
Pattee, 
1968 to 
2007). 
Hoffmeyer and Emmeche have a point, but the 
RNA 
Model now appears as a good origin possibility.


One more question. I can see that the Peircean 
triad of symbol, index, icon makes sense for 
weathercocks, but I need examples of how it could 
add to the current (parsimonious) description of 
genetic expression in single cells. What are the index and icon vehicles?


Howard

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Stjernfelt Seminar: Chapter 7, Dicisigns Beyond Language ~ 7.1

[Frederik Stjernfelt]

Dear Gary, Doug,  lists,

I do think the upshot of taking "thinking about thinking" and hypostatic 
abstraction as human privileges must be that non-human animals are (largely) 
incapable of second-order logic, both in the standard sense of quantifying over 
predicates, but also in the more cognitive sense of being able to form 
abstractions based on already established thought content. I do not know about 
trained parrots and chimps which are known to be brought to surprising semiotic 
abilities. Cognitive ethology seems to be in an exciting period finding more 
and more  complex behaviours in many species so I would not categorically 
preclude non-humanoids from any aspect of "thinking about thinking" - rather, 
I'd take it as an empirical hypothesis that much human activity is highly 
dependent upon it while most non-human activity does not depend upon it.

The "German" senses of "objective" and "subjective" seem to derive to a large 
degree from Kant, and it is true Peirce strives not to use them. Instead, he 
uses "subject" in the logical sense involved in Dicisigns - and also in the 
related common-sense use of meaning "the subject matter", the focus of 
discussion - while, as you know, he uses "object" about that which is referred 
to by a "subject". I think Doug is right in bringing it up here in connection 
to the Peirce-Clark Extended Mind discussion, for one of the main reasons I 
think Peirce wishes to avoid the German subject-object dichotomy is in order to 
avoid subjective idealism - you know: ideas are figments of the psyche which 
are projected onto an outside object thereby "covered" by those projections and 
hence unknowable in itself. This is why Peirce's notion of "mind" tends to 
confuse many - it is not something in the head - it refers to structures of 
entities, no matter whether those structures are in the world or in the head. 
In a certain sense it is a version of objective idealism - which, of course, 
Peirce interprets scientifically - objective ideas being the subject of 
science, not only of metaphysical speculation.

Best
F


Den 14/12/2014 kl. 14.11 skrev Gary Fuhrman 
mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca>>:

Doug, in answer to look your request,
If anyone can elaborate on how Peirce used the terms “subjective” and 
“objective” differently from the 'varieties of German senses', I am confused 
about how the quotation from the letter to Lady Welby on p. 194 makes his 
approach an original one.

The standard usage of the terms “subjective” and “subjectivity” are descended 
from the “German” senses to which Peirce refers (and objects). Peirce’s reasons 
for avoiding those usages are somewhat complex, and I’ve dealt with the issue 
in Chapter 12 of my work in progress, Turning Signs. Here’s the most directly 
relevant excerpt — the links included here will not work in this email, so if 
you want to further into these matters, you’ll need to read the webpage version 
at http://www.gnusystems.ca/rlb.htm#bjctv.

gary f.

Chapter 
2 
directed your attention to ‘the tension between language, which is essentially 
public, and experience, which is necessarily private.’ Since then we have been 
using the word ‘experience’ in a more Peircean way, with reference to the 
‘Outward Clash’ or collision of expectation with reality which manifests 
Secondness as otherness. Both uses are salient.
We are accustomed to speak of an external universe and an inner world of 
thought.… Experience being something forced upon us, belongs to the external 
type. Yet in so far as it is I or you who experiences the constraint, the 
experience is mine or yours, and thus belongs to the inner world.
— Peirce (CP 
7.438-9)
We are also accustomed to speak of the experience belonging to the inner world 
as ‘subjective’ and the experience of the external world as ‘objective’ – even 
though the world is inside 
out. 
As we saw in Chapter 
10,
 the Century Dictionary tells us that the word ‘thought’ can refer either to 
the ‘subjective element of intellectual activity’ or to ‘the objective element 
of the intellectual product’ of thinking. But 
thepolyversity
 pervading language is even more strikingly exemplified by the history of the 
adjectivesobjective and subjective.
According to currently common usage, knowledge of X is objective to the extent 
that it reflects the way X really is in itself (independently of anyone's 
knowledge or perception), and subjective to the extent that it is due to the 
habits or intentions of the knower. A purely subjective idea would have no real 
relation to external reality; a purely objective ‘perception’ would be 
completely unaffected by the inherent nature of the perceiver – if a real 
perception or conception could be purely one or the other. This usage is 
closely related to our habit of referring to X as the object experienced, and 
to the experiencer as the subject of experience (as for instance we did in 
Chapter 
4).
But when these terms were first imported into the English language

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos

[Gary Moore]

  Part 323** MURDERMYSTERY! **ECO ON PEIRCE!**27 Dec 2014 9:55 am CST REVISE, 
READ ORIGINAL (Who killed truth?)    FROM THE TREE TO THE LABYRINTH by 
UmbertoEcoCHAPTER 15: THE THRESHOLD AND THE INFINITE: PEIRCE ANDPRIMARY ICONISM 
* correlate with KANT ANDTHE PLATYPUS [page 524]-x-15.5. PEIRCE AND THE 
TORTOISEWhen reading Peirce, we must not confuse cosmology and gnoseology. As 
Ialready remarked in K & P, two different but mutually 
interdependentperspectives are interwoven in Peirce’s thought: the 
metaphysical-cosmologicaland the cognitive. Unless we read them in a semiotic 
key, Peirce’s meyaphysics andcosmology remain incomprehensible. But we would 
have to say the same thing ofhis semiotics with respect to his cosmology. 
Categories such as Firstness,Secondness, Thirdness and the concept of 
interpretation itself not only define“modisignificandi”, that is, the ways in 
which the world can be known: theyare also “modi essendi”, ways in which the 
world BEHAVES, proceduresthrough which the world, in the course of evolution, 
interprets itself. [page 525]In K& P, I cited Matteo Mameli, “Synechism: 
Aspetti del pensiero di C.S. Peirce”, 1997: 4: “Given that Peirce thinks and 
demonstrates thatintelligibility is not an accidental characteristic of the 
universe, that it isnot, that is, a mere epiphenomenon of how things are, but a 
characteristic that‘shapes’ the universe, it follows that a theory of 
intelligibility is also ametaphysical theory of the structure of the universe” 
K & P, p. 399, n.28). The theory of intelligibility and metaphysical theory, 
however, mustsometimes be kept separate.¶-x-Kant said that the fact that we 
believe we know things on the basis of themere evidence of our senses depends 
on a “vitium subreptionis” or subreption:we are so accustomed from childhood to 
grasp things as if they appeared to usalready given to us in intuition that we 
have never thematized the role playedby the intellect in this process. 
Therefore even what were for him evenempirical intuitions were already the 
result of a work of inference.¶-x-We can construct a semiotics without a 
subject or (what amounts to the samething) in which the subject is everywhere. 
In this semiotics there will neverbe a “priman” because interpretation will 
proceed by “miseen abyme”. But, if from the cosmological point of view the 
inferentialprocess is infinite, because there are no intuitions, then we cannot 
ignore thecognitive instance, that is, that edge of semiosis that is formed 
when asubject (any instance capable of saying “I” that somehow inters into 
thesemiosis from the material and corporal outside – what I am speaking about 
is abrain) installs itself and touches off a chain of inferences under the 
stimulusof something that, from its own point of viewand only in this 
precisespatiotemporal segment, ATTRACTS ITS ATTENTION [footnote 7: At this 
point wemight be tempted to open up another can of worms: Why does one thing 
attract myattention at the expense of another? But reconstructing a theory of 
attentionin Peirce lies beyond my capabilities, and beyond the scope of this 
chapter.]The “I”in this case stands on that edge where on the one hand there 
stands, let ussay, the dog – the thing that interests him at the moment – and, 
on the otherhand, evcerything else – which does not interest him.¶-x- From: 
Jon Awbrey 
 To: Helmut Raulien  
Cc: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu 
 Sent: Friday, December 26, 2014 10:20 PM
 Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos
   
Thread:
JBD:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15230
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15235
SJ:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15236
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15237
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15238
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15239
HR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15240
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15241
HR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15243
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15244
HR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15246

Helmut,

One should not take that illustrative example too literally.
I was simply making another try at clarifying my use of the
word "cosmos" and replying to Sung about anthropocentricity.

Regards,

Jon



Helmut Raulien wrote:
> Hi! I do not think, that my point of view or my argumentation has anything to 
> do 
> with celestial spheres or bearded father figures. I am a left wing anarchist 
> liberal communist feminist anticapitalist antifashist and so on. I am against 
> any authorority, except the authority of God. And, what this is, I am trying 
> to 
> find out. Best, Helmut.

-- 

academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey
my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/
inquiry list: http://

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos

[Edwina Taborsky]

Good heavens, Helmut, what a contrary mixture of beliefs you hold!  "left wing 
anarchist liberal communist feminist anticapitalist antifashist"...Anarchy 
in its nature opposes communism, fascism and liberalism.  But being left wing 
promotes communism and fascism. Liberalism promotes capitalism. And 
anti-authority rejects Peircean Thirdness and Mind.

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: Helmut Raulien 
  To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu 
  Sent: Friday, December 26, 2014 5:42 PM
  Subject: Aw: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos


  Hi! I do not think, that my point of view or my argumentation has anything to 
do with celestial spheres or bearded father figures. I am a left wing anarchist 
liberal communist feminist anticapitalist antifashist and so on. I am against 
any authorority, except the authority of God. And, what this is, I am trying to 
find out. Best, Helmut. 


   "Jon Awbrey" An: "Peirce List"  
wrote:
   
  Jeff, Sung, Helmut, List,

  It is only human of human beings to project their affairs on celestial 
spheres but doing so does not
  alter the circumstance that we project our own images from anthropic centers. 
There are times when
  our projections hit the mark. And there are times when we end up imagining 
the universe compassed
  by Bearded Father Figures (BFFs). Speculative projections require critical 
reflection to sift the
  reality from the fantasy.

  I am mainly concerned with inquiry as a form of human conduct, a practical 
activity carried on by
  individuals and communities, increasingly supported by the tools our species 
of tool-makers has
  evolved and learned to make. Thus I view inquiry stereoscopically, from two 
distinct angles,
  descriptive and instrumental.

  On the descriptive side, Peirce's work on relations in general and sign 
relations in particular
  gives us, perhaps for the first time in history, a paradigm of theoretical 
models adequate to the
  task of describing inquiry. The category theory developed by mathematicians 
has many applications
  in describing the functions and structures of inquiry, especially if the 
potential generalizations
  of category theory to handle relations in their own terms can be realized.

  On the instrumental side, we have the task of engineering software that can 
better aid inquiry.
  Building instruments to extend our capacities in any realm requires a model 
of the organon that
  nature gave us, and so we "prime the pump" of the instrumental task by 
knowing ourselves first.
  Given that start, the cycle of amplification can begin.

  Regards,

  Jon

  --

  academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey
  my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/
  inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
  isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA
  oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey
  facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache


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Re: [biosemiotics:7769] [PEIRCE-L] Stjernfelt Seminar: Chapter 7, Dicisigns Beyond Language ~ 7.1

[Frederik Stjernfelt]

Dear Gary, Douglas, lists,

Thanks to Gary for the reference to the Harvard lecture draft. I went back and 
reread that (pretty fantastic btw) piece of prose. Gary's right about P's 
"waverings" (as he calls it) regarding the relation between the categories and 
the three argument types, ab-, in- and deduction (which is the 1-2-3 sequence 
followed in this text). In the deleted part added as s footnote in Turrisi's 
edition to which  Gary also refers, P. leaves "the question undecided".
I think there is no doubt in the overall perspective that Peirce stuck, despite 
these waverings, to the ab-, de-, in-sequence in the larger perspective of the 
mature version of his logic - this is supported by his stable dichotomy of 
deductions (corollarial vs. theorematic, to which I return in a later chapter) 
and his (a bit less) stable trichotomy of inductions (pooh-pooh, quantitative, 
and qualitative, respectively) - given P's argument that Secondnesses give rise 
to dichotomies, Thirdnesses to trichotomies.
But despte this fact there is indeed good reason to investigate the arguments 
for the two different versions - the ab-in-de sequence dominated P's earlier 
years so it is really a case with much wavering on his part. The argument for 
the ab-in-de sequence in the deleted part of the Harvard lecture draft go as 
follows: ab-in-de function by means of icons, indices, and symbols, 
respectively - and induction has two subtypes (here, quantitative and 
qualitative) while deduction has three (here, three of the normal four types of 
syllogisms of which the fourth is claimed reductible).
In addition to the dichotomy-trichotomy argument, the corresponding arguments 
for the ab-de-in sequence often relies upon taking that sequence as a typical 
procedural sequence in the logic of discovery: abduction first proposes a 
hypothesis on the basis of some facts; deduction then takes this hypothesis as 
an ideal model and infers some necessary consequences from it; induction 
finally tests those deductive results by comparing them to empircal samples. 
(But is there necessarily any strong link between the 1-2-3 classification and 
the sequence of procedure?)
I think, however, that the decisive argument for finally settling on the 
ab-de-in sequence was Peirces double identification of deduction with 
diagrammatical reasoning and with mathematics (diagrams being seconds in the 
image-diagram-metaphor trichotomy) - instead of the identification of deduction 
with symbol-supported reasoning in the 5th Harvard lecture.
A third sequence which P often gives in the 1900s is de-in-ab which does not 
seem to refer to categories nor to procedure, but rather to the falling order 
of degree of validity (from necessary over probable to possible) - probably 
also an order of importance, deduction often (also in Gary's Harvard lecture) 
being described as the overall argument type which the other two somehow feed 
into.

All this said, I think a commentary on a meta-level should be added. I am not 
certain that 1-2-3 sequenceing in terms of the categories should always have 
first priority when discussing Peircean triadic distinctions. Of course, it is 
easy to get this idea from the classification of sciences where categories 
belong to Phenomenology, being second only to Mathematics in the hierarchy. But 
P's own practice counts against taking this Comtean hiearchy itself as a 
sequence of inference from top to bottom so that lower sciences should receive 
dictates by higher ones. There's a traffic also in the bottom-up direction - 
the lower sciences receive principles from the higher ones, alright, but the 
higher ones articulate those principles by abstracting from the matter of the 
lower ones. This latter is especially the case regarding the relation between 
logic and categories where P follows Kant's idea that the categories should be 
abstracted from logic. This implies that logic is actually the source of the 
categories (which is also evident from many P claims already in the 1860s). So 
even if, in the hierarchy of the ideal, static end point of inquiry, categories 
give principles to logic, in the ongoing process of discovery it is rather the 
categories which are abstracted out of logic. So before the final doctrine of 
categories is consummated, we should not be able to expect them to be able to 
legislate over logic - also because of the simple fact that Peirce discovered a 
whole lot more of logic than about category phenomenology which remained 
ambiguous (cf. the enormous amount of very different descriptions of the 
categories - as compared to the far larger stability of the description of 
ab-de-in, irrespectively of their sequence). This is why I generally hesitate 
to call in the categories as final arbiters of trichotomy issues lower in the 
system.

Finally, Doug asked about Bellucci's claim about an internal ab-de-in sequence 
within deduction. I perfectly agree with that suggestion - I think I also 
address it a

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Stjernfelt Seminar: Chapter 7, Dicisigns Beyond Language ~ 7.1

[Frederik Stjernfelt]

Dear Michael, lists,

Thank you for a whole essay on markedness - a great essay. I certainly agree 
with the importance of Jakobson's ideas about assymmetry relations as central 
to language - as well as with his insistence that semantic issues should 
receive priority.

It is not completely correct, however, that I have not adressed these issues 
(certainly not in the NP now discussed, but I did spend a chapter of 
Diagrammatology on it (ch. 7 on mereology)), Michael may be right I did not go 
far enough in that direction. My argument there was that Jakobson's markedness 
doctrine is motivated by mereology (the asymmetry between part and whole) and 
thus comparable to (and probably inspired by)  Husserl's dependency calculus of 
the 3rd Logical Investigation as well as to Peirce's attempt at a dependency 
calculus of the 1-2-3 categories (this is developed a bit in ch. 11 of that 
book).

I still have an uncompleted pet project of taking this investigation further to 
cover also Hjelmslev's vast extension of markedness (he strongly disagreed with 
Jakobsonian binarism and made a more complex taxonomy of many different types 
of opposition) … maybe there is some undiscovered gold to be found there … I 
hope to get around to this someday …

Best
F


Den 17/12/2014 kl. 03.44 skrev Michael Shapiro 
mailto:poo...@earthlink.net>>:

Doug, Gary,
Apropos of diagrammatization in language, there is now a 
considerable body of work done in a Peircean mode that Stjernefelt does not 
take account of in either of his books, and this is understandable in view of 
the fact that he is not a linguist. At the risk of losing most of the 
participants, perhaps the discussion can be enhanced by taking the following 
methodological considerations into account.
What needs underscoring first is the role of asymmetry in the 
manifestation of linguistic signs, specifically in its conceptual bond with 
complementarity and markedness. The unequal evaluation of the terms of 
oppositions in language has been an important notion of linguistic theorizing 
since at least the heyday of the Prague School’s chief Russian 
representatives––Trubetzkoy, Jakobson, and Karcevskij. The clearest early 
expression of its role is in Jakobson, when he characterized the asymmetry of 
correlative grammatical forms in morphology as two antinomies: (1) between the 
signalization and non-signalization of A; and (2) between the non-signalization 
of A and the signalization of non-A. In the first case, two signs referring to 
the same objective reality differ in semiotic value, in that the signatum of 
one of the signs specifies a certain ‘mark’ A of this reality, while the 
meaning of the other makes no such specification. In the second case, the 
antinomy is between general and special meaning of the unmarked term, where the 
meaning of the latter can fluctuate between leaving the content of the ‘mark’ A 
unspecified (neither positing nor negating it) and specifying the meaning of 
the unmarked term as an absence.
In focusing on the paradigmatic asymmetry of linguistic signs 
expressed by the polar semiotic values of marked and unmarked (superimposed on 
oppositions in phonology, grammar, and lexis), the early structuralists appear 
to have glossed over a cardinal syntagmatic consequence of markedness: 
complementarity. If the conceptual system which underlies and informs grammar 
(and language broadly conceived) consists of opposite-valued signs and sign 
complexes, then whatever syntagmatic coherence linguistic phenomena have in 
their actual manifestation must likewise be informed by principles of 
organization diagrammatic of this underlying asymmetry. The only aspect of the 
asymmetric nature of linguistic opposition that allows access to structural 
coherence is the complementarity of the terms of the asymmetry, the markedness 
values. The systematic relatability of the complementary entities and of their 
semiotic values is assured by the binary nature of all opposition, which 
balances the asymmetry of the axiological superstructure by furnishing the 
system of relations with the symmetry needed for the identification and 
perpetuation of linguistic units by learners and users.
Moreover, in explaining the cohesions between form and meaning 
complementation of markedness values is seen to be the dominant mode of 
semiosis––so much so that replication is confined to the structure of 
desinences and the expression of further undifferentiated members of the 
hierarchy of categories. Given the common understanding of undifferentiated 
contexts, statuses, and categories as marked in value (Brøndal’s principle of 
compensation), it is clear that replication is itself the marked (more narrowly 
defined) principle of semiosis, vis-à-vis its unmarked (less narrowly defined) 
counterpart, complementation.
Complementation actually has two aspects or modes of manifestation, 
which are semiotically dist

[PEIRCE-L] Aw: Re: Pragmatic Cosmos

[Helmut Raulien]

Yes, sorry for taking it too literally. And I was exaggerating by trying to say, that my position is not a rigid ideology, like creationism, platonism, or so. 

Best,

Helmut



"Jon Awbrey"  wrote:
 

Thread:
JBD:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15230
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15235
SJ:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15236
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15237
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15238
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15239
HR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15240
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15241
HR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15243
JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15244
HR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15246

Helmut,

One should not take that illustrative example too literally.
I was simply making another try at clarifying my use of the
word "cosmos" and replying to Sung about anthropocentricity.

Regards,

Jon

Helmut Raulien wrote:
> Hi! I do not think, that my point of view or my argumentation has anything to do
> with celestial spheres or bearded father figures. I am a left wing anarchist
> liberal communist feminist anticapitalist antifashist and so on. I am against
> any authorority, except the authority of God. And, what this is, I am trying to
> find out. Best, Helmut.

--

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inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA
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Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos

[Helmut Raulien]

Yes, really I am not all that, but take only the best parts from each. It was an exaggerated attempt to say, that I do not support a rigid ideology or religion: I assume thirdness within prehuman and prebiotic nature, but that is not creationism nor platonism, because I do not assume readymade preexisted ideas, but only a driving force or reason towards higher complexity. 

Best,

Helmut

 


 "Edwina Taborsky"  wrote:
 



Good heavens, Helmut, what a contrary mixture of beliefs you hold!  "left wing anarchist liberal communist feminist anticapitalist antifashist"...Anarchy in its nature opposes communism, fascism and liberalism.  But being left wing promotes communism and fascism. Liberalism promotes capitalism. And anti-authority rejects Peircean Thirdness and Mind.

 

Edwina


- Original Message -

From: Helmut Raulien

To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu

Sent: Friday, December 26, 2014 5:42 PM

Subject: Aw: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos

 


Hi! I do not think, that my point of view or my argumentation has anything to do with celestial spheres or bearded father figures. I am a left wing anarchist liberal communist feminist anticapitalist antifashist and so on. I am against any authorority, except the authority of God. And, what this is, I am trying to find out. Best, Helmut.
 


 "Jon Awbrey" An: "Peirce List"  wrote:
 

Jeff, Sung, Helmut, List,

It is only human of human beings to project their affairs on celestial spheres but doing so does not
alter the circumstance that we project our own images from anthropic centers. There are times when
our projections hit the mark. And there are times when we end up imagining the universe compassed
by Bearded Father Figures (BFFs). Speculative projections require critical reflection to sift the
reality from the fantasy.

I am mainly concerned with inquiry as a form of human conduct, a practical activity carried on by
individuals and communities, increasingly supported by the tools our species of tool-makers has
evolved and learned to make. Thus I view inquiry stereoscopically, from two distinct angles,
descriptive and instrumental.

On the descriptive side, Peirce's work on relations in general and sign relations in particular
gives us, perhaps for the first time in history, a paradigm of theoretical models adequate to the
task of describing inquiry. The category theory developed by mathematicians has many applications
in describing the functions and structures of inquiry, especially if the potential generalizations
of category theory to handle relations in their own terms can be realized.

On the instrumental side, we have the task of engineering software that can better aid inquiry.
Building instruments to extend our capacities in any realm requires a model of the organon that
nature gave us, and so we "prime the pump" of the instrumental task by knowing ourselves first.
Given that start, the cycle of amplification can begin.

Regards,

Jon

--

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[PEIRCE-L] Re: [biosemiotics:7844] Natural Propositions Chapter

[Frederik Stjernfelt]

Dear Howard, lists -

Thanks - I always like discussing with you, Howard (even if not always 
agreeing) - your points are always clear, interesting, no-nonsense but not 
aggressive -

Den 27/12/2014 kl. 12.44 skrev Howard Pattee 
mailto:hpat...@roadrunner.com>>:

At 06:48 PM 12/26/2014, Frederik wrote:

Linear discrete storage is of paramount importance but still only one side of 
the coin - the other being spatial information, e.g. in visual, continuous 
icons. One of the early important papers in biosemiotics (by Hoffmeyer and 
Emmeche, in Semiotica, around 1990) made the point that information inheritance 
in biology is double. One part is the discrete information in the genes - the 
other the continuous information incarnated in the structure of the cell.

HP: The empirical issue is: How important for evolution are continuous dynamic 
icons? Of course evolution has discovered all kinds of epigenetic inheritance 
effects.This has been a hot topic since Lamarck. Today there is even a Journal, 
Non-Genetic Inheritance, (only one issue 
per year!). A critical review of "soft  inheritance" is in 
Proc . 
Roy . 
Soc . 
B 6/28/2012 by 
Dickins and Rahman.

FS: So here I (with Hoffmeyer and Emmeche) disagree with Howard: the egg cell 
itself forms part of the inherited information (in gendered organisms) - in 
simpler organisms, the cell structure is inherited by the simple duplication of 
it.

HP: What structures making up an egg are not under genetic control? Clearly the 
atoms, C, N, O, H, etc. are not. They are fixed parts of any gene-controlled 
molecule. But when a cell divides do you want to say carbon atoms in the new 
cells are inherited?

Of course the cell is under genetic control - but the structure of the cell - 
its organels, its external and internal membrane structures, the complicated 
network of metabolic processes - are not created by the genes even if 
controlled by them. The DNA was never there before the cell, rather there is 
some reason to suspect that (a simple version of) the cell was there before 
full DNA control evolved. Of course, the atoms are not inherited. The proteins 
are synthezised due to standard gene decoding procedures. But the structure of 
the metabolic network into which these proteins flow was always-already there - 
it is the replication of this structure which constitutes the "analog" 
inheritance. It is not like the DNA of the father meeting the DNA of the 
mother, the two mix, and then the combined DNA begin constructing a new cell. 
The cell was there all of the time, the complicated metabolic structure in this 
sense inherited via the egg cell.
This is not at all to minimize the paramount role of DNA - but to be a central 
controller, there must be something which is controlled.

In any case, this is not the fundamental biosemiotic issue. From the 
physicist's point of view (e.g., Boltzman, Schrödinger, von Neumann, Wigner, et 
al) life is a fundamental problem because it increases or maintains intricate, 
non-statistical structured order in a very noisy universe -- noise which causes 
all other ordered structures to eventually dissipate, or dissipate faster than 
life (eventually, nothing escapes dissipation).

The first level answer was grasped by Darwin. There must be a heritable memory 
that maintains structures (growth and metabolism). But this answer still has 
the noise problem. Why is the memory reliable? The second level answer should 
be a biosemiotic principle. It is supported by all kinds of evidence:The only 
sufficiently reliable evolvable memories are discrete linear symbol systems. 
That is not the only condition. To be evolvable in an open-ended sense, the 
symbol system must form a language with unlimited expressive power (e.g., 
Pattee
 , 
1968
 to 
2007).
 Hoffmeyer and Emmeche have a point, but the RNA 
Model now appears as a good 
origin possibility.

One more question. I can see that the Peircean triad of symbol, index, icon 
makes sense for weathercocks, but I need examples of how it could add to the 
current (parsimonious) description of genetic expression in single cells. What 
are the index and icon vehicles?

Frankly, I am not sure. My interest has focused upon signs in the exchange 
between the organism and its environment (à la Uexküll). A guess would be that 
the icon is the ACGT nucleotide structure of the