Re: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Gary Richmond]

Gary, all,

Gary F. wrote:

But phaneroscopy is looking for the elements of the phaneron, not the
elements of experience, and certainly not the elements of *human* experience
only. I can well believe that the only way to do this scientifically (i.e.
communally) is by way of iconoscopy, or objectifying the phenomenon as an
icon. Is there any way to formulate this that avoids the limitations and
ambiguities of language?


One might ask the same of phaneroscopy: is there any way to 'do' this
science which avoids the limitations and ambiguities of language? My answer
is, probably not, at least not if one is doing *science* and not, say,
merely meditating or some such thing (this holds for the 3rd
phenomenological science I'd posit as well, that is, category theory, what
Peirce called trichotomic, and which considers genuine trichotomic
relations wherever they occur, and, just as with iconoscopy, not
necessarily as merely "elements of experience" or just "elements of human
experience").

So what exactly are "the elements of the phaneron" once one's stated the
obvious, that is, the three universal categories? (And even that statement
requires language, as is clear from Peirce's own phenomenological studies.)
This was Joe Ransdell's problem with phaneroscopy as I recall--he didn't
think it had much work to do, and that which it did have to do had been
pretty much done by Peirce already. I didn't agree with him on this, but I
don't think one can make much progress in Peircean phenomenology as a
science until one considers not only phaneroscopy, but also iconoscopy and,
I'd hold, trichotomic category theory. And, again, for all three putative
phenomenological sciences, there seems to be no way to avoid language.

But, I'd agree with you that Andre sounding in on this would be most
helpful.

Best,

Gary

*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690*


On Wed, Aug 13, 2014 at 8:21 AM, Gary Fuhrman  wrote:

> Gary,
>
>
>
> GR: I would maintain that, and apart from analysis, in our *phenomenological
> experience* those several qualities are felt as distinct.
>
>
>
> GF: I would agree with that. They are *felt* as distinct when the
> analysis is not under conscious control, as the percept itself is not.
> Phaneroscopically, though, the distinctness of each quality is its
> Secondness to the others; and at the same time, the distinctive quality of 
> *our
> experience* (which is surely due to the biological nature of our
> embodiment) is determined both by the Secondness of our various senses to
> one another, and by the Secondness of the sensed object (the apple in this
> case) to the nervous system. Our recognition of the apple as such, *and*
> our recognition of any of its qualities as such, constitute the Thirdness
> of the phenomenon. So, like every conceivable phenomenon, it involves all
> three elements.
>
>
>
> Defining a "first" is even harder than defining Firstness. When we give
> examples, such as redness, we are inclined to draw them from *sensory*
> experience. But phaneroscopy is looking for the elements of the phaneron,
> not the elements of experience, and certainly not the elements of *human*
> experience only. I can well believe that the only way to do this
> scientifically (i.e. communally) is by way of iconoscopy, or objectifying
> the phenomenon as an icon. Is there any way to formulate this that avoids
> the limitations and ambiguities of language?
>
>
>
> I'd like to hear what André has to say about this, but I imagine he's
> pretty busy now with more urgent matters!
>
>
>
> gary f.
>
>
>
> } End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till
> thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! [Finnegans Wake, final page] {
>
> www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm }{ gnoxics
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Gary Richmond [mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* 12-Aug-14 11:01 PM
>
>
>
> Gary F, list,
>
>
>
> I'm not at all convinced of the following.
>
>
>
> GF: Speaking both for my own phaneroscopy and for my understanding of
> Peirce's, I would say that the redness, the roundness, the coolness and the
> solidity of the apple are all constituents of the single feeling which is
> the experience of that moment of the phaneron. The quality of that single
> feeling is the Firstness of that moment, and the various constituents are
> the products of the "destructive distillation" which follows upon
> reflection as the phenomenon is 'objectified', and not until then do they
> appear separately [. . . ] the phaneroscopist, who is trying to figure out
> how anything can *appear* to any kind of mind, considers experience more
> holistically. Or at least I do, and I think Peirce did. [You then quoted a
> snippet at EP2:368].
>
>
>
> However, it seems to me that one ought to be careful not to conflate what
> is admittedly the firstness that is "the single feeling . . . of that
> moment of the phaneron" with the fi

RE: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Gary Fuhrman]

Gary, 

 

GR: I would maintain that, and apart from analysis, in our phenomenological
experience those several qualities are felt as distinct.

 

GF: I would agree with that. They are felt as distinct when the analysis is
not under conscious control, as the percept itself is not.
Phaneroscopically, though, the distinctness of each quality is its
Secondness to the others; and at the same time, the distinctive quality of
our experience (which is surely due to the biological nature of our
embodiment) is determined both by the Secondness of our various senses to
one another, and by the Secondness of the sensed object (the apple in this
case) to the nervous system. Our recognition of the apple as such, and our
recognition of any of its qualities as such, constitute the Thirdness of the
phenomenon. So, like every conceivable phenomenon, it involves all three
elements.

 

Defining a “first” is even harder than defining Firstness. When we give
examples, such as redness, we are inclined to draw them from sensory
experience. But phaneroscopy is looking for the elements of the phaneron,
not the elements of experience, and certainly not the elements of human
experience only. I can well believe that the only way to do this
scientifically (i.e. communally) is by way of iconoscopy, or objectifying
the phenomenon as an icon. Is there any way to formulate this that avoids
the limitations and ambiguities of language?

 

I’d like to hear what André has to say about this, but I imagine he’s pretty
busy now with more urgent matters!

 

gary f.

 

} End here. Us then. Finn, again! Take. Bussoftlhee, mememormee! Till
thousendsthee. Lps. The keys to. Given! [Finnegans Wake, final page] {

  www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm }{
gnoxics

 

 

From: Gary Richmond [mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com] 
Sent: 12-Aug-14 11:01 PM



 

Gary F, list,

 

I'm not at all convinced of the following.

 

GF: Speaking both for my own phaneroscopy and for my understanding of
Peirce’s, I would say that the redness, the roundness, the coolness and the
solidity of the apple are all constituents of the single feeling which is
the experience of that moment of the phaneron. The quality of that single
feeling is the Firstness of that moment, and the various constituents are
the products of the “destructive distillation” which follows upon reflection
as the phenomenon is ‘objectified’, and not until then do they appear
separately [. . . ] the phaneroscopist, who is trying to figure out how
anything can appear to any kind of mind, considers experience more
holistically. Or at least I do, and I think Peirce did. [You then quoted a
snippet at EP2:368].

 

However, it seems to me that one ought to be careful not to conflate what is
admittedly the firstness that is "the single feeling . . . of that moment of
the phaneron" with the firstnesses of the individual qualities within the
phaneron--certainly the quality 'red' is in no way like the qualities
'round' or 'solid' or 'cool'. They are sui generis and exactly what each is
in the phaneron. 

 

And I think it may be in consideration of this distinction that Andre de
Tienne has argued that phenomenology consists not only of 'phaneroscopy' but
also of 'iconoscopy' (in my--and, in truth, his--opinion, the second being a
wholly inadequate term for the study of those individual qualities and
characters appearing within the phaneron). 

 

So, earlier in the passage from which you quoted, Peirce writes:

 

[T]hough we cannot prescind redness from superficial extension, we can
easily distinguish it from superficial extension, owing (for one thing) to
our being able to prescind the latter from the former. Sealing wax red, then
is a Priman (EP2. 267).

 

Peirce immediately continues: 

 

[Sealing wax red, then is a Priman.] // So is any other quality of feeling.
Now the whole content of consciousness is made up of qualities of feeling
(EP2.267) [Note the plural: "qualities of feeling"].

 

So, again, I think that something like de Tienne's 2nd phenomenological
science is required since, at the moment of our phenomenological experience,
we experience (feel) not only the phaneron in its integrity, but also 'red'
as a quality altogether different from the quality 'round', etc.  The the
attempt to sublate these different qualities into the phaneron seems to me
extremely problematic. Perhaps this is why you concluded your post:

 

GF: On the other hand, the question of whether there are many firsts or only
one per moment is like the semiotic question of whether a sign such as a
proposition has a number of objects or just one complex object. It all
depends on the context and the purpose of your analysis.

 

Still, I would maintain that, and apart from analysis, in our
phenomenological experience those several qualities are felt as distinct.

 

Best,

 

Gary R.

 


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PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to 

Re: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

Gary R, Gary F, list,

>From my cherry-picking readings in the orchard of Peirce, I gathered the
impression that

"Every phenomenon has three aspects he called   (081314-1)
Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness."

If this impression of mine is true, why can't "phaneron" itself have these
three aspects, so that there may be

(i) phaneron AS IS (i.e., quality),

(ii) phaneron AS ENCOUNTERED/EXPERIENCED (i.e., actuality), and

(iii) phaneron AS CONCEPTUALIZED/ABSTRACTED/THEORIZED (i.e. lawfulness) ?

With all the best.

Sung
_
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net


> Gary F, list,
>
> I'm not at all convinced of the following.
>
> GF: Speaking both for my own phaneroscopy and for my understanding of
> Peirce's, I would say that the redness, the roundness, the coolness and
> the
> solidity of the apple are all constituents of the single feeling which is
> the experience of that moment of the phaneron. The quality of that single
> feeling is the Firstness of that moment, and the various constituents are
> the products of the "destructive distillation" which follows upon
> reflection as the phenomenon is 'objectified', and not until then do they
> appear separately [. . . ] the phaneroscopist, who is trying to figure out
> how anything can *appear* to any kind of mind, considers experience more
> holistically. Or at least I do, and I think Peirce did. [You then quoted a
> snippet at EP2:368].
>
>
> However, it seems to me that one ought to be careful not to conflate what
> is admittedly the firstness that is "the single feeling . . . of that
> moment of the phaneron" with the firstnesses of the individual qualities
> within the phaneron--certainly the quality 'red' is in no way like the
> qualities 'round' or 'solid' or 'cool'. They are sui generis and exactly
> *what
> each is *in the phaneron.
>
> And I think it may be in consideration of this distinction that Andre de
> Tienne has argued that phenomenology consists not only of 'phaneroscopy'
> but also of 'iconoscopy' (in my--and, in truth, his--opinion, the second
> being a wholly inadequate term for the study of those individual qualities
> and characters appearing within the phaneron).
>
>
> So, earlier in the passage from which you quoted, Peirce writes:
>
>
> [T]hough we cannot prescind redness from superficial extension, we can
> easily distinguish it from superficial extension, owing (for one thing) to
> our being able to prescind the latter from the former. Sealing wax red,
> then is a Priman (EP2. 267).
>
>
> Peirce immediately continues:
>
>
> [Sealing wax red, then is a Priman.] // So is any other quality of
> feeling.
> Now the whole content of consciousness is made up of qualities of feeling
> (EP2.267) [Note the plural: "*qualities* of feeling"].
>
>
> So, again, I think that something like de Tienne's 2nd phenomenological
> science is required since, at the moment of our phenomenological
> experience, we experience (feel) not only the phaneron in its integrity,
> but also 'red' as a quality altogether different from the quality 'round',
> etc.  The the attempt to sublate these different qualities into the
> phaneron seems to me extremely problematic. Perhaps this is why you
> concluded your post:
>
>
> GF: On the other hand, the question of whether there are many firsts or
> only one per moment is like the semiotic question of whether a sign such
> as
> a proposition has a number of objects or just one complex object. It all
> depends on the context and the purpose of your analysis.
>
>
> Still, I would maintain that, and apart from analysis, in our
> *phenomenological
> experience* those several qualities are felt as distinct.
>
> Best,
>
> Gary R.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *Gary Richmond*
> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
> *Communication Studies*
> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
> *C 745*
> *718 482-5690*
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 8:29 PM, Gary Fuhrman  wrote:
>
>> Gary, John, list,
>>
>>
>>
>> GR: Although I agree that "Firstness" (rather, any given First as
>> quality
>> or character) does not admit of discreteness or plurality," I'm not so
>> certain that "we can't really speak of 'firsts' in the plural." Doesn't
>> it
>> happen that within a moment of a single experience that several Firsts
>> can
>> appear, so that I may be simultaneously aware of, say, the redness, the
>> roundness,  the coolness, and the solidity of the apple which I hold in
>> my
>> hand--and without putting a 'word' to any--and surely not in that moment
>> to
>> all--of them?
>>
>>
>>
>> GF: Speaking both for my own phaneroscopy and for my understanding of
>> Peirce's, I would say that the redness, the roundness, the coolness and
>> the
>> solidity of the apple are all constituents of the single feeling

Re: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Gary Richmond]

Gary F, list,

I'm not at all convinced of the following.

GF: Speaking both for my own phaneroscopy and for my understanding of
Peirce's, I would say that the redness, the roundness, the coolness and the
solidity of the apple are all constituents of the single feeling which is
the experience of that moment of the phaneron. The quality of that single
feeling is the Firstness of that moment, and the various constituents are
the products of the "destructive distillation" which follows upon
reflection as the phenomenon is 'objectified', and not until then do they
appear separately [. . . ] the phaneroscopist, who is trying to figure out
how anything can *appear* to any kind of mind, considers experience more
holistically. Or at least I do, and I think Peirce did. [You then quoted a
snippet at EP2:368].


However, it seems to me that one ought to be careful not to conflate what
is admittedly the firstness that is "the single feeling . . . of that
moment of the phaneron" with the firstnesses of the individual qualities
within the phaneron--certainly the quality 'red' is in no way like the
qualities 'round' or 'solid' or 'cool'. They are sui generis and exactly *what
each is *in the phaneron.

And I think it may be in consideration of this distinction that Andre de
Tienne has argued that phenomenology consists not only of 'phaneroscopy'
but also of 'iconoscopy' (in my--and, in truth, his--opinion, the second
being a wholly inadequate term for the study of those individual qualities
and characters appearing within the phaneron).


So, earlier in the passage from which you quoted, Peirce writes:


[T]hough we cannot prescind redness from superficial extension, we can
easily distinguish it from superficial extension, owing (for one thing) to
our being able to prescind the latter from the former. Sealing wax red,
then is a Priman (EP2. 267).


Peirce immediately continues:


[Sealing wax red, then is a Priman.] // So is any other quality of feeling.
Now the whole content of consciousness is made up of qualities of feeling
(EP2.267) [Note the plural: "*qualities* of feeling"].


So, again, I think that something like de Tienne's 2nd phenomenological
science is required since, at the moment of our phenomenological
experience, we experience (feel) not only the phaneron in its integrity,
but also 'red' as a quality altogether different from the quality 'round',
etc.  The the attempt to sublate these different qualities into the
phaneron seems to me extremely problematic. Perhaps this is why you
concluded your post:


GF: On the other hand, the question of whether there are many firsts or
only one per moment is like the semiotic question of whether a sign such as
a proposition has a number of objects or just one complex object. It all
depends on the context and the purpose of your analysis.


Still, I would maintain that, and apart from analysis, in our *phenomenological
experience* those several qualities are felt as distinct.

Best,

Gary R.











*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690*


On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 8:29 PM, Gary Fuhrman  wrote:

> Gary, John, list,
>
>
>
> GR: Although I agree that "Firstness" (rather, any given First as quality
> or character) does not admit of discreteness or plurality," I'm not so
> certain that "we can't really speak of 'firsts' in the plural." Doesn't it
> happen that within a moment of a single experience that several Firsts can
> appear, so that I may be simultaneously aware of, say, the redness, the
> roundness,  the coolness, and the solidity of the apple which I hold in my
> hand--and without putting a 'word' to any--and surely not in that moment to
> all--of them?
>
>
>
> GF: Speaking both for my own phaneroscopy and for my understanding of
> Peirce's, I would say that the redness, the roundness, the coolness and the
> solidity of the apple are all constituents of the single feeling which is
> the experience of that moment of the phaneron. The quality of that single
> feeling is the Firstness of that moment, and the various constituents are
> the products of the "destructive distillation" which follows upon
> reflection as the phenomenon is 'objectified', and not until then do they
> appear separately. Empiricists generally look at such a "simultaneous"
> experience as consisting of sensations bundled together by the mind into a
> Gestalt, but I think Peirce saw it the other way round, as a whole
> phenomenon, which strictly speaking has no parts, although it can be
> analyzed afterwards into separate sensations. I suppose the psychologist,
> if he's trying to figure out how the brain does perception, has to take the
> multitude of sensations as primary; but the phaneroscopist, who is trying
> to figure out how anything can *appear* to any kind of mind, considers
> experience more holistically. Or at least I do, and I think Peirce did.
>
>
>
> EP2:368: [[ Contem

RE: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Gary Fuhrman]

Gary, John, list,

 

GR: Although I agree that "Firstness" (rather, any given First as quality or
character) does not admit of discreteness or plurality," I'm not so certain
that "we can't really speak of 'firsts' in the plural." Doesn't it happen
that within a moment of a single experience that several Firsts can appear,
so that I may be simultaneously aware of, say, the redness, the roundness,
the coolness, and the solidity of the apple which I hold in my hand--and
without putting a 'word' to any--and surely not in that moment to all--of
them?

 

GF: Speaking both for my own phaneroscopy and for my understanding of
Peirce's, I would say that the redness, the roundness, the coolness and the
solidity of the apple are all constituents of the single feeling which is
the experience of that moment of the phaneron. The quality of that single
feeling is the Firstness of that moment, and the various constituents are
the products of the "destructive distillation" which follows upon reflection
as the phenomenon is 'objectified', and not until then do they appear
separately. Empiricists generally look at such a "simultaneous" experience
as consisting of sensations bundled together by the mind into a Gestalt, but
I think Peirce saw it the other way round, as a whole phenomenon, which
strictly speaking has no parts, although it can be analyzed afterwards into
separate sensations. I suppose the psychologist, if he's trying to figure
out how the brain does perception, has to take the multitude of sensations
as primary; but the phaneroscopist, who is trying to figure out how anything
can appear to any kind of mind, considers experience more holistically. Or
at least I do, and I think Peirce did.

 

EP2:368: [[ Contemplate anything by itself,-anything whatever that can be so
contemplated. Attend to the whole and drop the parts out of attention
altogether. One can approximate nearly enough to the accomplishment of that
to see that the result of its perfect accomplishment would be that one would
have in his consciousness at the moment nothing but a quality of feeling.
This quality of feeling would in itself, as so contemplated, have no parts.
It would be unlike any other such quality of feeling. In itself, it would
not even resemble any other; for resemblance has its being only in
comparison. It would be a pure priman. Since this is true of whatever we
contemplate, however complex may be the object, it follows that there is
nothing else in immediate consciousness. ]]

 

On the other hand, the question of whether there are many firsts or only one
per moment is like the semiotic question of whether a sign such as a
proposition has a number of objects or just one complex object. It all
depends on the context and the purpose of your analysis.

 

gary f.

 


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Re: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Gary Richmond]

Gary, John, list,

Responding John's remark that:


I think you would have to agree that experiencing firsts is at least very
difficult and something that we do not usually do. In particular, because
of this, they cannot be the ground of other experiences. If so, then this
is the point I have been trying to make.


Gary F. wrote:


I would say that there is no "experience of firsts", but Firstness is an
element of every phenomenon, i.e. anything that can be experienced.


I agree, but might restate this slightly to emphasize that since Firstness
is an element of every phenomenon, and that the phenomenal is what we can
experience, then *all *our actual experiences involve firstnesses. Gary F.
continued:


It can be more prominent in some experiences than in others, but even then
is not a "ground" of that experience, let alone of others.


Agreed. Firstness is not a ground, but is 'present' in all our experience.
Gary F. concluded:


Also, one can't really speak of "firsts" in the plural because Firstness
does not admit of discreteness or plurality. The ground of otherness is
Secondness.


Although I agree that "Firstness" (rather, any given First as quality or
character) does not admit of discreteness or plurality," I'm not so certain
that "we can't really speak of 'firsts' in the plural." Doesn't it happen
that within a moment of a single experience that several Firsts can appear,
so that I may be simultaneously aware of, say, the redness, the roundness,
 the coolness, and the solidity of the apple which I hold in my hand--and
without putting a 'word' to any--and surely not in that moment to all--of
them?

Best,

Gary R.


*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690*


On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 9:07 AM, Gary Fuhrman  wrote:

> John, you wrote,
>
>
>
>
> I think you would have to agree that experiencing firsts is at least very
> difficult and something that we do not usually do. In particular, because
> of this, they cannot be the ground of other experiences. If so, then this
> is the point I have been trying to make.
>
>
>
> I think your statement here is close to meaningless (as opposed to false).
> I would say that there is no "experience of firsts", but Firstness is an
> element of every phenomenon, i.e. anything that can be experienced. It can
> be more prominent in some experiences than in others, but even then is not
> a "ground" of that experience, let alone of others. Also, one can't really
> speak of "firsts" in the plural because Firstness does not admit of
> discreteness or plurality. The ground of otherness is Secondness.
>
>
>
> gary f.
>
>
> -
> PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON
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> .
>
>
>
>
>
>

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Re: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Stephen C. Rose]

To the extent that I understand Firsts as originating in feelings (derived
I infer from some effort to sense what is "coming up" in one's
consciousness, having willed to seek to plumb it, it seems to me that a
First begins with that feeling and that it is then named with one or more
terms. For example, Loose Ends or Unfinished Business. Naming (using words
to describe signs or feelings) is our editing of reality. We determine what
a first is by such a process of feeling and naming. I am referring to the
actual experience I have when I engage in intentional, conscious thinking.
I wonder if John thinks what I am describing is the "experience of a
first". To continue the exercise i have mentioned, the "experience" might
more generally be called "the past" or "what is not now". It is exactly
what I went through yesterday on returning home from a weekend filled with
things that left me quite overloaded (loose ends, the past, etc. Or so I
felt. The result of my cogitations was a few actions and expressions I
doubt I would have had the "presence of mind" to do if I had not allowed
the process to move through an ethical index and culminate as they did.

*@stephencrose *


On Tue, Aug 12, 2014 at 9:07 AM, Gary Fuhrman  wrote:

> John, you wrote,
>
>
>
>
> I think you would have to agree that experiencing firsts is at least very
> difficult and something that we do not usually do. In particular, because
> of this, they cannot be the ground of other experiences. If so, then this
> is the point I have been trying to make.
>
>
>
> I think your statement here is close to meaningless (as opposed to false).
> I would say that there is no "experience of firsts", but Firstness is an
> element of every phenomenon, i.e. anything that can be experienced. It can
> be more prominent in some experiences than in others, but even then is not
> a "ground" of that experience, let alone of others. Also, one can't really
> speak of "firsts" in the plural because Firstness does not admit of
> discreteness or plurality. The ground of otherness is Secondness.
>
>
>
> gary f.
>
>
> -
> PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON
> PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to
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> .
>
>
>
>
>
>

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RE: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Gary Fuhrman]

John, you wrote,

 


I think you would have to agree that experiencing firsts is at least very
difficult and something that we do not usually do. In particular, because of
this, they cannot be the ground of other experiences. If so, then this is
the point I have been trying to make.

 

I think your statement here is close to meaningless (as opposed to false). I
would say that there is no "experience of firsts", but Firstness is an
element of every phenomenon, i.e. anything that can be experienced. It can
be more prominent in some experiences than in others, but even then is not a
"ground" of that experience, let alone of others. Also, one can't really
speak of "firsts" in the plural because Firstness does not admit of
discreteness or plurality. The ground of otherness is Secondness.

 

gary f. 


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Re: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[John Collier]

Response to Claudio (nice post in my opinion) and Gary R.
At 05:52 PM 2014-08-10, Gary Richmond wrote:
Forwarded at the request of
Claudio Guerri. GR

-- Forwarded message --
From: Claudio Guerri
<
claudiogue...@fibertel.com.ar>
Date: Sun, Aug 10, 2014 at 9:25 AM
Subject: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
basis for
To: Gary Richmond
<gary.richm...@gmail.com
>
 Mensaje original ---- 
Asunto: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
for 
Fecha: Wed, 06 Aug 2014 15:17:22 -0300 
De: Claudio Guerri

 
A: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu


Gary, John, List, 
Firstness is really a complex aspect of the sign... but the more
important and difficult aspect for knowledge...
"Symbols grow" and so, First is last... but not least...
and Firstness is essential to all Design disciplines, because related to
Form: conception of form (Math, Geometry...), concrete representation of
form (graphic languages...), aesthetic strategy of form (Renaissance,
Cubism...).
I think that some good should come out of considering a concrete sign
instead of an abstract approach to what can be considered First (examples
are not easy to give, Peirce not excluded from that difficulty).
Everything can be considered a sign, and all signs have to be considered
in its triadic aspects: Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness.
But, Firstness can not be considered in its own, but related to the other
two aspects. Considering a very abstract sign, Firstness can be a feeling
and a Qualisign: redness...
But 'redness' needs a word, so it involves Thirdness, and it can not
exist without the experienced "brute force" of lots of red
objects, so Secondness is also present.
Verbal language is tricky... 'is' and 'are' should not be used for
subsigns or aspects of a sign. The Gioconda IS not an Icon, but a
complete SIGN, from which I can legally emphasize the iconic aspect in a
sentence without naming specifically the other two logically necessary
aspects. In this sense, Louis Althusser is very helpful by stating: some
aspect can be "dominant".
The sign Architecture is an 'easy' example... Somewhere in the old
e-mails in the List there should be a complete Semiotic Nonagon of the
'sign Architecture'. Resuming:
The three aspects of Architecture are: Design (1ness), Construction
(2ness) and Habitability (3ness).
At his time, Vitruvius considered also three aspects, but naming the
three values or 3ness's of the three aspects (in his own order): 
Firmitas (Dicisign), Utilitas (Argument) and Venustas (Rhema).
In the case of architecture, I would not say that Design is a
'feeling'... it should be (normally) something very concrete, even if
only the 'possibility' of being constructed and inhabited.
By deepening in the 3 aspects of Design (always simplifying), we have:
Geometry, Graphic Languages and Gestalt Theory (for the Qualisign);
plans/drawings, models and texts (for the Iconic aspect); and an
aesthetic value of that proposal (for Rhema). And I would not dare to say
that even Geometry can be considered a 'feeling', except in a very
metaphoric way...
In this example, Geometry is not considered as a sign in itself, but as a
1ness of 1ness of 1ness of Architecture, and, since it is considered in
the context of Architecture it is also related unavoidably to Projective
Geometry (2ness, the different graphic languages: Perspective, Monge
System and TSD) and to Gestalt Theory (3ness). Though, Geometry IS not
something concrete and stable but is an aspect of itself, depending on
the context in which it appears.
So, given any sign or aspect of a sign all three Categories will be there
necessarily, in a way or an other, explicitly or not, by cognitive
consciousness or not...
The troglodyte that killed the neighbor to get his 'better' cave (the
equivalent to a better building today) had no IDEA, was not conscious
about DESIGN to decide to kill his neighbor, but, according to Peirce's
proposal, he had to have SOME idea about 'forms' of caves (design,
1ness), some idea of the of materiality of caves (construction, 2ness)
and some idea of the usability (3ness) of that space, called
'cave'.
It seems to me that it is not completely correct, or say, misleading, to
say "that those direct 'feels' are not thoughts, that they
are unanalyzed experiences of qualities" or are
"ineffable", because to say so, we have to imply all knowledge
of concrete materialized experiences and use all our symbolic knowledge
of speech to say that, in THIS case, "this is ineffable"... but
actually meaning: after having reviewed all what I know, I can not
recognize the immediate object nor its symbolic meaning. As far as I can
think, there can not be a pure 1ness, nor a pure 2ness nor a pure 3ness,
but there is always SOME presence of t

Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Gary Richmond]

Forwarded at the request of Claudio Guerri. GR


-- Forwarded message --
From: Claudio Guerri 
Date: Sun, Aug 10, 2014 at 9:25 AM
Subject: Fwd: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
basis for
To: Gary Richmond 

 Mensaje original   Asunto: Re: [PEIRCE-L]
[biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for  Fecha: Wed, 06 Aug
2014 15:17:22 -0300  De: Claudio Guerri 
  A: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu

Gary, John, List,

Firstness is really a complex aspect of the sign... but the more important
and difficult aspect for knowledge...
"Symbols grow" and so, First is last... but not least...
and Firstness is essential to all Design disciplines, because related to
Form: conception of form (Math, Geometry...), concrete representation of
form (graphic languages...), aesthetic strategy of form (Renaissance,
Cubism...).
I think that some good should come out of considering a concrete sign
instead of an abstract approach to what can be considered First (examples
are not easy to give, Peirce not excluded from that difficulty).
Everything can be considered a sign, and all signs have to be considered in
its triadic aspects: Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness.
But, Firstness can not be considered in its own, but related to the other
two aspects. Considering a very abstract sign, Firstness can be a feeling
and a Qualisign: redness...
But 'redness' needs a word, so it involves Thirdness, and it can not exist
without the experienced "brute force" of lots of red objects, so Secondness
is also present.

Verbal language is tricky... 'is' and 'are' should not be used for subsigns
or aspects of a sign. The Gioconda IS not an Icon, but a complete SIGN,
from which I can legally emphasize the iconic aspect in a sentence without
naming specifically the other two logically necessary aspects. In this
sense, Louis Althusser is very helpful by stating: some aspect can be
"dominant".

The sign Architecture is an 'easy' example... Somewhere in the old e-mails
in the List there should be a complete Semiotic Nonagon of the 'sign
Architecture'. Resuming:
The three aspects of Architecture are: Design (1ness), Construction (2ness)
and Habitability (3ness).
At his time, Vitruvius considered also three aspects, but naming the three
values or 3ness's of the three aspects (in his own order):  Firmitas
(Dicisign), Utilitas (Argument) and Venustas (Rhema).
In the case of architecture, I would not say that Design is a 'feeling'...
it should be (normally) something very concrete, even if only the
'possibility' of being constructed and inhabited.
By deepening in the 3 aspects of Design (always simplifying), we have:
Geometry, Graphic Languages and Gestalt Theory (for the Qualisign);
plans/drawings, models and texts (for the Iconic aspect); and an aesthetic
value of that proposal (for Rhema). And I would not dare to say that even
Geometry can be considered a 'feeling', except in a very metaphoric way...
In this example, Geometry is not considered as a sign in itself, but as a
1ness of 1ness of 1ness of Architecture, and, since it is considered in the
context of Architecture it is also related unavoidably to Projective
Geometry (2ness, the different graphic languages: Perspective, Monge System
and TSD) and to Gestalt Theory (3ness). Though, Geometry IS not something
concrete and stable but is an aspect of itself, depending on the context in
which it appears.
So, given any sign or aspect of a sign all three Categories will be there
necessarily, in a way or an other, explicitly or not, by cognitive
consciousness or not...
The troglodyte that killed the neighbor to get his 'better' cave (the
equivalent to a better building today) had no IDEA, was not conscious about
DESIGN to decide to kill his neighbor, but, according to Peirce's proposal,
he had to have SOME idea about 'forms' of caves (design, 1ness), some idea
of the of materiality of caves (construction, 2ness) and some idea of the
usability (3ness) of that space, called 'cave'.

It seems to me that it is not completely correct, or say, misleading, to
say "that those direct 'feels' are *not* thoughts, that they are unanalyzed
experiences of qualities" or are "ineffable", because to say so, we have to
imply all knowledge of concrete materialized experiences and use all our
symbolic knowledge of speech to say that, in THIS case, "this is
ineffable"... but actually meaning: after having reviewed all what I know,
I can not recognize the immediate object nor its symbolic meaning. As far
as I can think, there can not be a pure 1ness, nor a pure 2ness nor a pure
3ness, but there is always SOME presence of the three categories... perhaps
with an emphasis on one aspect.

The aspects of 1ness, are not always very ethereal, ineffable, or a mere
sensation... it depends of the

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Stephen C. Rose]

I agree with Gary R's sense of this but would stress that it is precisely
in the context of a perceived sign that creative analysis can and perhaps
should appear. This is the premise of 'triadic philosophy' and the only way
I can see to arrive at measurable results - which I would see as the aim of
pragmaticism.

*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*


On Wed, Aug 6, 2014 at 10:19 AM, Gary Richmond 
wrote:

> John,
>
> You wrote:
>
> I am aware that Peirce can be interpreted as thinking we can be aware of
> firsts as unclassified "feels". This is what I think led C.I. Lewis (among
> other considerations) to describe uninterpreted experiences as "ineffable".
>  I don't see the sense of this, but I do think we can abstract firsts as
> real from our experience, but I don't think we ever experience them
> directly. I previously suggested some experiences that get us closer to
> them, but* I think some version of representationalism is correct. In
> fact I think that this is required if all thought is via signs (emphasis
> added).*
>
>  Your last sentences are, I think, key towards resolving this issue. My
> point would be that those direct 'feels' are *not* thoughts, that they
> are unanalyzed experiences of qualities. The analysis--should it happen at
> all--happens after the fact.
>
> An example: I remember once being in an apple orchard on one of the autumn
> days when the wind briskly moves stratocumulus clouds across the sky,
> creating all sorts of rapidly changing shadows on the earth. Upon
> reflection I analyzed the colors of the apples as I'd experienced them as
> bright red, dark red, cherry red, almost purple, almost black, etc., the
> last 'color' experience ('almost black') being the most remarkable for me.
>
> Indeed, in the totality of my phaneron I recall that I wasn't even
> experiencing 'colors' as such so that my sense of them was just what it
> was, and that experience could only be (inadequately and partially)
> analyzed *after the fact* as experience of firsts as qualities, at times
> changing so very rapidly and melding into other hues so subtly that I
> couldn't have analyzed them--couldn't have found descriptive adjectives to
> name the colors--had I tried (the only reason that I had tried at all was
> that the 'black'-red apple sensation shocked me into a moment of analysis).
> At such moments of pure experience nothing is being represented at all. I
> wouldn't and couldn't think of all those hues as having color-names as they
> were experienced and, in some cases, even upon reflection I couldn't (that
> color between 'almost purple' and 'almost black' doesn't have a name for
> me).
>
> So, all thought is via signs, but the experience of a quality is not a
> thought.  So, I do not see why you say that you "don't think we ever
> experience them (qualities, firsts) directly." Isn't my example one of the
> direct experience of qualities before analysis?
>
> Best,
>
> Gary R.
>
>
> *Gary Richmond*
> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
> *Communication Studies*
> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
> *C 745*
> *718 482-5690 <718%20482-5690>*
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 12:03 PM, John Collier  wrote:
>
>>  Edwina,
>>
>> I am aware that Peirce can be interpreted as thinking we can be aware of
>> firsts as unclassified "feels". This is what I think led C.I. Lewis (among
>> other considerations) to describe uninterpreted experiences as "ineffable".
>>  I don't see the sense of this, but I do think we can abstract firsts as
>> real from our experience, but I don't think we ever experience them
>> directly. I previously suggested some experiences that get us closer to
>> them, but I think some version of representationalism is correct. In fact I
>> think that this is required if all thought is via signs.
>>
>>
>>
>> I agree that Stephen and I have been talking past each other. We had a
>> short exchange privately that I am content with.
>>
>>
>>
>> John
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca]
>> *Sent:* August 3, 2014 10:00 PM
>> *To:* Stephen C. Rose; John Collier
>> *Cc:* Peirce List
>>
>> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
>> basis for
>>
>>
>>
>> Stephen- I think John and you are talking about different things and
>> since you don't seem to use the Peircean analytic fra

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Gary Richmond]

John,

You wrote:

I am aware that Peirce can be interpreted as thinking we can be aware of
firsts as unclassified "feels". This is what I think led C.I. Lewis (among
other considerations) to describe uninterpreted experiences as "ineffable".
 I don't see the sense of this, but I do think we can abstract firsts as
real from our experience, but I don't think we ever experience them
directly. I previously suggested some experiences that get us closer to
them, but* I think some version of representationalism is correct. In fact
I think that this is required if all thought is via signs (emphasis added).*

Your last sentences are, I think, key towards resolving this issue. My
point would be that those direct 'feels' are *not* thoughts, that they are
unanalyzed experiences of qualities. The analysis--should it happen at
all--happens after the fact.

An example: I remember once being in an apple orchard on one of the autumn
days when the wind briskly moves stratocumulus clouds across the sky,
creating all sorts of rapidly changing shadows on the earth. Upon
reflection I analyzed the colors of the apples as I'd experienced them as
bright red, dark red, cherry red, almost purple, almost black, etc., the
last 'color' experience ('almost black') being the most remarkable for me.

Indeed, in the totality of my phaneron I recall that I wasn't even
experiencing 'colors' as such so that my sense of them was just what it
was, and that experience could only be (inadequately and partially)
analyzed *after the fact* as experience of firsts as qualities, at times
changing so very rapidly and melding into other hues so subtly that I
couldn't have analyzed them--couldn't have found descriptive adjectives to
name the colors--had I tried (the only reason that I had tried at all was
that the 'black'-red apple sensation shocked me into a moment of analysis).
At such moments of pure experience nothing is being represented at all. I
wouldn't and couldn't think of all those hues as having color-names as they
were experienced and, in some cases, even upon reflection I couldn't (that
color between 'almost purple' and 'almost black' doesn't have a name for
me).

So, all thought is via signs, but the experience of a quality is not a
thought.  So, I do not see why you say that you "don't think we ever
experience them (qualities, firsts) directly." Isn't my example one of the
direct experience of qualities before analysis?

Best,

Gary R.


*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*C 745*
*718 482-5690*


On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 12:03 PM, John Collier  wrote:

>  Edwina,
>
> I am aware that Peirce can be interpreted as thinking we can be aware of
> firsts as unclassified "feels". This is what I think led C.I. Lewis (among
> other considerations) to describe uninterpreted experiences as "ineffable".
>  I don't see the sense of this, but I do think we can abstract firsts as
> real from our experience, but I don't think we ever experience them
> directly. I previously suggested some experiences that get us closer to
> them, but I think some version of representationalism is correct. In fact I
> think that this is required if all thought is via signs.
>
>
>
> I agree that Stephen and I have been talking past each other. We had a
> short exchange privately that I am content with.
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca]
> *Sent:* August 3, 2014 10:00 PM
> *To:* Stephen C. Rose; John Collier
> *Cc:* Peirce List
>
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
> basis for
>
>
>
> Stephen- I think John and you are talking about different things and since
> you don't seem to use the Peircean analytic frame - the result is
> confusing. Yes - we do have direct experience, as both Firstness and
> Secondness - but Firstness is without analytic awareness: a pure
> feeling...which we don't even yet know what it is a feeling OF.  To move
> into defining that feeling as 'wow, it's hot'...requires a second step of
> differentiation of the Self from this other source. Secondness is that
> direct physical contact but - we do react to it - i.e., to withdraw from
> the heat.
>
>
>
> No, I don't think a sign always goes through these three stages that you
> outline. ...vagueness to indexical to an expression..Certainly some
> semiosic expreiences are just like that but that's not always the case for
> a sign.
>
>
>
> Edwina
>
>  - Original Message -
>
> *From:* Stephen C. Rose 
>
> *To:* John Colli

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[John Collier]

At 02:00 AM 2014-08-01, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
6.220 is
from the Logic of Events, 1898- and that section refers, as John was
talking about, to the nature of potentiality. 


- Original Message - 

From: Clark Goble 

To: Peirce-L 

Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 7:27 PM

Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is
the basis for


On Jul 31, 2014, at 5:08 PM, Edwina Taborsky
<tabor...@primus.ca>
wrote:

 I agree that the laws are generals and not material; they
couldn't be general AND material, for materiality is existentially local
and particular. However, following Aristotle, I consider that the general
law (Form) is embedded within the particular instantiation, even though,
in itself, it is not a material form.

I’ve not read too many arguments on how Aristotilean Peirce is here.
As I recall I was curious a few months back of how to distinguish say
Armstrong’s view of universals from Peirce’s view of generals here. That
is if the general is a habit to what degree is it tied to the matter.
Which is what I think John was getting at. Sadly I just don’t have time
to get into that. I’m far from convinced there’s a simple answer in
Peirce though. I think there are places where he seems to distinguish
qualities from matter. The question ends up being whether generals as
generals are just habits or whether they also relate to possibility as
possibility. The quote I gave earlier from CP 6.220 touches on that. I
forget the exact date of that document but off the top of my head I think
it was in the 1870’s. So a debate of the evolution of Peirce’s thought
seems quite relevant as well.

EDWINA: Yes - I'm aware of the fuzziness of the term postmodernism; a
more modern term is 'constructivism', I think; but the point remains -
that it views the world through the individual human agent's
eyes.

Well as a side tangent I’m not sure I’d agree the important figures
under the postmodern rubric are constructivists. Many are, of course.
Some major figures like Heidegger or Derrida can easily be read in very
realist ways. That is they emphasize construction in order to get at the
Other of construction. One could argue the so-called theological turn in
French theology also is because of this kind of realism. Interesting this
gets one to the parallels with Plotinus’ emanation theory. Is the Other
the pure One of Plotinus or is the Other the pure privation or Matter of
Plotinus. The logic tends to work either way, I think.

I don’t want to go down that tangent right now, but I do think some
of the issues are quite relevant in Peirce as well. 

EDWINA: I would consider Sung a nominalist - but not John. A general
signifying a general is only one class of sign: the pure Argument, where
all three - the Object-Representamen-Interpretant are in a mode of
Thirdness. Such a sign is, in my view, both aspatial and atemporal, and
thus, purely conceptual. It might be carried by words - but, in itself,
it is 'purely mental’.

--- snip ---
Edwina, Clark, List,
I am probably as close to a nominalist as you can get without being a
nominalist. This comes out most clearly in
ON THE NECESSITY OF
NATURAL KINDS, Peter Riggs, ed. Natural Kinds, Laws of Nature and
Scientific Reasoning (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1996),  but also
permeates my work on causation. The notion of necessity is distinctly not
a nominalist one. The paper also hints at my views on possibility
(perhaps more than hints, but implies), and I spell this out in my
information-theoretic accounts of causal connection. I am either a
materialist or a neutral monist, depending on what you mean by
'materialist'. In any case, a major difference I have with Peirce is
scepticism about a universal mind and the fundamental nature of the
phaneron. This is a big difference, and has consequences for a number of
things in Peirce's philosophy, some of which I have addressed recently. I
say this by way of clarification; perhaps I should cite what I take to be
Peirce's mature view in its most (objective) idealist form, how I differ,
and why I differ. 
I agree with Peirce on scientific and metaphysical realism
(verificationists like Putnam and Brian Ellis see the two as
incompatible), the rejection of arguments for nominalism, and the
pragmatic principle (which given my views applies to all signs).
John

John





Professor John
Collier
colli...@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South
Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F:
+27 (31) 260 3031

Http://web.ncf.ca/collier




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PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
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RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[John Collier]

Thanks Gary,
We have probably taken this as far as we can right now. Interesting that
you disagree with Joe as well on this point, as it was correspondence
with him that led me to overcome my resistance to firsts. Perhaps I will
have an insight like Peirce in 1902; perhaps not.
As far as inference is concerned, I would include abstraction (like my
favourite, Locke), and abstraction might be a way to experiencing firsts
without a theory of signs, but as I indicated with an example, I have
trouble believing this could go all the way.
Best,
John

At 02:14 PM 2014-08-04, Gary Fuhrman wrote:
John, list,
 
I agree that no phenomenon can be a “pure first”, but for the reason that
firstness, secondness and thirdness are elements of every phenomenon (or
as Peirce put it, of the phaneron). However I disagree with your belief
that “we infer the existence of firsts from a theory of signs.” On the
contrary, since a sign is a kind of phenomenon, a theory of signs has to
be grounded in phaneroscopy, in order to account for the
possibility of semiosis. Peirce himself did not fully realize this
until 1902, but his subsequent definitions of “sign” all involve the
three elements of the phaneron, either explicitly or implicitly. On this
point I disagree not only with you but also with Joe Ransdell, and I gave
my reasons in the Ransdell issue of Transactions, so I won’t
elaborate on them here. The fact that Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness
are extremely abstract concepts does not imply that we infer them from a
theory of signs, and does not preclude them being elements of direct
experience, as Peirce said that they were. And this makes a big
difference in the way we read Peirce’s logic and semiotic, which does
indeed apply to “dumb animals” as well as to words.
 
gary f.
 
From: John Collier
[
mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za] 
Sent: 3-Aug-14 1:40 PM
To: Peirce List
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is
the basis for
 
Stephen,
It seems to me if you are aware of something as distinct from something
else, irrespective of if you put a word to it, then it is not a pure
first. If you are not aware of it as distinct from something else, I
question whether you can be aware of it. In other words, I question
whether there are an "bare" firsts. I believe we infer the
existence of firsts from a theory of signs. In other words, we get at
them through abstraction, not direct experience. I don't think think this
has any consequences for Peirce's view that all thought is in signs, but
it does put some limits to how far we can go with phaneroscopy. In any
case, what I was saying has nothing to do with words per se, and would
also apply to the dumb animals.
John

At 12:38 AM 2014-08-01, Stephen C. Rose wrote:
It is the penumbra of everything within the mind that you experience
prior to putting a word to it that attests to the independent existence
of "uninterpreted phenomena". I think it is for this reason
that the writing of words is always a sort of slaying of what was there.
This is a temporal event. It proceeds I think from the conscious sense of
there being more than one can name and its editing down to one or more
terms that is seen to be the named sign. This is my experience of how
signs may evolve within consciousness. 
@stephencrose






Professor John
Collier
colli...@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South
Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F:
+27 (31) 260 3031

Http://web.ncf.ca/collier




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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Stephen C. Rose]

Maybe I am doing a phaneron and calling it a first. Qui sait? But this am I
took with me to the treadmill where I do these musement things the feeling
of foreboding. That it was real I have no doubt regardless of whether we
call it real or psychological - the latter (I posit) a designation
Nietzsche might have deemed acceptable, without discluding its reality. I
then spend an entire five minutes seeking to properly name it. Subsequently
I had time to expose it to what I deem indices - fixed things I call
values. A second stage. In each case I had a creative dialog. Time ran out
before I got to the third stage. I will not remember it all but I cannot
discount this as irrelevant. I think there is a need to confront what we
actually do, not as exemplar wannabees, but as folk who are willing to
play, if I may use the term, with the sort of whimsy CP notes in NA.

*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*


On Mon, Aug 4, 2014 at 12:03 PM, John Collier  wrote:

>  Edwina,
>
> I am aware that Peirce can be interpreted as thinking we can be aware of
> firsts as unclassified "feels". This is what I think led C.I. Lewis (among
> other considerations) to describe uninterpreted experiences as "ineffable".
>  I don't see the sense of this, but I do think we can abstract firsts as
> real from our experience, but I don't think we ever experience them
> directly. I previously suggested some experiences that get us closer to
> them, but I think some version of representationalism is correct. In fact I
> think that this is required if all thought is via signs.
>
>
>
> I agree that Stephen and I have been talking past each other. We had a
> short exchange privately that I am content with.
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca]
> *Sent:* August 3, 2014 10:00 PM
> *To:* Stephen C. Rose; John Collier
> *Cc:* Peirce List
>
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
> basis for
>
>
>
> Stephen- I think John and you are talking about different things and since
> you don't seem to use the Peircean analytic frame - the result is
> confusing. Yes - we do have direct experience, as both Firstness and
> Secondness - but Firstness is without analytic awareness: a pure
> feeling...which we don't even yet know what it is a feeling OF.  To move
> into defining that feeling as 'wow, it's hot'...requires a second step of
> differentiation of the Self from this other source. Secondness is that
> direct physical contact but - we do react to it - i.e., to withdraw from
> the heat.
>
>
>
> No, I don't think a sign always goes through these three stages that you
> outline. ...vagueness to indexical to an expression..Certainly some
> semiosic expreiences are just like that but that's not always the case for
> a sign.
>
>
>
> Edwina
>
>  - Original Message -
>
> *From:* Stephen C. Rose 
>
> *To:* John Collier 
>
> *Cc:* Peirce List 
>
> *Sent:* Sunday, August 03, 2014 2:30 PM
>
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
> basis for
>
>
>
> Seems to me that we do have direct experience no matter how vague it may
> seem. Certainly something precedes words. Words do not emerge of their own
> accord. I associate a triad with three stages and see the sign as what
> exists at every stage but which moves from vagueness (penumbra) through
> some sort of index to some form of expression or action. I certainly made
> no assumptions of the sort you note. I find that reaction surprising. Sorry!
>
>
>   *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
>
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 2:09 PM, John Collier  wrote:
>
> At 08:00 PM 2014-08-03, Stephen C. Rose wrote:
>
> The notion of how signs get to their editing is clearly ultimately a
> matter of theory. But the theory can stipulate that there is the penumbra
> which I infer from direct experience.
>
>
> I don't think you entitled to do this. Do you really think I would be so
> stupid as to ignore this possibility? I am arguing that what you experience
> is already interpreted, and hence not a pure first.
>
>  Indeed, merely because we use words and theories, of necessity, does not
> mean that they do not correctly infer things that are real, including
> things to which we have given names. For example the word tolerance refers
> to something which I believe is real, along with other values, And by real
> I mean they are universal and universally applicable. Now that is clearly
> all theoretical, but it makes all the difference if what you are theorizing
> is something you take to be fundamental to reality.

RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[John Collier]

Edwina,
I am aware that Peirce can be interpreted as thinking we can be aware of firsts 
as unclassified “feels”. This is what I think led C.I. Lewis (among other 
considerations) to describe uninterpreted experiences as “ineffable”.  I don’t 
see the sense of this, but I do think we can abstract firsts as real from our 
experience, but I don’t think we ever experience them directly. I previously 
suggested some experiences that get us closer to them, but I think some version 
of representationalism is correct. In fact I think that this is required if all 
thought is via signs.

I agree that Stephen and I have been talking past each other. We had a short 
exchange privately that I am content with.

John



From: Edwina Taborsky [mailto:tabor...@primus.ca]
Sent: August 3, 2014 10:00 PM
To: Stephen C. Rose; John Collier
Cc: Peirce List
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

Stephen- I think John and you are talking about different things and since you 
don't seem to use the Peircean analytic frame - the result is confusing. Yes - 
we do have direct experience, as both Firstness and Secondness - but Firstness 
is without analytic awareness: a pure feeling...which we don't even yet know 
what it is a feeling OF.  To move into defining that feeling as 'wow, it's 
hot'...requires a second step of differentiation of the Self from this other 
source. Secondness is that direct physical contact but - we do react to it - 
i.e., to withdraw from the heat.

No, I don't think a sign always goes through these three stages that you 
outline. ...vagueness to indexical to an expression..Certainly some semiosic 
expreiences are just like that but that's not always the case for a sign.

Edwina
- Original Message -
From: Stephen C. Rose<mailto:stever...@gmail.com>
To: John Collier<mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za>
Cc: Peirce List<mailto:Peirce-L@list.iupui.edu>
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2014 2:30 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

Seems to me that we do have direct experience no matter how vague it may seem. 
Certainly something precedes words. Words do not emerge of their own accord. I 
associate a triad with three stages and see the sign as what exists at every 
stage but which moves from vagueness (penumbra) through some sort of index to 
some form of expression or action. I certainly made no assumptions of the sort 
you note. I find that reaction surprising. Sorry!

@stephencrose<https://twitter.com/stephencrose>

On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 2:09 PM, John Collier 
mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za>> wrote:
At 08:00 PM 2014-08-03, Stephen C. Rose wrote:
The notion of how signs get to their editing is clearly ultimately a matter of 
theory. But the theory can stipulate that there is the penumbra which I infer 
from direct experience.

I don't think you entitled to do this. Do you really think I would be so stupid 
as to ignore this possibility? I am arguing that what you experience is already 
interpreted, and hence not a pure first.
 Indeed, merely because we use words and theories, of necessity, does not mean 
that they do not correctly infer things that are real, including things to 
which we have given names. For example the word tolerance refers to something 
which I believe is real, along with other values, And by real I mean they are 
universal and universally applicable. Now that is clearly all theoretical, but 
it makes all the difference if what you are theorizing is something you take to 
be fundamental to reality.

Yes, but this is rather beside the point. I am not arguing that pure firsts are 
not real; I am arguing that they are not what we experience directly.

John

--
Professor John Collier 
colli...@ukzn.ac.za<mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za>
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F: +27 
(31) 260 3031
Http://web.ncf.ca/collier


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RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

Gary F wrote:

". . . firstness, secondness and thirdness are  (6231-1)
elements of every phenomenon as Peirce put it,
. . . . "

This is also how I understood firstness, secondness, and thirdness based
on my brief readings of Peirce's originals and secondary sources.  In
other words, I believe Peirce said somewhere that

"Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness are the (6231-2)
different aspects of a phenomenon that the human
mind prescind for the convenience of thought."

With all the best.

Sung



> John, list,
>
>
>
> I agree that no phenomenon can be a "pure first", but for the reason that
> firstness, secondness and thirdness are elements of every phenomenon (or
> as
> Peirce put it, of the phaneron). However I disagree with your belief that
> "we infer the existence of firsts from a theory of signs." On the
> contrary,
> since a sign is a kind of phenomenon, a theory of signs has to be grounded
> in phaneroscopy, in order to account for the possibility of semiosis.
> Peirce
> himself did not fully realize this until 1902, but his subsequent
> definitions of "sign" all involve the three elements of the phaneron,
> either
> explicitly or implicitly. On this point I disagree not only with you but
> also with Joe Ransdell, and I gave my reasons in the Ransdell issue of
> Transactions, so I won't elaborate on them here. The fact that Firstness,
> Secondness and Thirdness are extremely abstract concepts does not imply
> that
> we infer them from a theory of signs, and does not preclude them being
> elements of direct experience, as Peirce said that they were. And this
> makes
> a big difference in the way we read Peirce's logic and semiotic, which
> does
> indeed apply to "dumb animals" as well as to words.
>
>
>
> gary f.
>
>
>
> From: John Collier [mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za]
> Sent: 3-Aug-14 1:40 PM
> To: Peirce List
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
> for
>
>
>
> Stephen,
>
> It seems to me if you are aware of something as distinct from something
> else, irrespective of if you put a word to it, then it is not a pure
> first.
> If you are not aware of it as distinct from something else, I question
> whether you can be aware of it. In other words,%2

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RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Gary Fuhrman]

John, list,

 

I agree that no phenomenon can be a "pure first", but for the reason that
firstness, secondness and thirdness are elements of every phenomenon (or as
Peirce put it, of the phaneron). However I disagree with your belief that
"we infer the existence of firsts from a theory of signs." On the contrary,
since a sign is a kind of phenomenon, a theory of signs has to be grounded
in phaneroscopy, in order to account for the possibility of semiosis. Peirce
himself did not fully realize this until 1902, but his subsequent
definitions of "sign" all involve the three elements of the phaneron, either
explicitly or implicitly. On this point I disagree not only with you but
also with Joe Ransdell, and I gave my reasons in the Ransdell issue of
Transactions, so I won't elaborate on them here. The fact that Firstness,
Secondness and Thirdness are extremely abstract concepts does not imply that
we infer them from a theory of signs, and does not preclude them being
elements of direct experience, as Peirce said that they were. And this makes
a big difference in the way we read Peirce's logic and semiotic, which does
indeed apply to "dumb animals" as well as to words.

 

gary f.

 

From: John Collier [mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za] 
Sent: 3-Aug-14 1:40 PM
To: Peirce List
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
for

 

Stephen,

It seems to me if you are aware of something as distinct from something
else, irrespective of if you put a word to it, then it is not a pure first.
If you are not aware of it as distinct from something else, I question
whether you can be aware of it. In other words, I question whether there are
an "bare" firsts. I believe we infer the existence of firsts from a theory
of signs. In other words, we get at them through abstraction, not direct
experience. I don't think think this has any consequences for Peirce's view
that all thought is in signs, but it does put some limits to how far we can
go with phaneroscopy. In any case, what I was saying has nothing to do with
words per se, and would also apply to the dumb animals.

John


At 12:38 AM 2014-08-01, Stephen C. Rose wrote:



It is the penumbra of everything within the mind that you experience prior
to putting a word to it that attests to the independent existence of
"uninterpreted phenomena". I think it is for this reason that the writing of
words is always a sort of slaying of what was there. This is a temporal
event. It proceeds I think from the conscious sense of there being more than
one can name and its editing down to one or more terms that is seen to be
the named sign. This is my experience of how signs may evolve within
consciousness. 

@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose> 





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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Edwina Taborsky]

OK - but this is a psychological outline and not a semiosic outline. And, its 
psychological nature is specific to you and your psyche. ...It isn't a general 
outline for 'all thinking'.

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: Stephen C. Rose 
  To: Edwina Taborsky ; Peirce List 
  Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2014 4:09 PM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for


  The sort of thinking I am talking about is conscious and not in any way an 
effort to replicate explicit notions of CSP. When this form of thinking is 
engaged in by me it is as I describe it. The first stage is an effort to create 
a description of what might be called a sign, a preverbal feeling. So it 
differs from a first which is only that, The second is an index of values that 
confronts whatever the sign may be. The third is an aesthetic or action stage 
in which the goal is to achieve some relationship to the ideals of truth and 
beauty. This general description is accurate but hardly prescriptive. There are 
times for example when the time I have given myself to do this is able to 
encompass only the describing of a sign. 


  @stephencrose



  On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 3:59 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

Stephen- I think John and you are talking about different things and since 
you don't seem to use the Peircean analytic frame - the result is confusing. 
Yes - we do have direct experience, as both Firstness and Secondness - but 
Firstness is without analytic awareness: a pure feeling...which we don't even 
yet know what it is a feeling OF.  To move into defining that feeling as 'wow, 
it's hot'...requires a second step of differentiation of the Self from this 
other source. Secondness is that direct physical contact but - we do react to 
it - i.e., to withdraw from the heat.

No, I don't think a sign always goes through these three stages that you 
outline. ...vagueness to indexical to an expression..Certainly some semiosic 
expreiences are just like that but that's not always the case for a sign.

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: Stephen C. Rose 
  To: John Collier 
  Cc: Peirce List 
  Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2014 2:30 PM
      Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis 
for


  Seems to me that we do have direct experience no matter how vague it may 
seem. Certainly something precedes words. Words do not emerge of their own 
accord. I associate a triad with three stages and see the sign as what exists 
at every stage but which moves from vagueness (penumbra) through some sort of 
index to some form of expression or action. I certainly made no assumptions of 
the sort you note. I find that reaction surprising. Sorry!


  @stephencrose



  On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 2:09 PM, John Collier  wrote:

At 08:00 PM 2014-08-03, Stephen C. Rose wrote:

  The notion of how signs get to their editing is clearly ultimately a 
matter of theory. But the theory can stipulate that there is the penumbra which 
I infer from direct experience.


I don't think you entitled to do this. Do you really think I would be 
so stupid as to ignore this possibility? I am arguing that what you experience 
is already interpreted, and hence not a pure first.


   Indeed, merely because we use words and theories, of necessity, does 
not mean that they do not correctly infer things that are real, including 
things to which we have given names. For example the word tolerance refers to 
something which I believe is real, along with other values, And by real I mean 
they are universal and universally applicable. Now that is clearly all 
theoretical, but it makes all the difference if what you are theorizing is 
something you take to be fundamental to reality.


Yes, but this is rather beside the point. I am not arguing that pure 
firsts are not real; I am arguing that they are not what we experience directly.

John

--

Professor John Collier 
colli...@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South 
Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F: +27 (31) 260 3031
Http://web.ncf.ca/collier




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--



  -
  PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Stephen C. Rose]

The sort of thinking I am talking about is conscious and not in any way an
effort to replicate explicit notions of CSP. When this form of thinking is
engaged in by me it is as I describe it. The first stage is an effort to
create a description of what might be called a sign, a preverbal feeling.
So it differs from a first which is only that, The second is an index of
values that confronts whatever the sign may be. The third is an aesthetic
or action stage in which the goal is to achieve some relationship to the
ideals of truth and beauty. This general description is accurate but hardly
prescriptive. There are times for example when the time I have given myself
to do this is able to encompass only the describing of a sign.

*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*


On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 3:59 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

>  Stephen- I think John and you are talking about different things and
> since you don't seem to use the Peircean analytic frame - the result is
> confusing. Yes - we do have direct experience, as both Firstness and
> Secondness - but Firstness is without analytic awareness: a pure
> feeling...which we don't even yet know what it is a feeling OF.  To move
> into defining that feeling as 'wow, it's hot'...requires a second step of
> differentiation of the Self from this other source. Secondness is that
> direct physical contact but - we do react to it - i.e., to withdraw from
> the heat.
>
> No, I don't think a sign always goes through these three stages that you
> outline. ...vagueness to indexical to an expression..Certainly some
> semiosic expreiences are just like that but that's not always the case for
> a sign.
>
> Edwina
>
> - Original Message -
> *From:* Stephen C. Rose 
> *To:* John Collier 
> *Cc:* Peirce List 
> *Sent:* Sunday, August 03, 2014 2:30 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
> basis for
>
> Seems to me that we do have direct experience no matter how vague it may
> seem. Certainly something precedes words. Words do not emerge of their own
> accord. I associate a triad with three stages and see the sign as what
> exists at every stage but which moves from vagueness (penumbra) through
> some sort of index to some form of expression or action. I certainly made
> no assumptions of the sort you note. I find that reaction surprising. Sorry!
>
>  *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
>
>
> On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 2:09 PM, John Collier  wrote:
>
>> At 08:00 PM 2014-08-03, Stephen C. Rose wrote:
>>
>>> The notion of how signs get to their editing is clearly ultimately a
>>> matter of theory. But the theory can stipulate that there is the penumbra
>>> which I infer from direct experience.
>>>
>>
>> I don't think you entitled to do this. Do you really think I would be so
>> stupid as to ignore this possibility? I am arguing that what you experience
>> is already interpreted, and hence not a pure first.
>>
>>  Indeed, merely because we use words and theories, of necessity, does not
>>> mean that they do not correctly infer things that are real, including
>>> things to which we have given names. For example the word tolerance refers
>>> to something which I believe is real, along with other values, And by real
>>> I mean they are universal and universally applicable. Now that is clearly
>>> all theoretical, but it makes all the difference if what you are theorizing
>>> is something you take to be fundamental to reality.
>>>
>>
>> Yes, but this is rather beside the point. I am not arguing that pure
>> firsts are not real; I am arguing that they are not what we experience
>> directly.
>>
>> John
>>
>> --
>>  Professor John Collier
>> colli...@ukzn.ac.za
>> Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South
>> Africa
>> T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F: +27 (31) 260 3031
>> Http://web.ncf.ca/collier
>>
>>
>>
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>>
>>
>>
>>
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Matt Faunce]

> On Aug 3, 2014, at 2:09 PM, John Collier  wrote:
> 
> At 08:00 PM 2014-08-03, Stephen C. Rose wrote:
>> The notion of how signs get to their editing is clearly ultimately a matter 
>> of theory. But the theory can stipulate that there is the penumbra which I 
>> infer from direct experience.
> 
> I don't think you entitled to do this. Do you really think I would be so 
> stupid as to ignore this possibility? I am arguing that what you experience 
> is already interpreted, and hence not a pure first.

John, was your consideration of the possibilities along the same lines as mine, 
described below?

When I read Dewey's critique of the reflex arc in psychology and his 
explanation that it would be better thought of as a circuit, (described below), 
I thought of an electrical circuit where no electrons move until the circuit is 
complete. So likewise, no part of the reflex arc has independence from the 
other parts.
Then I considered that maybe it's more like the coupled wave system of an 
acoustic guitar. In a guitar, the first half-cycle of the string first 
vibration is independent of the reaction of the soundboard, and the first 
half-cycle of the soundboard is independent of the reaction of the air in the 
inside chamber. After the first half-cycle of the string the reaction of the 
soundboard affects the string's vibration. (The affect of the air chamber on 
the string is visually apparent when comparing the string's vibration during a 
wolf-tone, whose cause is from a standing air pressure wave in the guitar body, 
to the vibration during a good tone.)

I tend to think our thinking is more like an electrical circuit, and that 
Peirce agreed but sometimes threw sops to Cerberus when describing firsts and 
seconds.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   
Here's a description of Dewey's reflex circuit, which I copied from a post of 
mine from last year:

Which reminds me of Dewey's criticism of the reflex arc, in The Reflex Arc 
Concept in Psychology (1896), where he described the cyclical view of 
communication among sender and receiver -- as "a circuit, a continual 
reconstitution," rather than information jerked through one-way-valves, from 
sensation to idea to action. For those who haven't read it, here's a very short 
description of Dewey's idea:
  The reflex arc is "sensation-followed-by-idea-followed-by-movement." Dewey 
saw the understanding of these parts as too isolated. Better would be this: The 
act, e.g. of looking, and sensation are coordinated; Looking/sensation and idea 
are coordinated; Looking/sensation/idea and movement are coordinated. The 
knowledge comes from the coordination of all the parts, not the output after a 
one-way flow through the parts.

http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Dewey/reflex.htm

Matt
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Edwina Taborsky]

Stephen- I think John and you are talking about different things and since you 
don't seem to use the Peircean analytic frame - the result is confusing. Yes - 
we do have direct experience, as both Firstness and Secondness - but Firstness 
is without analytic awareness: a pure feeling...which we don't even yet know 
what it is a feeling OF.  To move into defining that feeling as 'wow, it's 
hot'...requires a second step of differentiation of the Self from this other 
source. Secondness is that direct physical contact but - we do react to it - 
i.e., to withdraw from the heat.

No, I don't think a sign always goes through these three stages that you 
outline. ...vagueness to indexical to an expression..Certainly some semiosic 
expreiences are just like that but that's not always the case for a sign.

Edwina
  - Original Message - 
  From: Stephen C. Rose 
  To: John Collier 
  Cc: Peirce List 
  Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2014 2:30 PM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for


  Seems to me that we do have direct experience no matter how vague it may 
seem. Certainly something precedes words. Words do not emerge of their own 
accord. I associate a triad with three stages and see the sign as what exists 
at every stage but which moves from vagueness (penumbra) through some sort of 
index to some form of expression or action. I certainly made no assumptions of 
the sort you note. I find that reaction surprising. Sorry!


  @stephencrose



  On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 2:09 PM, John Collier  wrote:

At 08:00 PM 2014-08-03, Stephen C. Rose wrote:

  The notion of how signs get to their editing is clearly ultimately a 
matter of theory. But the theory can stipulate that there is the penumbra which 
I infer from direct experience.


I don't think you entitled to do this. Do you really think I would be so 
stupid as to ignore this possibility? I am arguing that what you experience is 
already interpreted, and hence not a pure first.


   Indeed, merely because we use words and theories, of necessity, does not 
mean that they do not correctly infer things that are real, including things to 
which we have given names. For example the word tolerance refers to something 
which I believe is real, along with other values, And by real I mean they are 
universal and universally applicable. Now that is clearly all theoretical, but 
it makes all the difference if what you are theorizing is something you take to 
be fundamental to reality.


Yes, but this is rather beside the point. I am not arguing that pure firsts 
are not real; I am arguing that they are not what we experience directly.

John

--

Professor John Collier 
colli...@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F: +27 (31) 260 3031
Http://web.ncf.ca/collier




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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Edwina Taborsky]

I agree with John; pure Firstness is totally unanalyzed experience. The 
triadic sign in a mode of Firstness (all three Relations in Firstness) has 
no 'mind' Relation in itself. Therefore we are not aware of it, as itself, 
because awareness requires a separation from that experience and the self.


Edwina

- Original Message - 
From: "John Collier" 

To: "Stephen C. Rose" 
Cc: "Peirce List" 
Sent: Sunday, August 03, 2014 2:09 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis 
for




At 08:00 PM 2014-08-03, Stephen C. Rose wrote:

The notion of how signs get to their editing is clearly ultimately a
matter of theory. But the theory can stipulate that there is the
penumbra which I infer from direct experience.


I don't think you entitled to do this. Do you really think I would be
so stupid as to ignore this possibility? I am arguing that what you
experience is already interpreted, and hence not a pure first.


 Indeed, merely because we use words and theories, of necessity,
does not mean that they do not correctly infer things that are
real, including things to which we have given names. For example
the word tolerance refers to something which I believe is real,
along with other values, And by real I mean they are universal and
universally applicable. Now that is clearly all theoretical, but it
makes all the difference if what you are theorizing is something
you take to be fundamental to reality.


Yes, but this is rather beside the point. I am not arguing that pure
firsts are not real; I am arguing that they are not what we
experience directly.

John

--
Professor John Collier 
colli...@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South 
Africa

T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F: +27 (31) 260 3031
Http://web.ncf.ca/collier










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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Stephen C. Rose]

Seems to me that we do have direct experience no matter how vague it may
seem. Certainly something precedes words. Words do not emerge of their own
accord. I associate a triad with three stages and see the sign as what
exists at every stage but which moves from vagueness (penumbra) through
some sort of index to some form of expression or action. I certainly made
no assumptions of the sort you note. I find that reaction surprising. Sorry!

*@stephencrose *


On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 2:09 PM, John Collier  wrote:

> At 08:00 PM 2014-08-03, Stephen C. Rose wrote:
>
>> The notion of how signs get to their editing is clearly ultimately a
>> matter of theory. But the theory can stipulate that there is the penumbra
>> which I infer from direct experience.
>>
>
> I don't think you entitled to do this. Do you really think I would be so
> stupid as to ignore this possibility? I am arguing that what you experience
> is already interpreted, and hence not a pure first.
>
>   Indeed, merely because we use words and theories, of necessity, does not
>> mean that they do not correctly infer things that are real, including
>> things to which we have given names. For example the word tolerance refers
>> to something which I believe is real, along with other values, And by real
>> I mean they are universal and universally applicable. Now that is clearly
>> all theoretical, but it makes all the difference if what you are theorizing
>> is something you take to be fundamental to reality.
>>
>
> Yes, but this is rather beside the point. I am not arguing that pure
> firsts are not real; I am arguing that they are not what we experience
> directly.
>
> John
>
> --
> Professor John Collier
> colli...@ukzn.ac.za
> Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South
> Africa
> T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F: +27 (31) 260 3031
> Http://web.ncf.ca/collier
>
>
>
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> .
>
>
>
>
>
>

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

John wrote:

"I am not arguing that pure firsts are not real;(6231-1)
I am arguing that they are not what we experience
directly."

Let me expose my ignorance.  Is this what is known as "constructive realism"?

With all the bet.

Sung



> At 08:00 PM 2014-08-03, Stephen C. Rose wrote:
>>The notion of how signs get to their editing is clearly ultimately a
>>matter of theory. But the theory can stipulate that there is the
>>penumbra which I infer from direct experience.
>
> I don't think you entitled to do this. Do you really think I would be
> so stupid as to ignore this possibility? I am arguing that what you
> experience is already interpreted, and hence not a pure first.
>
>>  Indeed, merely because we use words and theories, of necessity,
>> does not mean that they do not correctly infer things that are
>> real, including things to which we have given names. For example
>> the word tolerance refers to something which I believe is real,
>> along with other values, And by real I mean they are universal and
>> universally applicable. Now that is clearly all theoretical, but it
>> makes all the difference if what you are theorizing is something
>> you take to be fundamental to reality.
>
> Yes, but this is rather beside the point. I am not arguing that pure
> firsts are not real; I am arguing that they are not what we
> experience directly.
>
> John
>
> --
> Professor John Collier
> colli...@ukzn.ac.za
> Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South
> Africa
> T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F: +27 (31) 260 3031
> Http://web.ncf.ca/collier
>
>


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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[John Collier]

At 08:00 PM 2014-08-03, Stephen C. Rose wrote:
The notion of how signs get to their editing is clearly ultimately a 
matter of theory. But the theory can stipulate that there is the 
penumbra which I infer from direct experience.


I don't think you entitled to do this. Do you really think I would be 
so stupid as to ignore this possibility? I am arguing that what you 
experience is already interpreted, and hence not a pure first.


 Indeed, merely because we use words and theories, of necessity, 
does not mean that they do not correctly infer things that are 
real, including things to which we have given names. For example 
the word tolerance refers to something which I believe is real, 
along with other values, And by real I mean they are universal and 
universally applicable. Now that is clearly all theoretical, but it 
makes all the difference if what you are theorizing is something 
you take to be fundamental to reality.


Yes, but this is rather beside the point. I am not arguing that pure 
firsts are not real; I am arguing that they are not what we 
experience directly.


John

--
Professor John Collier colli...@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F: +27 (31) 260 3031
Http://web.ncf.ca/collier


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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Stephen C. Rose]

The notion of how signs get to their editing is clearly ultimately a matter
of theory. But the theory can stipulate that there is the penumbra which I
infer from direct experience. Indeed, merely because we use words and
theories, of necessity, does not mean that they do not correctly infer
things that are real, including things to which we have given names. For
example the word tolerance refers to something which I believe is real,
along with other values, And by real I mean they are universal and
universally applicable. Now that is clearly all theoretical, but it makes
all the difference if what you are theorizing is something you take to be
fundamental to reality.

*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*


On Sun, Aug 3, 2014 at 1:40 PM, John Collier  wrote:

>  Stephen,
>
> It seems to me if you are aware of something as distinct from something
> else, irrespective of if you put a word to it, then it is not a pure first.
> If you are not aware of it as distinct from something else, I question
> whether you can be aware of it. In other words, I question whether there
> are an "bare" firsts. I believe we infer the existence of firsts from a
> theory of signs. In other words, we get at them through abstraction, not
> direct experience. I don't think think this has any consequences for
> Peirce's view that all thought is in signs, but it does put some limits to
> how far we can go with phaneroscopy. In any case, what I was saying has
> nothing to do with words per se, and would also apply to the dumb animals.
>
> John
>
>
>
> At 12:38 AM 2014-08-01, Stephen C. Rose wrote:
>
> It is the penumbra of everything within the mind that you experience prior
> to putting a word to it that attests to the independent existence of
> "uninterpreted phenomena". I think it is for this reason that the writing
> of words is always a sort of slaying of what was there. This is a temporal
> event. It proceeds I think from the conscious sense of there being more
> than one can name and its editing down to one or more terms that is seen to
> be the named sign. This is my experience of how signs may evolve within
> consciousness.
>
>
> * @stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose> *
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 6:19 PM, John Collier  wrote:
>
> Gary f,
>
>
>
> This topic has come up before, partly because of my scepticism about
> icons. Joe was helpful to me in working out a resolution I could live with.
> I suppose that you are familiar with Sellars' "Myth of the given". He
> basically denies the independent existence of uninterpreted phenomena. C.I.
> Lewis accepted them, but believed they were "ineffable". His reasons for
> thinking they existed were entirely theoretical, because being ineffable we
> could not experience them without interpreting them. Presumably this is
> because it is psychologically impossible - as soon as we have a feeling we
> group it with others (a shade of red, a particular tone). Given the way our
> neural system works, it is pretty hard to see how it could be otherwise.
> Sellers, though, just thinks there is no need to postulate such things as
> pure uninterpreted feelings. I think he is right, but still I think we can
> abstract the experiential aspect of our mental signs, but it isn't easy. I
> like to look at the corner of a room and gradually make it go in, then out
> again, then flat, and circle through those more quickly and get confused so
> I don't see it any clear way (a third). Normally we can't do this. Most of
> our thoughts come fully interpreted, and the neuropsychology of sensory
> perception, for example, requires that our experiences are sorted by habits
> inherited from our evolutionary past in order for us to perceive things.
> There is an exception, called "blindsight", which is processed when the
> visual cortex is damaged and lower brain systems are all that can be relied
> on. People with blindsight don't have the usual phenomenal experiences we
> have, but can still discriminate visual properties to some degree as shown
> by their behaviour. Presumably there are visual signs that guide their
> behaviour despite the lack of conscious experience of them. All in all, I
> am pretty sceptical that uninterpreted icons can be anything more than
> confused experiences or abstractions, and that habit rules the day for
> mental experience.
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> From: Gary Fuhrman [ mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca ]
> Sent: July 31, 2014 11:25 PM
> To: 'Peirce-L'
>
> Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
> for
>
>
>
> John, in order to "make sense" (i.e. to convey any informat

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[John Collier]

Stephen,
It seems to me if you are aware of something as distinct from something
else, irrespective of if you put a word to it, then it is not a pure
first. If you are not aware of it as distinct from something else, I
question whether you can be aware of it. In other words, I question
whether there are an "bare" firsts. I believe we infer the
existence of firsts from a theory of signs. In other words, we get at
them through abstraction, not direct experience. I don't think think this
has any consequences for Peirce's view that all thought is in signs, but
it does put some limits to how far we can go with phaneroscopy. In any
case, what I was saying has nothing to do with words per se, and would
also apply to the dumb animals.
John

At 12:38 AM 2014-08-01, Stephen C. Rose wrote:
It is the penumbra of everything
within the mind that you experience prior to putting a word to it that
attests to the independent existence of "uninterpreted
phenomena". I think it is for this reason that the writing of words
is always a sort of slaying of what was there. This is a temporal event.
It proceeds I think from the conscious sense of there being more than one
can name and its editing down to one or more terms that is seen to be the
named sign. This is my experience of how signs may evolve within
consciousness. 

@stephencrose

On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 6:19 PM, John Collier
<colli...@ukzn.ac.za>
wrote:



Gary f,

 

This topic has come up before, partly because of my scepticism about
icons. Joe was helpful to me in working out a resolution I could live
with. I suppose that you are familiar with Sellars’ “Myth of the given”.
He basically denies the independent existence of uninterpreted phenomena.
C.I. Lewis accepted them, but believed they were “ineffable”. His reasons
for thinking they existed were entirely theoretical, because being
ineffable we could not experience them without interpreting them.
Presumably this is because it is psychologically impossible – as soon as
we have a feeling we group it with others (a shade of red, a particular
tone). Given the way our neural system works, it is pretty hard to see
how it could be otherwise. Sellers, though, just thinks there is no need
to postulate such things as pure uninterpreted feelings. I think he is
right, but still I think we can abstract the experiential aspect of our
mental signs, but it isn’t easy. I like to look at the corner of a room
and gradually make it go in, then out again, then flat, and circle
through those more quickly and get confused so I don’t see it any clear
way (a third). Normally we can’t do this. Most of our thoughts come fully
interpreted, and the neuropsychology of sensory perception, for example,
requires that our experiences are sorted by habits inherited from our
evolutionary past in order for us to perceive things. There is an
exception, called “blindsight”, which is processed when the visual cortex
is damaged and lower brain systems are all that can be relied on. People
with blindsight don’t have the usual phenomenal experiences we have, but
can still discriminate visual properties to some degree as shown by their
behaviour. Presumably there are visual signs that guide their behaviour
despite the lack of conscious experience of them. All in all, I am pretty
sceptical that uninterpreted icons can be anything more than confused
experiences or abstractions, and that habit rules the day for mental
experience. 

 

John

 

From: Gary Fuhrman
[
mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca] 

Sent: July 31, 2014 11:25 PM

To: 'Peirce-L'

Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is
the basis for

 

John, in order to “make sense” (i.e. to convey any information in the
Peircean sense), it must function both iconically and indexically, as a
dicisign. A legisign has to be habitual, but an index cannot be
habitual, because it must designate something here and now: an
individual, not a general. This is the germ of the idea that Natural
Propositions is about.

 

gary f.

 

From: John Collier
[mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za]


Sent: 31-Jul-14 4:31 PM

To: Clark Goble; Søren Brier; Peirce-L

Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is
the basis for

 

Clark, I don’t think something can be a sign unless it is habitual.
How could it make any sense otherwise?

 

John

 

From: Clark Goble
[mailto:cl...@lextek.com] 

Sent: July 31, 2014 10:16 PM

To: Søren Brier; Peirce-L

Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is
the basis for

 

 



On Jul 31, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Søren Brier
<sb@cbs.dk> wrote:

 

My I add a few thoughts? I agree that sign are reals, but when they
manifests as tokens their Secondness must enter the world of physics and
thermodynamics must apply. It is work to make signs emerge in non-verbal
communication or as language from ones feeling and thoughts. Even to
produces thoughts and feeling demands work. That would be a biosemiotic
view (b

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Stephen C. Rose]

Too complex. I think this is simple logic. More or less like sperm. One
from many. Sometimes two or more. Clarity is a virtue.

*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*


On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 3:01 PM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:

> Stephen wrote:
>
> " . . . the totality of what is in the mind is at best (6231-1)
> subjected to a selection process that could ignore a
> huge number of possibilities foreclosed by the process
> of naming."
>
> This statement is consistent with the RPM category theory of everything
> reproduced in Figure 1, since Step b corresponds to your "naming process".
>  Step b is thought to represent a one-to-many relation in that a given
> phenomenon can generate many, say, n, possible models or interpretants, of
> which only a subset m of n is selected by the environment based on m's
> agreement or compatibility with reality as symbolized by Step c.  The
> Shannon information generated by selection process of Step b can be
> estimated to be at most log_2 (n/m) bits.
>
>
>a   b
>  Reality  -> Phenomenon -->Model
> (Object)   (sign)  (Interpretant)
> |^
> ||
> ||
>   c
>
> Figure 1.  The RPM category theory of everything.  This is a mathematical
> category because a x b = c, i.e., the path a-b leads to the same result as
> the path c, where a = natural process, b = mental model, and c =
> experimental or empirical validation.
>
>
> With all the best.
>
> Sung
> ___
> Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
> Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
> Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
> Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
> Rutgers University
> Piscataway, N.J. 08855
> 732-445-4701
>
> www.conformon.net
>
>
>
> > What's more public than this list? You and me make two. That's almost
> > public. I would throw in Nietzsche who was openly hostile to the notion
> > that words are a be and end all. Plus any author knows - certainly Peirce
> > did - that the totality of what is in the mind is at best subjected to a
> > selection process that could ignore a huge number of possibilities
> > foreclosed by the process of naming.
> >
> > *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
> >
> >
> > On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 1:12 PM, Gary Fuhrman  wrote:
> >
> >> Stephen -- "a slaying of what was there?" Do you mean the letter killeth
> >> the spirit?  J  Actually I think this is pretty close to what I've said
> >> (citing Eugene Gendlin) in Chapter 4 of *Turning Signs* (
> >> http://www.gnusystems.ca/bdy.htm#person). But then this is an
> >> introspective view of mental activity, which according to Peirce is
> >> unreliable unless we can investigate it logically through *public*
> >> observations.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> gary f.
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> *From:* Stephen C. Rose [mailto:stever...@gmail.com]
> >> *Sent:* 31-Jul-14 6:39 PM
> >> *To:* John Collier; Peirce List
> >> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
> >> basis for
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> It is the penumbra of everything within the mind that you experience
> >> prior
> >> to putting a word to it that attests to the independent existence of
> >> "uninterpreted phenomena". I think it is for this reason that the
> >> writing
> >> of words is always a sort of slaying of what was there. This is a
> >> temporal
> >> event. It proceeds I think from the conscious sense of there being more
> >> than one can name and its editing down to one or more terms that is seen
> >> to
> >> be the named sign. This is my experience of how signs may evolve within
> >> consciousness.
> >>
> >>
> >> *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >
>
>
>

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

Stephen wrote:

" . . . the totality of what is in the mind is at best (6231-1)
subjected to a selection process that could ignore a
huge number of possibilities foreclosed by the process
of naming."

This statement is consistent with the RPM category theory of everything
reproduced in Figure 1, since Step b corresponds to your “naming process”.
 Step b is thought to represent a one-to-many relation in that a given
phenomenon can generate many, say, n, possible models or interpretants, of
which only a subset m of n is selected by the environment based on m’s
agreement or compatibility with reality as symbolized by Step c.  The
Shannon information generated by selection process of Step b can be
estimated to be at most log_2 (n/m) bits.


   a   b
 Reality  -> Phenomenon -->Model
(Object)   (sign)  (Interpretant)
|^
||
||
  c

Figure 1.  The RPM category theory of everything.  This is a mathematical
category because a x b = c, i.e., the path a-b leads to the same result as
the path c, where a = natural process, b = mental model, and c =
experimental or empirical validation.


With all the best.

Sung
___
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net



> What's more public than this list? You and me make two. That's almost
> public. I would throw in Nietzsche who was openly hostile to the notion
> that words are a be and end all. Plus any author knows - certainly Peirce
> did - that the totality of what is in the mind is at best subjected to a
> selection process that could ignore a huge number of possibilities
> foreclosed by the process of naming.
>
> *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
>
>
> On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 1:12 PM, Gary Fuhrman  wrote:
>
>> Stephen -- "a slaying of what was there?" Do you mean the letter killeth
>> the spirit?  J  Actually I think this is pretty close to what I've said
>> (citing Eugene Gendlin) in Chapter 4 of *Turning Signs* (
>> http://www.gnusystems.ca/bdy.htm#person). But then this is an
>> introspective view of mental activity, which according to Peirce is
>> unreliable unless we can investigate it logically through *public*
>> observations.
>>
>>
>>
>> gary f.
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Stephen C. Rose [mailto:stever...@gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* 31-Jul-14 6:39 PM
>> *To:* John Collier; Peirce List
>> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
>> basis for
>>
>>
>>
>> It is the penumbra of everything within the mind that you experience
>> prior
>> to putting a word to it that attests to the independent existence of
>> "uninterpreted phenomena". I think it is for this reason that the
>> writing
>> of words is always a sort of slaying of what was there. This is a
>> temporal
>> event. It proceeds I think from the conscious sense of there being more
>> than one can name and its editing down to one or more terms that is seen
>> to
>> be the named sign. This is my experience of how signs may evolve within
>> consciousness.
>>
>>
>> *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
>>
>>
>>
>



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Stephen C. Rose]

What's more public than this list? You and me make two. That's almost
public. I would throw in Nietzsche who was openly hostile to the notion
that words are a be and end all. Plus any author knows - certainly Peirce
did - that the totality of what is in the mind is at best subjected to a
selection process that could ignore a huge number of possibilities
foreclosed by the process of naming.

*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*


On Fri, Aug 1, 2014 at 1:12 PM, Gary Fuhrman  wrote:

> Stephen -- "a slaying of what was there?" Do you mean the letter killeth
> the spirit?  J  Actually I think this is pretty close to what I've said
> (citing Eugene Gendlin) in Chapter 4 of *Turning Signs* (
> http://www.gnusystems.ca/bdy.htm#person). But then this is an
> introspective view of mental activity, which according to Peirce is
> unreliable unless we can investigate it logically through *public*
> observations.
>
>
>
> gary f.
>
>
>
> *From:* Stephen C. Rose [mailto:stever...@gmail.com]
> *Sent:* 31-Jul-14 6:39 PM
> *To:* John Collier; Peirce List
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
> basis for
>
>
>
> It is the penumbra of everything within the mind that you experience prior
> to putting a word to it that attests to the independent existence of
> "uninterpreted phenomena". I think it is for this reason that the writing
> of words is always a sort of slaying of what was there. This is a temporal
> event. It proceeds I think from the conscious sense of there being more
> than one can name and its editing down to one or more terms that is seen to
> be the named sign. This is my experience of how signs may evolve within
> consciousness.
>
>
> *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
>
>
>

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RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Gary Fuhrman]

Stephen - "a slaying of what was there?" Do you mean the letter killeth the
spirit?  J  Actually I think this is pretty close to what I've said (citing
Eugene Gendlin) in Chapter 4 of Turning Signs
(http://www.gnusystems.ca/bdy.htm#person). But then this is an introspective
view of mental activity, which according to Peirce is unreliable unless we
can investigate it logically through public observations. 

 

gary f.

 

From: Stephen C. Rose [mailto:stever...@gmail.com] 
Sent: 31-Jul-14 6:39 PM
To: John Collier; Peirce List
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
for

 

It is the penumbra of everything within the mind that you experience prior
to putting a word to it that attests to the independent existence of
"uninterpreted phenomena". I think it is for this reason that the writing of
words is always a sort of slaying of what was there. This is a temporal
event. It proceeds I think from the conscious sense of there being more than
one can name and its editing down to one or more terms that is seen to be
the named sign. This is my experience of how signs may evolve within
consciousness. 




@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose> 

 


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RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Gary Fuhrman]

John, Clark, list, 

 

I think it’s clear that an uninterpreted sign (i.e. a representamen that
does not generate an actual interpretant in some system) is not functioning
as a sign. But I can’t help thinking that your “scepticism about icons” is
based on a misunderstanding of iconicity as an element of Peirce’s late
semiotic. This is exactly where Stjernfelt’s work on the dicisign (and on
the role of diagrams in cognition) is most helpful.

 

The subject of “blindsight” actually comes up in Chapter 5 of Natural
Propositions. The neuroscientific explanation of the phenomenon is the
ventral-dorsal split in perception, which Stjernfelt shows is at least
parallel to the subject-predicate analysis of the proposition; but in order
to see the connections between the logical and the physiological analyses,
we need to see the proposition in a Peircean way (and not in a Frege-Russell
way) as a special case of the dicisign, which is the cognitively crucial
form of semiosis. I think you could really help us work through a critical
study of this analysis, if you have time to read the book and perhaps lead a
thread this fall. We’re going to postpone the beginning of the seminar until
September, to give more people time to obtain and peruse the book (or at
least the first few chapters) before we start.

 

gary f.

 

From: John Collier [mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za] 
Sent: 31-Jul-14 6:19 PM
To: Gary Fuhrman; 'Peirce-L'
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
for

 

Gary f,

 

This topic has come up before, partly because of my scepticism about icons.
Joe was helpful to me in working out a resolution I could live with. I
suppose that you are familiar with Sellars’ “Myth of the given”. He
basically denies the independent existence of uninterpreted phenomena. C.I.
Lewis accepted them, but believed they were “ineffable”. His reasons for
thinking they existed were entirely theoretical, because being ineffable we
could not experience them without interpreting them. Presumably this is
because it is psychologically impossible – as soon as we have a feeling we
group it with others (a shade of red, a particular tone). Given the way our
neural system works, it is pretty hard to see how it could be otherwise.
Sellers, though, just thinks there is no need to postulate such things as
pure uninterpreted feelings. I think he is right, but still I think we can
abstract the experiential aspect of our mental signs, but it isn’t easy. I
like to look at the corner of a room and gradually make it go in, then out
again, then flat, and circle through those more quickly and get confused so
I don’t see it any clear way (a third). Normally we can’t do this. Most of
our thoughts come fully interpreted, and the neuropsychology of sensory
perception, for example, requires that our experiences are sorted by habits
inherited from our evolutionary past in order for us to perceive things.
There is an exception, called “blindsight”, which is processed when the
visual cortex is damaged and lower brain systems are all that can be relied
on. People with blindsight don’t have the usual phenomenal experiences we
have, but can still discriminate visual properties to some degree as shown
by their behaviour. Presumably there are visual signs that guide their
behaviour despite the lack of conscious experience of them. All in all, I am
pretty sceptical that uninterpreted icons can be anything more than confused
experiences or abstractions, and that habit rules the day for mental
experience. 

 

John

 

From: Gary Fuhrman [mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca] 
Sent: July 31, 2014 11:25 PM
To: 'Peirce-L'
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
for

 

John, in order to “make sense” (i.e. to convey any information in the
Peircean sense), it must function both iconically and indexically, as a
dicisign. A legisign has to be habitual, but an index cannot be habitual,
because it must designate something here and now: an individual, not a
general. This is the germ of the idea that Natural Propositions is about.

 

gary f.

 

From: John Collier [mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za] 
Sent: 31-Jul-14 4:31 PM
To: Clark Goble; Søren Brier; Peirce-L
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
for

 

Clark, I don’t think something can be a sign unless it is habitual. How
could it make any sense otherwise?

 

John

 

From: Clark Goble [mailto:cl...@lextek.com] 
Sent: July 31, 2014 10:16 PM
To: Søren Brier; Peirce-L
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
for

 

 

On Jul 31, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Søren Brier  wrote:

 

My I add a few thoughts? I agree that sign are reals, but when they
manifests as tokens their Secondness must enter the world of physics and
thermodynamics must apply. It is work to make signs emerge in non-verbal
communication or as language from ones feeling and thoughts. Even to
produces thoughts and feeling demands w

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

(Undistorted Figure 1 is attached.)

Clark wrote :

"There are many problems with this (exactly where to   (073114-1)
place the laws of physics for example). . . ."


I wonder if the MPM category theory would be helpful here.  According this
theory, the laws of physics can be viewed as the (mathematical) models of
reality that are determined by phenomenon in such a manner that they are
indirectly constrained/determined by reality (or natural mechanisms):

a  b
 Mechanisms -- >  Phenomenon  -- >   Model
  (Reality) (Sign)   (Physical laws)
  | ^
  | |
  |_|
c

Figure 1.  The MPM category, also called the ur-cateogry, as a theory of
everything (TOE).
a = natural process; b = mental construction; c = experimental validation.

If I am right in saying that nominalism is a dyadic (in contrast to a
triadic) perspective emphasizing Step b and lacking Step c, then I must
not be a nominalist but rather a “constructive realist” since I believe
that

“Science is the result of the irreducibly triadic interactions   (073114-2)
among Steps a(natural process), b (mental construction) and c
(experimental validation).”

With all the best.

Sung
__
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net

>
>> On Jul 31, 2014, at 5:06 PM, Clark Goble  wrote:
>>
>> It is rather common to assume some space/time substrate with extension
>> as a necessary substrate for any property. So much so that it’s rather
>> common for many from the scientific community to even recognize it as an
>> unestablished assumption. (And one which many scientists have disagreed
>> with)
>
> Whoops. Typo. That should be, "So much so that it’s rather uncommon for
> many from the scientific community to even recognize it as an
> unestablished assumption.” That is many in the scientific community have
> tended to adopt a kind of Cartesian view with mind simply discarded from
> the system. There are many problems with this (exactly where to place the
> laws of physics for example) yet it’s constantly surprising to me how many
> scientists adopt just such a view. (I think Lawrence Krauss moves in that
> direction for example - although at least he gets the substrate a little
> more sophisticated than Descartes)



Clark_07312014Copy.pdf
Description: Adobe PDF document

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Edwina Taborsky]

6.220 is from the Logic of Events, 1898- and that section refers, as John was 
talking about, to the nature of potentiality. 
  - Original Message - 
  From: Clark Goble 
  To: Peirce-L 
  Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 7:27 PM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for




On Jul 31, 2014, at 5:08 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:


 I agree that the laws are generals and not material; they couldn't be 
general AND material, for materiality is existentially local and particular. 
However, following Aristotle, I consider that the general law (Form) is 
embedded within the particular instantiation, even though, in itself, it is not 
a material form.


  I’ve not read too many arguments on how Aristotilean Peirce is here. As I 
recall I was curious a few months back of how to distinguish say Armstrong’s 
view of universals from Peirce’s view of generals here. That is if the general 
is a habit to what degree is it tied to the matter. Which is what I think John 
was getting at. Sadly I just don’t have time to get into that. I’m far from 
convinced there’s a simple answer in Peirce though. I think there are places 
where he seems to distinguish qualities from matter. The question ends up being 
whether generals as generals are just habits or whether they also relate to 
possibility as possibility. The quote I gave earlier from CP 6.220 touches on 
that. I forget the exact date of that document but off the top of my head I 
think it was in the 1870’s. So a debate of the evolution of Peirce’s thought 
seems quite relevant as well.


EDWINA: Yes - I'm aware of the fuzziness of the term postmodernism; a more 
modern term is 'constructivism', I think; but the point remains - that it views 
the world through the individual human agent's eyes.


  Well as a side tangent I’m not sure I’d agree the important figures under the 
postmodern rubric are constructivists. Many are, of course. Some major figures 
like Heidegger or Derrida can easily be read in very realist ways. That is they 
emphasize construction in order to get at the Other of construction. One could 
argue the so-called theological turn in French theology also is because of this 
kind of realism. Interesting this gets one to the parallels with Plotinus’ 
emanation theory. Is the Other the pure One of Plotinus or is the Other the 
pure privation or Matter of Plotinus. The logic tends to work either way, I 
think.


  I don’t want to go down that tangent right now, but I do think some of the 
issues are quite relevant in Peirce as well. 


EDWINA: I would consider Sung a nominalist - but not John. A general 
signifying a general is only one class of sign: the pure Argument, where all 
three - the Object-Representamen-Interpretant are in a mode of Thirdness. Such 
a sign is, in my view, both aspatial and atemporal, and thus, purely 
conceptual. It might be carried by words - but, in itself, it is 'purely 
mental’.


  Yes, but a more nominalist reading of Peirce will tend to see such signs as 
regulatory or ideal limits at best. However clearly you and I tend to agree on 
how to read Peirce here. 


Really? I'd consider that his more mature era rejected the Hegelian 
analytic frame, which, after all, essentially ignored Secondness - and was, 
again my view, most certainly not Platonic.


  I’m thinking particularly of the Cambridge Lectures where Peirce shocked 
quite a few at how Hegelian he was. Unexpectedly so given what most knew of his 
thought. Exactly how Hegelian seems an ongoing debate I’m not qualified to take 
a position on. I’ll confess that while I’m comfortable with saying a bit about 
his early ontology, I’m not sure in his mature thought he’s usually talking 
ontology. So I’m far more loath to say he’s making ontological commitments. If 
so (and I’m hardly an expert here) it’s not at all clear how to take the 
significance of his early thought.


  Kelly Parker attempts to paint there being a fair bit of continuity. I think 
his assertions outstrip his evidence in many key places though. So I tend to 
simply be agnostic as to Peirce’s particular ontology in his mature thought.


  Parker’s view can be found in The Continuity of Peirce’s Thought. It’s been 
long enough since I last read it that I’m loath to summarize any view from it 
though.


--



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

Clark wrote:

"But there can be signs of mind and not matter. (073114-1)
That’s more the issue I’m getting at."

Can there be any signs of mind independent of matter or unsupported by
material mechanisms of some sort ?

If so, what would be an example of that ?

With all the best.

Sung
__
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net




>
>> On Jul 31, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Søren Brier  wrote:
>>
>> My I add a few thoughts? I agree that sign are reals, but when they
>> manifests as tokens their Secondness must enter the world of physics and
>> thermodynamics must apply. It is work to make signs emerge in non-verbal
>> communication or as language from ones feeling and thoughts. Even to
>> produces thoughts and feeling demands work. That would be a biosemiotic
>> view (but one that we have not discussed much). But I think you are
>> correct in saying that Peirce did not do any work on this aspect of sign
>> production.
>
> Again this gets at ontological issues. Remember Peirce’s conception of
> mind and matter which gets a bit tricky. The world of physics is the world
> of matter which is mind under habit. But there can be signs of mind and
> not matter. That’s more the issue I’m getting at.



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

> On Jul 31, 2014, at 5:08 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
> 
>  I agree that the laws are generals and not material; they couldn't be 
> general AND material, for materiality is existentially local and particular. 
> However, following Aristotle, I consider that the general law (Form) is 
> embedded within the particular instantiation, even though, in itself, it is 
> not a material form.

I’ve not read too many arguments on how Aristotilean Peirce is here. As I 
recall I was curious a few months back of how to distinguish say Armstrong’s 
view of universals from Peirce’s view of generals here. That is if the general 
is a habit to what degree is it tied to the matter. Which is what I think John 
was getting at. Sadly I just don’t have time to get into that. I’m far from 
convinced there’s a simple answer in Peirce though. I think there are places 
where he seems to distinguish qualities from matter. The question ends up being 
whether generals as generals are just habits or whether they also relate to 
possibility as possibility. The quote I gave earlier from CP 6.220 touches on 
that. I forget the exact date of that document but off the top of my head I 
think it was in the 1870’s. So a debate of the evolution of Peirce’s thought 
seems quite relevant as well.

> EDWINA: Yes - I'm aware of the fuzziness of the term postmodernism; a more 
> modern term is 'constructivism', I think; but the point remains - that it 
> views the world through the individual human agent's eyes.

Well as a side tangent I’m not sure I’d agree the important figures under the 
postmodern rubric are constructivists. Many are, of course. Some major figures 
like Heidegger or Derrida can easily be read in very realist ways. That is they 
emphasize construction in order to get at the Other of construction. One could 
argue the so-called theological turn in French theology also is because of this 
kind of realism. Interesting this gets one to the parallels with Plotinus’ 
emanation theory. Is the Other the pure One of Plotinus or is the Other the 
pure privation or Matter of Plotinus. The logic tends to work either way, I 
think.

I don’t want to go down that tangent right now, but I do think some of the 
issues are quite relevant in Peirce as well. 

> EDWINA: I would consider Sung a nominalist - but not John. A general 
> signifying a general is only one class of sign: the pure Argument, where all 
> three - the Object-Representamen-Interpretant are in a mode of Thirdness. 
> Such a sign is, in my view, both aspatial and atemporal, and thus, purely 
> conceptual. It might be carried by words - but, in itself, it is 'purely 
> mental’.

Yes, but a more nominalist reading of Peirce will tend to see such signs as 
regulatory or ideal limits at best. However clearly you and I tend to agree on 
how to read Peirce here. 

> Really? I'd consider that his more mature era rejected the Hegelian analytic 
> frame, which, after all, essentially ignored Secondness - and was, again my 
> view, most certainly not Platonic.

I’m thinking particularly of the Cambridge Lectures where Peirce shocked quite 
a few at how Hegelian he was. Unexpectedly so given what most knew of his 
thought. Exactly how Hegelian seems an ongoing debate I’m not qualified to take 
a position on. I’ll confess that while I’m comfortable with saying a bit about 
his early ontology, I’m not sure in his mature thought he’s usually talking 
ontology. So I’m far more loath to say he’s making ontological commitments. If 
so (and I’m hardly an expert here) it’s not at all clear how to take the 
significance of his early thought.

Kelly Parker attempts to paint there being a fair bit of continuity. I think 
his assertions outstrip his evidence in many key places though. So I tend to 
simply be agnostic as to Peirce’s particular ontology in his mature thought.

Parker’s view can be found in The Continuity of Peirce’s Thought. It’s been 
long enough since I last read it that I’m loath to summarize any view from it 
though.
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

> On Jul 31, 2014, at 5:06 PM, Clark Goble  wrote:
> 
> It is rather common to assume some space/time substrate with extension as a 
> necessary substrate for any property. So much so that it’s rather common for 
> many from the scientific community to even recognize it as an unestablished 
> assumption. (And one which many scientists have disagreed with)

Whoops. Typo. That should be, "So much so that it’s rather uncommon for many 
from the scientific community to even recognize it as an unestablished 
assumption.” That is many in the scientific community have tended to adopt a 
kind of Cartesian view with mind simply discarded from the system. There are 
many problems with this (exactly where to place the laws of physics for 
example) yet it’s constantly surprising to me how many scientists adopt just 
such a view. (I think Lawrence Krauss moves in that direction for example - 
although at least he gets the substrate a little more sophisticated than 
Descartes)
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Edwina Taborsky]

I'll reply to a few comments; thanks for your input. 
  - Original Message - 
  From: Clark Goble 
  To: Peirce-L 
  Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 6:48 PM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for


  1) CLARK: Lots of comments so I’ll just pick a few posts and include my 
comments in a single post. My sense is that there’s a lot of miscommunication 
going on because it’s not clear when people are following Peirce and when they 
aren’t. 
  EDWINA: I fully agree, but my concern is when people, such as Sung, say that 
they are following Peirce - when he is misrepresenting him. 

  2) JOHN COLLIER:I suppose that their could be signs that are not manifested, 
but I would call these possible signs. The possibilities are real, and are most 
likely thirds. I don't think that a possible x is an x. So I find it a bit odd 
to talk about signs that "manifest[s] as tokens their Secondness must enter the 
world of physics”.


  CLARK: Put an other way the question is, are possible signs signs with a 
substance of pure possibility rather than material tokens?  That’s not the only 
non-material sign of course. Consider the implication of a law. The laws are 
generals and not material and what is signified is also a general. The approach 
of Soren and Sungchul seems to be that this general -> general as a sign 
process still needs a material substrate which is far from clear to me if we 
adopt a more thoroughgoing ontology than simple materialist ones.

  EDWINA: I agree that the laws are generals and not material; they couldn't be 
general AND material, for materiality is existentially local and particular. 
However, following Aristotle, I consider that the general law (Form) is 
embedded within the particular instantiation, even though, in itself, it is not 
a material form.


So I think Søren is right in saying that sign tokens are subject to 
thermodynamics, and in particular it takes work for them to appear. They also 
tend to dissipate, and to overcome that requires work as we.. And so does 
recognizing them for what they are.


  I’ve not read your link yet so I’ll hold off commenting on this beyond 
thinking there’s quite a bit assumed here - at a bare minimum a materialist 
ontology of some sort. Kelly Parker’s work on the early ontology of Peirce is 
rather interesting here. 


  Again one need not buy into Peircean ontology here. As I recall you had some 
troubles with aspects of Peirce’s indices and icons so it might be that’s at 
play here?

  3) On Jul 31, 2014, at 1:40 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:


 I'm saying that you, who has not read Peirce and yet who constantly 
chooses to use Peircean terms in your outline of semiosis, and to inform us of 
'what these terms mean', then, you HAVE to have read Peirce and you have to use 
them as he used them.



  CLARK: I do think it would be helpful for clarity for everyone to be clear 
when one is using (or mining) Peirce and when one is breaking from Peirceanism. 
There’s nothing wrong with breaking from Peircean orthodoxy (or debating about 
what Peirce did or did not mean). I just think for clarity of communication 
it’s helpful to be clear what we are doing.

  EDWINA: Exactly. But the problem is, is that Sung considers that HIS view of 
Peirce - even though he hasn't read him - is the correct view. 


  4) On Jul 31, 2014, at 2:14 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:


I think this is the basic distinction between the Representamen, the habits 
of formation, which are 'real' but not existentially particular - and the 
existentially particular unit or token (the Object and Interpretant) - and the 
relation between the two modes: the habit and the existential. This 
relationship, the relationship of mediation,  is active, and thus, does involve 
work and exchanges of energy/information. So, I disagree that Peirce did not 
work on this aspect of semiosis; it's the basis of his semiosis - that constant 
networking of the Representamen with other Representamens (the action of 
generalization); the constant networking of the Sign, in its triadic sense, 
with other Signs. 

i don't agree with Sung's outline, which is a postmodernist nominalism,  
because it ignores both that objective reality exists outside of the perception 
of humans and it ignores a fundamental nature of Peircean semiosis; that the 
sign exists  - in its own interactions; that is, objective reality exists on 
its own. For example, the word on the page is, as a material unit, a sign. It 
exists as ink-on-paper.  It does not have to be read by a human in order to 
exist.


  CLARK: Honestly I can’t even figure out what postmodernism means anymore so 
I’ll avoid that term. I think it’d lost its sense well into the 80’s when so 
many disparate movements were put under the same rubric (often with gross 
misreadings by both proponents and opponents).  

  EDWINA: Yes - I'm

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

> On Jul 31, 2014, at 3:32 PM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:
> 
> Do you deny that DNA is matter ?  Does it not represent an organism?
> 
> Do you deny that
> 
> “Semiosis is a material process enabled by the action of the(073114-6)
> irreducible triad of object, representamen and interpretant.
> Hence, all the components of semiosis possess material bases.”
> 
> “. . . the habits of formation act as the representamen and (073114-8)
> transforms the input data from the object into the
> interpretant.”
> 
> So, where is the habit encoded or what embodies the habit ?   Thin air or
> a ghost ?

Just to second Edwina, these are clearly explained within Peirce. They are at 
odds with what I guess is your materialistic ontology. So perhaps you’re 
assuming some form of simple materialism so much you’re having a hard time 
wrapping your mind around there being different ways of thinking here. It is 
rather common to assume some space/time substrate with extension as a necessary 
substrate for any property. So much so that it’s rather common for many from 
the scientific community to even recognize it as an unestablished assumption. 
(And one which many scientists have disagreed with)

With regards to Peirce he discusses this in many places. I think a good 
starting point on this might be the SEP in the “Mind and Semeiotic” section. 
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/#mind

Allow me to quote the relevant part as I think it would eliminate a lot of 
confusion at play here.

Connected with Peirce's insistence on the ubiquity of mind in the cosmos is the 
importance he attached to what he called “semeiotic,” the theory of signs in 
the most general sense. Although a few points concerning this subject were made 
earlier in this article, some further discussion is in order. What Peircean 
meant by “semeiotic” is almost totally different from what has come to be 
called “semiotics,” and which hails not so much from Peirce as from Ferdinand 
de Saussure and Charles W. Morris. Even though Peircean semeiotic and semiotics 
are often confused, it is important not to do so. Peircean semeiotic derives 
ultimately from the theory of signs of Duns Scotus and its later development by 
John of St. Thomas (John Poinsot). In Peirce's theory the sign relation is a 
triadic relation that is a special species of the genus: the representing 
relation. Whenever the representing relation has an instance, we find one thing 
(the “object”) being represented by (or: in) another thing (the 
“representamen”) and being represented to (or: in) a third thing (the 
“interpretant.”) Moreover, the object is represented by the representamen in 
such a way that the interpretant is thereby “determined” to be also a 
representamen of the object to yet another interpretant. That is to say, the 
interpretant stands in the representing relation to the same object represented 
by the original representamen, and thus the interpretant represents the object 
(either again or further) to yet another interpretant. Obviously, Peirce's 
complicated definition entails that we have an infinite sequence of 
representamens of an object whenever we have any one representamen of it.

The sign relation is the special species of the representing relation that 
obtains whenever the first interpretant (and consequently each member of the 
whole infinite sequence of interpretants) has a status that is mental, i.e. 
(roughly) is a cognition of a mind. In any instance of the sign relation an 
object is signified by a sign to a mind. One of Peirce's central tasks was that 
of analyzing all possible kinds of signs. For this purpose he introduced 
various distinction among signs, and discussed various ways of classifying them.

One set of distinctions among signs was introduced by Peirce in the early 
stages of his analysis. The distinctions in this set turn on whether the 
particular instance of the sign relation is “degenerate” or “non-degenerate.” 
The notion of “degeneracy” here is the standard mathematical notion, and as 
applied to sign theory non-degeneracy means simply that the triadic relation 
cannot be analyzed as a logical conjunction of any combination of dyadic 
relations and monadic relations. More exactly, a particular instance of the 
obtaining of the sign relation is degenerate if and only if the fact that a 
sign s means an object o to an interpretant i can be analyzed into a 
conjunction of facts of the form P(s) & Q(o) & R(i) & T(s,o) & U(o,i) & W(i,s) 
(where not all the conjuncts have to be present). Either an obtaining of the 
sign relation is non-degenerate, in which case it falls into one class; or it 
is degenerate in various possible ways (depending on which of the conjuncts are 
omitted and which retained), in which cases it falls into various other 
classes. Other distinctions regarding signs were introduced later by Peirce. 
Some of them will be discussed very briefly in the following section of this 
article.


In addition one should read th

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

Lots of comments so I’ll just pick a few posts and include my comments in a 
single post. My sense is that there’s a lot of miscommunication going on 
because it’s not clear when people are following Peirce and when they aren’t. 

> On Jul 31, 2014, at 1:35 PM, John Collier  wrote:
> 
> I suppose that their could be signs that are not manifested, but I would call 
> these possible signs. The possibilities are real, and are most likely thirds. 
> I don't think that a possible x is an x. So I find it a bit odd to talk about 
> signs that "manifest[s] as tokens their Secondness must enter the world of 
> physics”.

Put an other way the question is, are possible signs signs with a substance of 
pure possibility rather than material tokens?  That’s not the only non-material 
sign of course. Consider the implication of a law. The laws are generals and 
not material and what is signified is also a general. The approach of Soren and 
Sungchul seems to be that this general -> general as a sign process still needs 
a material substrate which is far from clear to me if we adopt a more 
thoroughgoing ontology than simple materialist ones.

> So I think Søren is right in saying that sign tokens are subject to 
> thermodynamics, and in particular it takes work for them to appear. They also 
> tend to dissipate, and to overcome that requires work as we.. And so does 
> recognizing them for what they are.

I’ve not read your link yet so I’ll hold off commenting on this beyond thinking 
there’s quite a bit assumed here - at a bare minimum a materialist ontology of 
some sort. Kelly Parker’s work on the early ontology of Peirce is rather 
interesting here. 

Again one need not buy into Peircean ontology here. As I recall you had some 
troubles with aspects of Peirce’s indices and icons so it might be that’s at 
play here?

> On Jul 31, 2014, at 1:40 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
> 
>  I'm saying that you, who has not read Peirce and yet who constantly chooses 
> to use Peircean terms in your outline of semiosis, and to inform us of 'what 
> these terms mean', then, you HAVE to have read Peirce and you have to use 
> them as he used them.

I do think it would be helpful for clarity for everyone to be clear when one is 
using (or mining) Peirce and when one is breaking from Peirceanism. There’s 
nothing wrong with breaking from Peircean orthodoxy (or debating about what 
Peirce did or did not mean). I just think for clarity of communication it’s 
helpful to be clear what we are doing.


> On Jul 31, 2014, at 2:14 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
> 
> I think this is the basic distinction between the Representamen, the habits 
> of formation, which are 'real' but not existentially particular - and the 
> existentially particular unit or token (the Object and Interpretant) - and 
> the relation between the two modes: the habit and the existential. This 
> relationship, the relationship of mediation,  is active, and thus, does 
> involve work and exchanges of energy/information. So, I disagree that Peirce 
> did not work on this aspect of semiosis; it's the basis of his semiosis - 
> that constant networking of the Representamen with other Representamens (the 
> action of generalization); the constant networking of the Sign, in its 
> triadic sense, with other Signs. 
>  
> i don't agree with Sung's outline, which is a postmodernist nominalism,  
> because it ignores both that objective reality exists outside of the 
> perception of humans and it ignores a fundamental nature of Peircean 
> semiosis; that the sign exists  - in its own interactions; that is, objective 
> reality exists on its own. For example, the word on the page is, as a 
> material unit, a sign. It exists as ink-on-paper.  It does not have to be 
> read by a human in order to exist.


Honestly I can’t even figure out what postmodernism means anymore so I’ll avoid 
that term. I think it’d lost its sense well into the 80’s when so many 
disparate movements were put under the same rubric (often with gross 
misreadings by both proponents and opponents).  

It does appear that there’s nominalism at work here though. The consideration 
of a general signifying a general as I mentioned to John above seems a good 
example. If I have John and Sungchul correct they would argue that this could 
at best be the representation of a general signifying the representation of a 
general with all of this possible only on a material substrate undergoing 
physical change. That is the representation always has a materialistic token. 
That’s clearly nominalism as I understand it.

Again, while merely appealing to Peirce proves nothing, I think Kelly Parker’s 
work on Peirce’s neoPlatonic aspects is rather helpful here. The question then 
becomes whether these ideas persisted into his mature era when his thought 
arguably took a more Hegelian turn.



> On Jul 31, 2014, at 2:30 PM, John Collier  wrote:
> 
> Clark, I don’t think something can be a sign unless it is habitual. How could 
> it ma

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Stephen C. Rose]

It is the penumbra of everything within the mind that you experience prior
to putting a word to it that attests to the independent existence of
"uninterpreted phenomena". I think it is for this reason that the writing
of words is always a sort of slaying of what was there. This is a temporal
event. It proceeds I think from the conscious sense of there being more
than one can name and its editing down to one or more terms that is seen to
be the named sign. This is my experience of how signs may evolve within
consciousness.

*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*


On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 6:19 PM, John Collier  wrote:

>  Gary f,
>
>
>
> This topic has come up before, partly because of my scepticism about
> icons. Joe was helpful to me in working out a resolution I could live with.
> I suppose that you are familiar with Sellars' "Myth of the given". He
> basically denies the independent existence of uninterpreted phenomena. C.I.
> Lewis accepted them, but believed they were "ineffable". His reasons for
> thinking they existed were entirely theoretical, because being ineffable we
> could not experience them without interpreting them. Presumably this is
> because it is psychologically impossible - as soon as we have a feeling we
> group it with others (a shade of red, a particular tone). Given the way our
> neural system works, it is pretty hard to see how it could be otherwise.
> Sellers, though, just thinks there is no need to postulate such things as
> pure uninterpreted feelings. I think he is right, but still I think we can
> abstract the experiential aspect of our mental signs, but it isn't easy. I
> like to look at the corner of a room and gradually make it go in, then out
> again, then flat, and circle through those more quickly and get confused so
> I don't see it any clear way (a third). Normally we can't do this. Most of
> our thoughts come fully interpreted, and the neuropsychology of sensory
> perception, for example, requires that our experiences are sorted by habits
> inherited from our evolutionary past in order for us to perceive things.
> There is an exception, called "blindsight", which is processed when the
> visual cortex is damaged and lower brain systems are all that can be relied
> on. People with blindsight don't have the usual phenomenal experiences we
> have, but can still discriminate visual properties to some degree as shown
> by their behaviour. Presumably there are visual signs that guide their
> behaviour despite the lack of conscious experience of them. All in all, I
> am pretty sceptical that uninterpreted icons can be anything more than
> confused experiences or abstractions, and that habit rules the day for
> mental experience.
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> *From:* Gary Fuhrman [mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca]
> *Sent:* July 31, 2014 11:25 PM
> *To:* 'Peirce-L'
>
> *Subject:* RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
> basis for
>
>
>
> John, in order to "make sense" (i.e. to convey any information in the
> Peircean sense), it must function both iconically and indexically, as a
> dicisign. A legisign has to be habitual, but an index *cannot* be
> habitual, because it must designate something here and now: an individual,
> not a general. This is the germ of the idea that *Natural Propositions*
> is about.
>
>
>
> gary f.
>
>
>
> *From:* John Collier [mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za ]
> *Sent:* 31-Jul-14 4:31 PM
> *To:* Clark Goble; Søren Brier; Peirce-L
> *Subject:* RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
> basis for
>
>
>
> Clark, I don't think something can be a sign unless it is habitual. How
> could it make any sense otherwise?
>
>
>
> John
>
>
>
> *From:* Clark Goble [mailto:cl...@lextek.com ]
> *Sent:* July 31, 2014 10:16 PM
> *To:* Søren Brier; Peirce-L
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
> basis for
>
>
>
>
>
>  On Jul 31, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Søren Brier  wrote:
>
>
>
> My I add a few thoughts? I agree that sign are reals, but when they
> manifests as tokens their Secondness must enter the world of physics and
> thermodynamics must apply. It is work to make signs emerge in non-verbal
> communication or as language from ones feeling and thoughts. Even to
> produces thoughts and feeling demands work. That would be a biosemiotic
> view (but one that we have not discussed much). But I think you are correct
> in saying that Peirce did not do any work on this aspect of sign production.
>
>
>
> Again this gets at ontological issues. Remember Peirce's conception of
> mind and matter which gets a bit trick

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Edwina Taborsky]

 you from acknowledging 
fault, but you were the one who showed no understanding of basic syllogistic 
format - including, even, you claim that syllogisms don't use quantifiers! 
(All, Some)...when those quantifiers are basic to the syllogism. And you 
couldn't understand the fallacies of Illicit Major and undistributed middle 
(which you were using).  I gave you several book sources on the syllogism 
but I'm sure you haven't bothered to read them; but you could even go to 
Wikipedia to check out syllogisms.

___
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net




Sung - don't divert from the issue by personalizing my criticism. I'm not
saying that no-one can understand a sign unless they have read as much
Peirce as I have. I'm saying that you, who has not read Peirce and yet 
who

constantly chooses to use Peircean terms in your outline of semiosis, and
to
inform us of 'what these terms mean', then, you HAVE to have read Peirce
and
you have to use them as he used them.

I've said before - that if you choose to use the Peircean semiosis
differently from that outlined by Peirce, then don't use the same terms.
Use
your own. And don't try to tell us that your use is Peircean when it
isn't.

And so what if - in yet another of your numbered admonitions to us - you
tell us that other scholars have made 'fundamental contributions to the
science of signs'. What does that have to do with your misuse and
misunderstanding of Peircean terms?

I certainly do assume that secondary sources on Peirce are not equivalent
to
the original writings of Peirce.  Your failure to read Peirce in the
original and your attempts to twist and distort his analysis to suit your
own outline of the world can't be laid at the feet of either the 
secondary

sources or Peirce. It's your outline.

Again, you are the one constantly informing us of the 'meaning' of
Peircean
semiosis - with outlandish claims, including your bizarre crosstabs table
of
the categories, your misunderstanding of the categories, your equation of
Firstness with a priori, and, now your insistence that the Representamen
(and that's a Peircean term) is a 'thing'. No, I'm not confusing nodes 
and

edges; I don't use them and neither did Peirce. If you choose to use them
-
that's your choice but don't tell us that it is a Peircean framework.

That's absurd - to insist that a 'material thing acts as a 
representamen'.

Again, you totally fail to understand the nature of and function of the
representamen within Peircean semiosis. You are merging the abstract
habit-of-formation (the Representamen in Thirdness) with the
thing-in-itself
(in Secondness). The abstract habits of formation are real but not
singularly existential; they are embedded within a conceptual or material
particular existentiality. Pure Aristotle and Peirce was Aristotelian. 
So,

a
material thing does not act as a representamen; the habits of formation
act
as the representamen and transforms the input data from the object into
the
interpretant. Rather like a syllogism (something which you also don't
understand - as you showed us a few weeks ago).

This isn't about thermodynamics and semiosis. So again, don't try to
divert
the issue. It's about your failure to understand Peircean semiosis, your
complete misuse of his analysis and his terms, your attempt to use his
terms, twisting and turning them, to fit into your own analysis of the
world - and, when criticized, your constant reflexive retreat into
diversions and irrelevancies.

Again, read Peirce. And use your own terms and don't misuse his terms.

Edwina


- Original Message -
From: "Sungchul Ji" 
To: "Edwina Taborsky" 
Cc: "Sungchul Ji" ; "Clark Goble" 
;

"Benjamin Udell" ; 
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 3:01 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
for



Edwina wrote (073114-1):

"Sung, it would help if you would actually read Peirce's  (073114-1)
original works, rather than, as you do, relying on secondary
writings about Peirce and on cherry-quotes of his works."

You have been repeating this admonition whenever you want to criticize
my
views on signs that differ from yours.  There are several things that
seem
wrong with this attitude which I once referred to as "childish",
because:
(1) You assume that no one can understand what sign is unless he or she
studied Peirce as much a as you have.  This cannot be true because

"There are scholars who made fundamental contributions to (073114-2)
the science of signs long before Peirce (1839-1914) wa

RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[John Collier]

Gary f,

This topic has come up before, partly because of my scepticism about icons. Joe 
was helpful to me in working out a resolution I could live with. I suppose that 
you are familiar with Sellars’ “Myth of the given”. He basically denies the 
independent existence of uninterpreted phenomena. C.I. Lewis accepted them, but 
believed they were “ineffable”. His reasons for thinking they existed were 
entirely theoretical, because being ineffable we could not experience them 
without interpreting them. Presumably this is because it is psychologically 
impossible – as soon as we have a feeling we group it with others (a shade of 
red, a particular tone). Given the way our neural system works, it is pretty 
hard to see how it could be otherwise. Sellers, though, just thinks there is no 
need to postulate such things as pure uninterpreted feelings. I think he is 
right, but still I think we can abstract the experiential aspect of our mental 
signs, but it isn’t easy. I like to look at the corner of a room and gradually 
make it go in, then out again, then flat, and circle through those more quickly 
and get confused so I don’t see it any clear way (a third). Normally we can’t 
do this. Most of our thoughts come fully interpreted, and the neuropsychology 
of sensory perception, for example, requires that our experiences are sorted by 
habits inherited from our evolutionary past in order for us to perceive things. 
There is an exception, called “blindsight”, which is processed when the visual 
cortex is damaged and lower brain systems are all that can be relied on. People 
with blindsight don’t have the usual phenomenal experiences we have, but can 
still discriminate visual properties to some degree as shown by their 
behaviour. Presumably there are visual signs that guide their behaviour despite 
the lack of conscious experience of them. All in all, I am pretty sceptical 
that uninterpreted icons can be anything more than confused experiences or 
abstractions, and that habit rules the day for mental experience.

John

From: Gary Fuhrman [mailto:g...@gnusystems.ca]
Sent: July 31, 2014 11:25 PM
To: 'Peirce-L'
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

John, in order to “make sense” (i.e. to convey any information in the Peircean 
sense), it must function both iconically and indexically, as a dicisign. A 
legisign has to be habitual, but an index cannot be habitual, because it must 
designate something here and now: an individual, not a general. This is the 
germ of the idea that Natural Propositions is about.

gary f.

From: John Collier [mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za]
Sent: 31-Jul-14 4:31 PM
To: Clark Goble; Søren Brier; Peirce-L
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

Clark, I don’t think something can be a sign unless it is habitual. How could 
it make any sense otherwise?

John

From: Clark Goble [mailto:cl...@lextek.com]
Sent: July 31, 2014 10:16 PM
To: Søren Brier; Peirce-L
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for


On Jul 31, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Søren Brier mailto:sb@cbs.dk>> 
wrote:

My I add a few thoughts? I agree that sign are reals, but when they manifests 
as tokens their Secondness must enter the world of physics and thermodynamics 
must apply. It is work to make signs emerge in non-verbal communication or as 
language from ones feeling and thoughts. Even to produces thoughts and feeling 
demands work. That would be a biosemiotic view (but one that we have not 
discussed much). But I think you are correct in saying that Peirce did not do 
any work on this aspect of sign production.

Again this gets at ontological issues. Remember Peirce’s conception of mind and 
matter which gets a bit tricky. The world of physics is the world of matter 
which is mind under habit. But there can be signs of mind and not matter. 
That’s more the issue I’m getting at.



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

 Peircean term) is a 'thing'. No, I'm not confusing nodes and
> edges; I don't use them and neither did Peirce. If you choose to use them
> -
> that's your choice but don't tell us that it is a Peircean framework.
>
> That's absurd - to insist that a 'material thing acts as a representamen'.
> Again, you totally fail to understand the nature of and function of the
> representamen within Peircean semiosis. You are merging the abstract
> habit-of-formation (the Representamen in Thirdness) with the
> thing-in-itself
> (in Secondness). The abstract habits of formation are real but not
> singularly existential; they are embedded within a conceptual or material
> particular existentiality. Pure Aristotle and Peirce was Aristotelian. So,
> a
> material thing does not act as a representamen; the habits of formation
> act
> as the representamen and transforms the input data from the object into
> the
> interpretant. Rather like a syllogism (something which you also don't
> understand - as you showed us a few weeks ago).
>
> This isn't about thermodynamics and semiosis. So again, don't try to
> divert
> the issue. It's about your failure to understand Peircean semiosis, your
> complete misuse of his analysis and his terms, your attempt to use his
> terms, twisting and turning them, to fit into your own analysis of the
> world - and, when criticized, your constant reflexive retreat into
> diversions and irrelevancies.
>
> Again, read Peirce. And use your own terms and don't misuse his terms.
>
> Edwina
>
>
> - Original Message -
> From: "Sungchul Ji" 
> To: "Edwina Taborsky" 
> Cc: "Sungchul Ji" ; "Clark Goble" ;
> "Benjamin Udell" ; 
> Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 3:01 PM
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
> for
>
>
>> Edwina wrote (073114-1):
>>
>> "Sung, it would help if you would actually read Peirce's  (073114-1)
>> original works, rather than, as you do, relying on secondary
>> writings about Peirce and on cherry-quotes of his works."
>>
>> You have been repeating this admonition whenever you want to criticize
>> my
>> views on signs that differ from yours.  There are several things that
>> seem
>> wrong with this attitude which I once referred to as "childish",
>> because:
>> (1) You assume that no one can understand what sign is unless he or she
>> studied Peirce as much a as you have.  This cannot be true because
>>
>> "There are scholars who made fundamental contributions to (073114-2)
>> the science of signs long before Peirce (1839-1914) was born
>> or independently of Peirce's work, e.g., Saussure (1857-1913)."
>>
>> (2) You assume that secondary sources on Peircean semiotics is not as
>> reliable as Peirce's original writings.  This may be true in some cases
>> but not always.
>>
>> (3) The science of signs is "larger" than Peircean semiotics, because
>>
>> "The science of signs is not yet complete and constantly  (073114-3)
>> evolving with new advances in our knowledge in natural
>> and human sciences and communication engineering."
>>
>> For these reasons I am inclined to believe that
>>
>> "Anyone, not versed in Peircean semiotics, can discover truth
>> (073114-4)
>> about signs, although Peircean scholarship can often, but not
>> necessarily always, facilitate such discoveries."
>>
>> So, Edwina, whenever you feel like repeating (073114-1), think about the
>> following admonition to you from me:
>>
>> "Edwina, I probably have read more Peirce to be able to (073114-5)
>> discuss signs than you have read thermodynamics to be
>> able to discuss energy."
>>
>>> Sung, it would help if you would actually read Peirce's original works,
>>> rather than, as you do, relying on secondary writings about Peirce and
>>> on
>>> cherry-quotes of his works. You wrote:
>>>
>>> "Written words are representamens and spoken (073114-7)
>>>> (and understood) words are signs."
>>>
>>> No.  Peircean semiosis is a process; the 'representamen' is not a thing
>>> in
>>> itself but an action of mediation within a triadic process.
>>
>> It seems to me that you are conflating semiosis and its components that
>> make semiosis possible.  In other words, you may be conflating nodes and
>> edges in networks. You cannot have edges 

RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Gary Fuhrman]

John, in order to “make sense” (i.e. to convey any information in the
Peircean sense), it must function both iconically and indexically, as a
dicisign. A legisign has to be habitual, but an index cannot be habitual,
because it must designate something here and now: an individual, not a
general. This is the germ of the idea that Natural Propositions is about.

 

gary f.

 

From: John Collier [mailto:colli...@ukzn.ac.za] 
Sent: 31-Jul-14 4:31 PM
To: Clark Goble; Søren Brier; Peirce-L
Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
for

 

Clark, I don’t think something can be a sign unless it is habitual. How
could it make any sense otherwise?

 

John

 

From: Clark Goble [mailto:cl...@lextek.com] 
Sent: July 31, 2014 10:16 PM
To: Søren Brier; Peirce-L
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
for

 

 

On Jul 31, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Søren Brier  wrote:

 

My I add a few thoughts? I agree that sign are reals, but when they
manifests as tokens their Secondness must enter the world of physics and
thermodynamics must apply. It is work to make signs emerge in non-verbal
communication or as language from ones feeling and thoughts. Even to
produces thoughts and feeling demands work. That would be a biosemiotic view
(but one that we have not discussed much). But I think you are correct in
saying that Peirce did not do any work on this aspect of sign production.

 

Again this gets at ontological issues. Remember Peirce’s conception of mind
and matter which gets a bit tricky. The world of physics is the world of
matter which is mind under habit. But there can be signs of mind and not
matter. That’s more the issue I’m getting at.


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PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Stephen C. Rose]

Thanks Edwina. That answers my question.

*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*


On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 4:27 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

>  Stephen- I'm not sure what you mean! Peirce was, as he himself said many
> times, an Aristotelian, in the sense of his understanding that the 'Form',
> or habits-of-formation, were generals/universals and were embedded within
> the particular instantiation. That is, he was not Platonic - where the
> Forms are actually existentially real on their own.
>
> Edwina
>
>
> - Original Message -
> *From:* Stephen C. Rose 
> *To:* Edwina Taborsky  ; Peirce List
> 
> *Sent:* Thursday, July 31, 2014 4:20 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the
> basis for
>
> "Peirce was Aristotelian" in this context? Or entirely? I agree with your
> note but this confuses me.
>
>  *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 3:40 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
> wrote:
>
>> Sung - don't divert from the issue by personalizing my criticism. I'm not
>> saying that no-one can understand a sign unless they have read as much
>> Peirce as I have. I'm saying that you, who has not read Peirce and yet who
>> constantly chooses to use Peircean terms in your outline of semiosis, and
>> to inform us of 'what these terms mean', then, you HAVE to have read Peirce
>> and you have to use them as he used them.
>>
>> I've said before - that if you choose to use the Peircean semiosis
>> differently from that outlined by Peirce, then don't use the same terms.
>> Use your own. And don't try to tell us that your use is Peircean when it
>> isn't.
>>
>> And so what if - in yet another of your numbered admonitions to us - you
>> tell us that other scholars have made 'fundamental contributions to the
>> science of signs'. What does that have to do with your misuse and
>> misunderstanding of Peircean terms?
>>
>> I certainly do assume that secondary sources on Peirce are not equivalent
>> to the original writings of Peirce.  Your failure to read Peirce in the
>> original and your attempts to twist and distort his analysis to suit your
>> own outline of the world can't be laid at the feet of either the secondary
>> sources or Peirce. It's your outline.
>>
>> Again, you are the one constantly informing us of the 'meaning' of
>> Peircean semiosis - with outlandish claims, including your bizarre
>> crosstabs table of the categories, your misunderstanding of the categories,
>> your equation of Firstness with a priori, and, now your insistence that the
>> Representamen (and that's a Peircean term) is a 'thing'. No, I'm not
>> confusing nodes and edges; I don't use them and neither did Peirce. If you
>> choose to use them - that's your choice but don't tell us that it is a
>> Peircean framework.
>>
>> That's absurd - to insist that a 'material thing acts as a
>> representamen'. Again, you totally fail to understand the nature of and
>> function of the representamen within Peircean semiosis. You are merging the
>> abstract habit-of-formation (the Representamen in Thirdness) with the
>> thing-in-itself (in Secondness). The abstract habits of formation are real
>> but not singularly existential; they are embedded within a conceptual or
>> material particular existentiality. Pure Aristotle and Peirce was
>> Aristotelian. So, a material thing does not act as a representamen; the
>> habits of formation act as the representamen and transforms the input data
>> from the object into the interpretant. Rather like a syllogism (something
>> which you also don't understand - as you showed us a few weeks ago).
>>
>> This isn't about thermodynamics and semiosis. So again, don't try to
>> divert the issue. It's about your failure to understand Peircean semiosis,
>> your complete misuse of his analysis and his terms, your attempt to use his
>> terms, twisting and turning them, to fit into your own analysis of the
>> world - and, when criticized, your constant reflexive retreat into
>> diversions and irrelevancies.
>>
>> Again, read Peirce. And use your own terms and don't misuse his terms.
>>
>> Edwina
>>
>>
>> - Original Message - From: "Sungchul Ji" 
>> To: "Edwina Taborsky" 
>> Cc: "Sungchul Ji" ; "Clark Goble" ;
>> "Benjamin Udell" ; 
>> Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 3:01 PM
>

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Stephen C. Rose]

Another question. Doesn't chance operate in the world of physics, that is
to say in the real world as we experience it. The second law of
thermodynamics describes part but not all of what is happening. The other
element is what we call chance. How the two manage to function together and
what it leads to are questions that would only be pertinent if one conceded
that chance is as real as the second law.

*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*


On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 4:20 PM, Stephen C. Rose 
wrote:

> "Peirce was Aristotelian" in this context? Or entirely? I agree with your
> note but this confuses me.
>
> *@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*
>
>
> On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 3:40 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
> wrote:
>
>> Sung - don't divert from the issue by personalizing my criticism. I'm not
>> saying that no-one can understand a sign unless they have read as much
>> Peirce as I have. I'm saying that you, who has not read Peirce and yet who
>> constantly chooses to use Peircean terms in your outline of semiosis, and
>> to inform us of 'what these terms mean', then, you HAVE to have read Peirce
>> and you have to use them as he used them.
>>
>> I've said before - that if you choose to use the Peircean semiosis
>> differently from that outlined by Peirce, then don't use the same terms.
>> Use your own. And don't try to tell us that your use is Peircean when it
>> isn't.
>>
>> And so what if - in yet another of your numbered admonitions to us - you
>> tell us that other scholars have made 'fundamental contributions to the
>> science of signs'. What does that have to do with your misuse and
>> misunderstanding of Peircean terms?
>>
>> I certainly do assume that secondary sources on Peirce are not equivalent
>> to the original writings of Peirce.  Your failure to read Peirce in the
>> original and your attempts to twist and distort his analysis to suit your
>> own outline of the world can't be laid at the feet of either the secondary
>> sources or Peirce. It's your outline.
>>
>> Again, you are the one constantly informing us of the 'meaning' of
>> Peircean semiosis - with outlandish claims, including your bizarre
>> crosstabs table of the categories, your misunderstanding of the categories,
>> your equation of Firstness with a priori, and, now your insistence that the
>> Representamen (and that's a Peircean term) is a 'thing'. No, I'm not
>> confusing nodes and edges; I don't use them and neither did Peirce. If you
>> choose to use them - that's your choice but don't tell us that it is a
>> Peircean framework.
>>
>> That's absurd - to insist that a 'material thing acts as a
>> representamen'. Again, you totally fail to understand the nature of and
>> function of the representamen within Peircean semiosis. You are merging the
>> abstract habit-of-formation (the Representamen in Thirdness) with the
>> thing-in-itself (in Secondness). The abstract habits of formation are real
>> but not singularly existential; they are embedded within a conceptual or
>> material particular existentiality. Pure Aristotle and Peirce was
>> Aristotelian. So, a material thing does not act as a representamen; the
>> habits of formation act as the representamen and transforms the input data
>> from the object into the interpretant. Rather like a syllogism (something
>> which you also don't understand - as you showed us a few weeks ago).
>>
>> This isn't about thermodynamics and semiosis. So again, don't try to
>> divert the issue. It's about your failure to understand Peircean semiosis,
>> your complete misuse of his analysis and his terms, your attempt to use his
>> terms, twisting and turning them, to fit into your own analysis of the
>> world - and, when criticized, your constant reflexive retreat into
>> diversions and irrelevancies.
>>
>> Again, read Peirce. And use your own terms and don't misuse his terms.
>>
>> Edwina
>>
>>
>> - Original Message - From: "Sungchul Ji" 
>> To: "Edwina Taborsky" 
>> Cc: "Sungchul Ji" ; "Clark Goble" ;
>> "Benjamin Udell" ; 
>> Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 3:01 PM
>> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
>> for
>>
>>
>>  Edwina wrote (073114-1):
>>>
>>> "Sung, it would help if you would actually read Peirce's  (073114-1)
>>> original works, rather than, as

RE: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[John Collier]

Clark, I don’t think something can be a sign unless it is habitual. How could 
it make any sense otherwise?

John

From: Clark Goble [mailto:cl...@lextek.com]
Sent: July 31, 2014 10:16 PM
To: Søren Brier; Peirce-L
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for


On Jul 31, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Søren Brier mailto:sb@cbs.dk>> 
wrote:

My I add a few thoughts? I agree that sign are reals, but when they manifests 
as tokens their Secondness must enter the world of physics and thermodynamics 
must apply. It is work to make signs emerge in non-verbal communication or as 
language from ones feeling and thoughts. Even to produces thoughts and feeling 
demands work. That would be a biosemiotic view (but one that we have not 
discussed much). But I think you are correct in saying that Peirce did not do 
any work on this aspect of sign production.

Again this gets at ontological issues. Remember Peirce’s conception of mind and 
matter which gets a bit tricky. The world of physics is the world of matter 
which is mind under habit. But there can be signs of mind and not matter. 
That’s more the issue I’m getting at.



-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To 
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Edwina Taborsky]

Stephen- I'm not sure what you mean! Peirce was, as he himself said many times, 
an Aristotelian, in the sense of his understanding that the 'Form', or 
habits-of-formation, were generals/universals and were embedded within the 
particular instantiation. That is, he was not Platonic - where the Forms are 
actually existentially real on their own.

Edwina

  - Original Message - 
  From: Stephen C. Rose 
  To: Edwina Taborsky ; Peirce List 
  Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 4:20 PM
  Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for


  "Peirce was Aristotelian" in this context? Or entirely? I agree with your 
note but this confuses me.



  @stephencrose



  On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 3:40 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

Sung - don't divert from the issue by personalizing my criticism. I'm not 
saying that no-one can understand a sign unless they have read as much Peirce 
as I have. I'm saying that you, who has not read Peirce and yet who constantly 
chooses to use Peircean terms in your outline of semiosis, and to inform us of 
'what these terms mean', then, you HAVE to have read Peirce and you have to use 
them as he used them.

I've said before - that if you choose to use the Peircean semiosis 
differently from that outlined by Peirce, then don't use the same terms. Use 
your own. And don't try to tell us that your use is Peircean when it isn't.

And so what if - in yet another of your numbered admonitions to us - you 
tell us that other scholars have made 'fundamental contributions to the science 
of signs'. What does that have to do with your misuse and misunderstanding of 
Peircean terms?

I certainly do assume that secondary sources on Peirce are not equivalent 
to the original writings of Peirce.  Your failure to read Peirce in the 
original and your attempts to twist and distort his analysis to suit your own 
outline of the world can't be laid at the feet of either the secondary sources 
or Peirce. It's your outline.

Again, you are the one constantly informing us of the 'meaning' of Peircean 
semiosis - with outlandish claims, including your bizarre crosstabs table of 
the categories, your misunderstanding of the categories, your equation of 
Firstness with a priori, and, now your insistence that the Representamen (and 
that's a Peircean term) is a 'thing'. No, I'm not confusing nodes and edges; I 
don't use them and neither did Peirce. If you choose to use them - that's your 
choice but don't tell us that it is a Peircean framework.

That's absurd - to insist that a 'material thing acts as a representamen'. 
Again, you totally fail to understand the nature of and function of the 
representamen within Peircean semiosis. You are merging the abstract 
habit-of-formation (the Representamen in Thirdness) with the thing-in-itself 
(in Secondness). The abstract habits of formation are real but not singularly 
existential; they are embedded within a conceptual or material particular 
existentiality. Pure Aristotle and Peirce was Aristotelian. So, a material 
thing does not act as a representamen; the habits of formation act as the 
representamen and transforms the input data from the object into the 
interpretant. Rather like a syllogism (something which you also don't 
understand - as you showed us a few weeks ago).

This isn't about thermodynamics and semiosis. So again, don't try to divert 
the issue. It's about your failure to understand Peircean semiosis, your 
complete misuse of his analysis and his terms, your attempt to use his terms, 
twisting and turning them, to fit into your own analysis of the world - and, 
when criticized, your constant reflexive retreat into diversions and 
irrelevancies.

Again, read Peirce. And use your own terms and don't misuse his terms.

Edwina


- Original Message - From: "Sungchul Ji" 
To: "Edwina Taborsky" 
Cc: "Sungchul Ji" ; "Clark Goble" ; 
"Benjamin Udell" ; 
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 3:01 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis 
for



  Edwina wrote (073114-1):

  "Sung, it would help if you would actually read Peirce's  (073114-1)
  original works, rather than, as you do, relying on secondary
  writings about Peirce and on cherry-quotes of his works."

  You have been repeating this admonition whenever you want to criticize my
  views on signs that differ from yours.  There are several things that seem
  wrong with this attitude which I once referred to as "childish", because:
  (1) You assume that no one can understand what sign is unless he or she
  studied Peirce as much a as you have.  This cannot be true because

  "T

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Stephen C. Rose]

"Peirce was Aristotelian" in this context? Or entirely? I agree with your
note but this confuses me.

*@stephencrose <https://twitter.com/stephencrose>*


On Thu, Jul 31, 2014 at 3:40 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Sung - don't divert from the issue by personalizing my criticism. I'm not
> saying that no-one can understand a sign unless they have read as much
> Peirce as I have. I'm saying that you, who has not read Peirce and yet who
> constantly chooses to use Peircean terms in your outline of semiosis, and
> to inform us of 'what these terms mean', then, you HAVE to have read Peirce
> and you have to use them as he used them.
>
> I've said before - that if you choose to use the Peircean semiosis
> differently from that outlined by Peirce, then don't use the same terms.
> Use your own. And don't try to tell us that your use is Peircean when it
> isn't.
>
> And so what if - in yet another of your numbered admonitions to us - you
> tell us that other scholars have made 'fundamental contributions to the
> science of signs'. What does that have to do with your misuse and
> misunderstanding of Peircean terms?
>
> I certainly do assume that secondary sources on Peirce are not equivalent
> to the original writings of Peirce.  Your failure to read Peirce in the
> original and your attempts to twist and distort his analysis to suit your
> own outline of the world can't be laid at the feet of either the secondary
> sources or Peirce. It's your outline.
>
> Again, you are the one constantly informing us of the 'meaning' of
> Peircean semiosis - with outlandish claims, including your bizarre
> crosstabs table of the categories, your misunderstanding of the categories,
> your equation of Firstness with a priori, and, now your insistence that the
> Representamen (and that's a Peircean term) is a 'thing'. No, I'm not
> confusing nodes and edges; I don't use them and neither did Peirce. If you
> choose to use them - that's your choice but don't tell us that it is a
> Peircean framework.
>
> That's absurd - to insist that a 'material thing acts as a representamen'.
> Again, you totally fail to understand the nature of and function of the
> representamen within Peircean semiosis. You are merging the abstract
> habit-of-formation (the Representamen in Thirdness) with the
> thing-in-itself (in Secondness). The abstract habits of formation are real
> but not singularly existential; they are embedded within a conceptual or
> material particular existentiality. Pure Aristotle and Peirce was
> Aristotelian. So, a material thing does not act as a representamen; the
> habits of formation act as the representamen and transforms the input data
> from the object into the interpretant. Rather like a syllogism (something
> which you also don't understand - as you showed us a few weeks ago).
>
> This isn't about thermodynamics and semiosis. So again, don't try to
> divert the issue. It's about your failure to understand Peircean semiosis,
> your complete misuse of his analysis and his terms, your attempt to use his
> terms, twisting and turning them, to fit into your own analysis of the
> world - and, when criticized, your constant reflexive retreat into
> diversions and irrelevancies.
>
> Again, read Peirce. And use your own terms and don't misuse his terms.
>
> Edwina
>
>
> - Original Message - From: "Sungchul Ji" 
> To: "Edwina Taborsky" 
> Cc: "Sungchul Ji" ; "Clark Goble" ;
> "Benjamin Udell" ; 
> Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 3:01 PM
> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis
> for
>
>
>  Edwina wrote (073114-1):
>>
>> "Sung, it would help if you would actually read Peirce's  (073114-1)
>> original works, rather than, as you do, relying on secondary
>> writings about Peirce and on cherry-quotes of his works."
>>
>> You have been repeating this admonition whenever you want to criticize my
>> views on signs that differ from yours.  There are several things that seem
>> wrong with this attitude which I once referred to as "childish", because:
>> (1) You assume that no one can understand what sign is unless he or she
>> studied Peirce as much a as you have.  This cannot be true because
>>
>> "There are scholars who made fundamental contributions to (073114-2)
>> the science of signs long before Peirce (1839-1914) was born
>> or independently of Peirce's work, e.g., Saussure (1857-1913)."
>>
>> (2) You assume that secondary sources on Peir

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

> On Jul 31, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Søren Brier  wrote:
> 
> My I add a few thoughts? I agree that sign are reals, but when they manifests 
> as tokens their Secondness must enter the world of physics and thermodynamics 
> must apply. It is work to make signs emerge in non-verbal communication or as 
> language from ones feeling and thoughts. Even to produces thoughts and 
> feeling demands work. That would be a biosemiotic view (but one that we have 
> not discussed much). But I think you are correct in saying that Peirce did 
> not do any work on this aspect of sign production.

Again this gets at ontological issues. Remember Peirce’s conception of mind and 
matter which gets a bit tricky. The world of physics is the world of matter 
which is mind under habit. But there can be signs of mind and not matter. 
That’s more the issue I’m getting at.
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Edwina Taborsky]

Sung - don't divert from the issue by personalizing my criticism. I'm not 
saying that no-one can understand a sign unless they have read as much 
Peirce as I have. I'm saying that you, who has not read Peirce and yet who 
constantly chooses to use Peircean terms in your outline of semiosis, and to 
inform us of 'what these terms mean', then, you HAVE to have read Peirce and 
you have to use them as he used them.


I've said before - that if you choose to use the Peircean semiosis 
differently from that outlined by Peirce, then don't use the same terms. Use 
your own. And don't try to tell us that your use is Peircean when it isn't.


And so what if - in yet another of your numbered admonitions to us - you 
tell us that other scholars have made 'fundamental contributions to the 
science of signs'. What does that have to do with your misuse and 
misunderstanding of Peircean terms?


I certainly do assume that secondary sources on Peirce are not equivalent to 
the original writings of Peirce.  Your failure to read Peirce in the 
original and your attempts to twist and distort his analysis to suit your 
own outline of the world can't be laid at the feet of either the secondary 
sources or Peirce. It's your outline.


Again, you are the one constantly informing us of the 'meaning' of Peircean 
semiosis - with outlandish claims, including your bizarre crosstabs table of 
the categories, your misunderstanding of the categories, your equation of 
Firstness with a priori, and, now your insistence that the Representamen 
(and that's a Peircean term) is a 'thing'. No, I'm not confusing nodes and 
edges; I don't use them and neither did Peirce. If you choose to use them - 
that's your choice but don't tell us that it is a Peircean framework.


That's absurd - to insist that a 'material thing acts as a representamen'. 
Again, you totally fail to understand the nature of and function of the 
representamen within Peircean semiosis. You are merging the abstract 
habit-of-formation (the Representamen in Thirdness) with the thing-in-itself 
(in Secondness). The abstract habits of formation are real but not 
singularly existential; they are embedded within a conceptual or material 
particular existentiality. Pure Aristotle and Peirce was Aristotelian. So, a 
material thing does not act as a representamen; the habits of formation act 
as the representamen and transforms the input data from the object into the 
interpretant. Rather like a syllogism (something which you also don't 
understand - as you showed us a few weeks ago).


This isn't about thermodynamics and semiosis. So again, don't try to divert 
the issue. It's about your failure to understand Peircean semiosis, your 
complete misuse of his analysis and his terms, your attempt to use his 
terms, twisting and turning them, to fit into your own analysis of the 
world - and, when criticized, your constant reflexive retreat into 
diversions and irrelevancies.


Again, read Peirce. And use your own terms and don't misuse his terms.

Edwina


- Original Message - 
From: "Sungchul Ji" 

To: "Edwina Taborsky" 
Cc: "Sungchul Ji" ; "Clark Goble" ; 
"Benjamin Udell" ; 

Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2014 3:01 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis 
for




Edwina wrote (073114-1):

"Sung, it would help if you would actually read Peirce's  (073114-1)
original works, rather than, as you do, relying on secondary
writings about Peirce and on cherry-quotes of his works."

You have been repeating this admonition whenever you want to criticize my
views on signs that differ from yours.  There are several things that seem
wrong with this attitude which I once referred to as "childish", because:
(1) You assume that no one can understand what sign is unless he or she
studied Peirce as much a as you have.  This cannot be true because

"There are scholars who made fundamental contributions to (073114-2)
the science of signs long before Peirce (1839-1914) was born
or independently of Peirce's work, e.g., Saussure (1857-1913)."

(2) You assume that secondary sources on Peircean semiotics is not as
reliable as Peirce's original writings.  This may be true in some cases
but not always.

(3) The science of signs is "larger" than Peircean semiotics, because

"The science of signs is not yet complete and constantly  (073114-3)
evolving with new advances in our knowledge in natural
and human sciences and communication engineering."

For these reasons I am inclined to believe that

"Anyone, not versed in Peircean semiotics, can discover truth
(073114-4)
about signs, although Peircean scholarship can often, but not
necessarily always, facilitate such discoveries."

So, Edw

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

Edwina wrote (073114-1):

“Sung, it would help if you would actually read Peirce's  (073114-1)
original works, rather than, as you do, relying on secondary
writings about Peirce and on cherry-quotes of his works.”

You have been repeating this admonition whenever you want to criticize my
views on signs that differ from yours.  There are several things that seem
wrong with this attitude which I once referred to as “childish”, because:
(1) You assume that no one can understand what sign is unless he or she
studied Peirce as much a as you have.  This cannot be true because

“There are scholars who made fundamental contributions to (073114-2)
the science of signs long before Peirce (1839-1914) was born
or independently of Peirce’s work, e.g., Saussure (1857-1913).”

(2) You assume that secondary sources on Peircean semiotics is not as
reliable as Peirce’s original writings.  This may be true in some cases
but not always.

(3) The science of signs is “larger” than Peircean semiotics, because

“The science of signs is not yet complete and constantly  (073114-3)
evolving with new advances in our knowledge in natural
and human sciences and communication engineering.”

For these reasons I am inclined to believe that

“Anyone, not versed in Peircean semiotics, can discover truth 
 (073114-4)
about signs, although Peircean scholarship can often, but not
necessarily always, facilitate such discoveries.”

So, Edwina, whenever you feel like repeating (073114-1), think about the
following admonition to you from me:

“Edwina, I probably have read more Peirce to be able to (073114-5)
discuss signs than you have read thermodynamics to be
able to discuss energy.”

> Sung, it would help if you would actually read Peirce's original works,
> rather than, as you do, relying on secondary writings about Peirce and on
> cherry-quotes of his works. You wrote:
>
> "Written words are representamens and spoken (073114-7)
>> (and understood) words are signs."
>
> No.  Peircean semiosis is a process; the 'representamen' is not a thing in
> itself but an action of mediation within a triadic process.

It seems to me that you are conflating semiosis and its components that
make semiosis possible.  In other words, you may be conflating nodes and
edges in networks. You cannot have edges without nodes !   Likewise, you
cannot have semiosis without material things acting as representamens.  If
you do not agree, please tryh to come up with an example wherein semiosis
takes place without a material thing acting as a representamen (which, by
definition, TRIADICALLY mediates object and intepretant, the TRIADICITY
being the heart of Peircean semiotics and the category theory).

>The sign is the full triadic process and not a thing or interpretation.

You seem to be repeating what I said in my response to Clark at 5:04 am
July 31, 2014.  See Equation (073114-4) therein.

>In both cases if
> you interact with the word, in both its written and spoken form, the
> 'word' is an object in the Peircean sense. The difference between the
two has
> nothing to do with semiosis or the physics of energy dissipation.

Please read my discussion on this issue with Ben on the PEIRCE-L list
dated July 30, 2014 9:08 pm.  I think Ben has a much more realistic
understanding of the thermodyanamic and semiotic  issues involved here.

>In a semiotic sense, there is no difference between the two because both are
> objects; there is only a material difference in their composition -
> similar  to frozen and liquid water.

See above.

> One can go further and consider the word, in both its written and spoken
> form 'in itself' as a semiotic sign (as the full triad) because each one
> spatially and temporally exists. In its unread form on the paper, the word
> remains a sign (in the triadic form) because it exists as a material
> entity on another material entity; when read, it functions as a dynamic
object.
> The spoken word functions as a dynamic object.
>

See above.


> Edwina
>
>
With all the best.

Sung
__
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net

> Sung, it would help if you would actually read Peirce's original works,
> rather than, as you do, relying on secondary writings about Peirce and on
> cherry-quotes of his works. You wrote:
>
> "Written words are representamens and spoken(073114-7)
>> (and understood) words are signs."
>
> No.  Peircean semiosis is a process; the 'representamen' is not a thing in
> itself but an action of mediation within a triadic process. The sign is
> the
> full triadic process and not a thing or interpretation.  In both cases if
> you interact with the word, in both its written and spoken form, the
> 'word'
> is an object in the Peircean sense. The d

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

> On Jul 31, 2014, at 2:37 AM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:
> 
> Yes.  That is what I am saying, and I too distinguish between material
> process of semiotics and semiotics in general.  My working hypothesis is
> that
> 
> "Physics of words/signs is necessary but (073114-2)
> not sufficient for their semiosis."
> 
> or that
> 
> "No equilibrium structures can carry out semiosis (073114-3)
> unless and until transformed into dissipative
> structures by being activated by input of free
> energy. For example, words on a piece of paper
> must be lit before they can convey information."

Right, but again that is an ontological assumption of the underlying substrate 
for semiotic process. Those who adopt a more idealist rather than materialist 
ontology will simply not agree with that. And indeed Peirce, in both his early 
and mature phases, would disagree with that conception. (Again, noting that one 
can simply mine Peircean semiotics without taking all his thought)

Thus my point about knowledge of a system and whether that system can be 
conceived of semiotically.



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Edwina Taborsky]

Sung, it would help if you would actually read Peirce's original works, 
rather than, as you do, relying on secondary writings about Peirce and on 
cherry-quotes of his works. You wrote:


"Written words are representamens and spoken(073114-7)

(and understood) words are signs."


No.  Peircean semiosis is a process; the 'representamen' is not a thing in 
itself but an action of mediation within a triadic process. The sign is the 
full triadic process and not a thing or interpretation.  In both cases if 
you interact with the word, in both its written and spoken form, the 'word' 
is an object in the Peircean sense. The difference between the two has 
nothing to do with semiosis or the physics of energy dissipation.  In a 
semiotic sense, there is no difference between the two because both are 
objects; there is only a material difference in their composition - similar 
to frozen and liquid water.


One can go further and consider the word, in both its written and spoken 
form 'in itself' as a semiotic sign (as the full triad) because each one 
spatially and temporally exists. In its unread form on the paper, the word 
remains a sign (in the triadic form) because it exists as a material entity 
on another material entity; when read, it functions as a dynamic object. The 
spoken word functions as a dynamic object.


Edwina








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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

The word "sign" (S) can appear on both sides of the equation that defines
its meaning, i.e., it is recursive:

"S = the irreducible triad of S, O, and I"   (073114-4)

where O is object and I is interpretant. To avoid possible confusions due
to this recursivity of the word "sign", I often prefer replacing the S on
the right hand side of the equation with R, representamen, as Peirce often
did (for the same reason, I think).

Also I think we can say that

"Sign is not a sign until and unless it 'semioses'."(073114-5)

where 'semiose' is the verb indicating a process requiring the dissipation
(i.e., the conversion of free energy to heat) of a finite amount of
energy.

This leads me to conclude that

"Sign can but representamen cannot semiose."(073114-6)

and that

"Written words are representamens and spoken(073114-7)
(and understood) words are signs."

With all the best.

Sung
__
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net



> One brief last point. I think Peirce’s distinctions between token, type,
> and tone are rather helpful here and should be kept in mind. Of course the
> token/type distinction in particular can be blurry but I’m not sure that’s
> relevant to the discussion at hand.
>
> My sense is that the metaphysics/epistemology distinction is also at play.
> I’d just note that we can talk about a sign process without requiring that
> anyone be able to know that sign as a sign. That is some unseen entity
> could signify a particular interpretant without any person being able to
> know it. That’s why I think semiotics and physics should be kept clearly
> separated. One might say that because of the structure of some physical
> phenomena it can’t communicate information due to the physics but that
> doesn’t mean there aren’t other semiotic analysis at work.
>
> To give an example of this consider the group velocity and the phase
> velocity of a wave. One can go faster than the speed of light while the
> other can’t. And it’s trivial to show that according to relativity one
> can’t transmit useful information faster than the speed of light. However
> we must be careful not to limit semiotical structures just to this
> information that can be communicated only at the speed of light or slower.
> Put an other way, we have to be careful not to equivocate over the term
> “information" while moving back and forth between physics and semiotics.
> Again as I mentioned earlier an excellent example of this are Feynman
> Diagrams. These diagrams clearly are a type of semiotic analysis of
> interactions even if the nature of the interactions become problematic
> when treated materially.
>
> Hopefully that clarifies things rather than confuses them.




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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

Clark wrote:

" . . . my sense is that you are after semiosis (073114-1)
as a process while thermodynamically at the
appropriate scale and simplification a system
in equilibrium isn’t undergoing measurable change
and thus can’t be conceived of as a changing process.
If that’s all you’re saying in one sense I can’t
disagree but I’d merely distinguish between one
material process of semiotics and semiotics in
general."

Yes.  That is what I am saying, and I too distinguish between material
process of semiotics and semiotics in general.  My working hypothesis is
that

"Physics of words/signs is necessary but (073114-2)
not sufficient for their semiosis."

or that

"No equilibrium structures can carry out semiosis (073114-3)
unless and until transformed into dissipative
structures by being activated by input of free
energy. For example, words on a piece of paper
must be lit before they can convey information."

With all the best.

Sung
__
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net
>
>> On Jul 30, 2014, at 7:08 PM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:
>>
>> You and Clark, perhaps representing the  views of most Peirceans
>> scholars, seem to think that the physics of words is not that
>> significant in discussing semiotics, whereas
>> I think it is.
>
> I think I’m more of a physicist than a Peircean scholar.  But thanks
> for the kind words. My worry is more just getting the physics and ontology
> correct. From a Peircean standpoint nearly anything can be used as the
> mark for a sign including either processes or stabilities. So the
> semiotics and the physics should be kept straight. I do think there are
> some materialist ontologies underlying all this which may be incompatible
> with Peirce’s thought. But then of course Peirce’s particular ontology of
> semiotics is one of his more controversial positions. There are many fine
> with adopting Peirce’s theory of signs who grow uneasy with his
> metaphysics.
>
> I don’t want to comment until I have a chance to read John’s link. And
> unfortunately I’m just swamped at work so I don’t know when that will be.
>
> That said, my sense is that you are after semiosis as a process while
> thermodynamically at the appropriate scale and simplification a system in
> equilibrium isn’t undergoing measurable change and thus can’t be conceived
> of as a changing process. If that’s all you’re saying in one sense I can’t
> disagree but I’d merely distinguish between one material process of
> semiotics and semiotics in general. That’s why I asked about ontology. But
> again let me read John’s link before saying more.
>
>
>
>





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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

One brief last point. I think Peirce’s distinctions between token, type, and 
tone are rather helpful here and should be kept in mind. Of course the 
token/type distinction in particular can be blurry but I’m not sure that’s 
relevant to the discussion at hand.

My sense is that the metaphysics/epistemology distinction is also at play. I’d 
just note that we can talk about a sign process without requiring that anyone 
be able to know that sign as a sign. That is some unseen entity could signify a 
particular interpretant without any person being able to know it. That’s why I 
think semiotics and physics should be kept clearly separated. One might say 
that because of the structure of some physical phenomena it can’t communicate 
information due to the physics but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other 
semiotic analysis at work. 

To give an example of this consider the group velocity and the phase velocity 
of a wave. One can go faster than the speed of light while the other can’t. And 
it’s trivial to show that according to relativity one can’t transmit useful 
information faster than the speed of light. However we must be careful not to 
limit semiotical structures just to this information that can be communicated 
only at the speed of light or slower. Put an other way, we have to be careful 
not to equivocate over the term “information" while moving back and forth 
between physics and semiotics. Again as I mentioned earlier an excellent 
example of this are Feynman Diagrams. These diagrams clearly are a type of 
semiotic analysis of interactions even if the nature of the interactions become 
problematic when treated materially.

Hopefully that clarifies things rather than confuses them.
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

> On Jul 30, 2014, at 7:08 PM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:
> 
> You and Clark, perhaps representing the  views of most Peirceans scholars, 
> seem to think that the physics of words is not that significant in discussing 
> semiotics, whereas
> I think it is.

I think I’m more of a physicist than a Peircean scholar.  But thanks for 
the kind words. My worry is more just getting the physics and ontology correct. 
From a Peircean standpoint nearly anything can be used as the mark for a sign 
including either processes or stabilities. So the semiotics and the physics 
should be kept straight. I do think there are some materialist ontologies 
underlying all this which may be incompatible with Peirce’s thought. But then 
of course Peirce’s particular ontology of semiotics is one of his more 
controversial positions. There are many fine with adopting Peirce’s theory of 
signs who grow uneasy with his metaphysics.

I don’t want to comment until I have a chance to read John’s link. And 
unfortunately I’m just swamped at work so I don’t know when that will be.

That said, my sense is that you are after semiosis as a process while 
thermodynamically at the appropriate scale and simplification a system in 
equilibrium isn’t undergoing measurable change and thus can’t be conceived of 
as a changing process. If that’s all you’re saying in one sense I can’t 
disagree but I’d merely distinguish between one material process of semiotics 
and semiotics in general. That’s why I asked about ontology. But again let me 
read John’s link before saying more.




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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

John wrote:


"I should have said as well that my student, Scott Muller,   (073014-1)
was able to prove that the information content I refer to
is unique. He uses group theory following he argument I made
that information originates in symmetry breaking. His book
is Asymmetry: The Foundation of Information (The Frontiers
Collection) http://www.amazon.com/Asymmetry-Foundation-
Information-Frontiers-Collection/dp/3540698833"

I purchased his book about a month ago but have not had time to read it
yet.  It seems like the main content of the book would be consistent with
my finding that many organizations (from blackbody radiations to enzymic
catalysis to cell metbolism to brain fucntions to comsogenesis) can be
viewed as having resulted fron random events obeying the Gaussian function
(which is symmetric) selected or 'perturbed' by envrionmental inputs to
produce long tailed distributions called the Planckian distributions
(which can be mathemtically derived from the Gaussian function assuming
some  reasonable mechanisms).  It is for this reason that I have started
to refer to Plakcian distributions as "asymmetric Gaussian distributions"
in my manuscript under preparation.  It seems as though I should read your
student's book and refer to it before completing my manuscript.  If you
have any other suggestions, please let me know.

With all the best.

Sung
_
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net




> 
> 
> At 06:57 PM 2014-07-30, Clark Goble wrote:
> 
> On Jul 29, 2014, at 1:44 AM,
> John Collier
> colli...@ukzn.ac.za>
> wrote:
> I made the relevant distinctions in a book chapter in 1990, 
> 
> http://web.ncf.ca/collier/papers/intrinfo.pdf";>Intrinsic
> Information (1990)
> but I had to introduce some new concepts and definitions to the
> usual thermodynamic ones. The lack of those has caused multiple
> confusions and misunderstandings when I have discussed the issues on
> mailing lists. In particular I argued that dissipative and
> non-dissipative is a scale dependent distinction. The goal was to ask
> what the world must be like if we get information from the world, as some
> philosophers hold. At that time I thought that semiotics was too far from
> my audience that I didn't mention it, tough I have dome some extensions
> in later papers. 
> I’ll check those out John before going further. I think there are a lot
> of hidden assumptions at play which I think need clarified or brought
> out. My apologies for not having been part of the discussion in past
> dialogs on this. 
> I should have said as well that my student, Scott Muller,
> was able to prove that the information content I refer to is unique. He
> uses group theory following he argument I made that information
> originates in symmetry breaking. His book is Asymmetry: The Foundation of
> Information (The Frontiers Collection)
>  href="http://www.amazon.com/Asymmetry-Foundation-Information-Frontiers-Collection/dp/3540698833";
> eudora="autourl">
> http://www.amazon.com/Asymmetry-Foundation-Information-Frontiers-Collection/dp/3540698833
> 
> John
> 
> 
>
> 
> 
> Professor John
> Collier
> colli...@ukzn.ac.za
> Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South
> Africa
> T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F:
> +27 (31) 260 3031
> http://web.ncf.ca/collier"; eudora="autourl">
> Http://web.ncf.ca/collier
> 
> 
>
>



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[John Collier]

At 06:57 PM 2014-07-30, Clark Goble wrote:

On Jul 29, 2014, at 1:44 AM,
John Collier

wrote:
I made the relevant distinctions in a book chapter in 1990,  

Intrinsic
Information (1990)
but I had to introduce some new concepts and definitions to the
usual thermodynamic ones. The lack of those has caused multiple
confusions and misunderstandings when I have discussed the issues on
mailing lists. In particular I argued that dissipative and
non-dissipative is a scale dependent distinction. The goal was to ask
what the world must be like if we get information from the world, as some
philosophers hold. At that time I thought that semiotics was too far from
my audience that I didn't mention it, tough I have dome some extensions
in later papers. 
I’ll check those out John before going further. I think there are a lot
of hidden assumptions at play which I think need clarified or brought
out. My apologies for not having been part of the discussion in past
dialogs on this. 
I should have said as well that my student, Scott Muller,
was able to prove that the information content I refer to is unique. He
uses group theory following he argument I made that information
originates in symmetry breaking. His book is Asymmetry: The Foundation of
Information (The Frontiers Collection)

http://www.amazon.com/Asymmetry-Foundation-Information-Frontiers-Collection/dp/3540698833

John





Professor John
Collier
colli...@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South
Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F:
+27 (31) 260 3031

Http://web.ncf.ca/collier




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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

> On Jul 29, 2014, at 1:44 AM, John Collier  wrote:
> 
> I made the relevant distinctions in a book chapter in 1990, 
> Intrinsic Information (1990)
> but I had to introduce some new concepts and definitions to the usual 
> thermodynamic ones. The lack of those has caused multiple confusions and 
> misunderstandings when I have discussed the issues on mailing lists. In 
> particular I argued that dissipative and non-dissipative is a scale dependent 
> distinction. The goal was to ask what the world must be like if we get 
> information from the world, as some philosophers hold. At that time I thought 
> that semiotics was too far from my audience that I didn't mention it, tough I 
> have dome some extensions in later papers. 

I’ll check those out John before going further. I think there are a lot of 
hidden assumptions at play which I think need clarified or brought out. My 
apologies for not having been part of the discussion in past dialogs on this. 



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

> On Jul 30, 2014, at 10:07 AM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:
> 
> I agree that a tape will decay eventually but not while being read with a
> tape reader (to produce sound or visual images that last only very briefly
> relative to tape itself).

Right - so there is always a temporal aspect. Although I’d dispute whether a 
tape will always be correct while playing. In my experience much of the 
degradation happens during play. Again a small point and perhaps being pedantic 
but I think these temporal issues are quite important.

> I would think that your “particular objects” correspond to “phenomenon” in 
> Figure 1 above,  and  “idealized signs” correspond to “model”.

To be somewhat clear and avoid future confusion, I think “idealized signs” are 
sometimes taken as fictions, sometimes a regulatory limits (which is how Peirce 
often treats idealizations I suspect), and sometimes taken as real structures. 
Keeping these distinctions in mind is important since nominalists often still 
talk about idealizations as if they were real. This is even an issue in physics 
where one can ask whether idealizations like the ideal gas law are really a 
fundamental law from which variations occur only because of added complexities 
or whether it is an idealization that is never true but simply a useful 
conceptual model. (OK, perhaps the gas law is a bad example there, but you 
hopeful get the idea) 

This gets important in thermodynamics since one can construct classic 
thermodynamics purely out of a system, its symmetries and its statistics. The 
nominalist might then say thermodynamics is an emergent set of descriptions but 
not fundamental. Others see thermodynamic laws as fundamental. Some see them as 
one of the *most* fundamental aspects of reality. This is probably the most 
common view although most physicists honestly don’t consider the philosophy 
underneath all this. I think many (most?) physicists end up in practice holding 
to inconsistent beliefs — often switching between them dependent upon context.

My sense is (and correct me if I’m wrong) but you are holding to thermodynamics 
being a fundamental prescriptive aspect of the universe.

> To me, semiotics is the study of signs, and thermodynamics is the study of 
> heat.  Thermodynamics is necessary for semiotics but not sufficient.  

Are you making assumptions in this about what can constitute a token for 
semiotics? Also are you assuming a certain subset of materialistic ontology? 
I’m just trying to draw our your hidden assumptions here because my sense is 
they are key for your claims.

> The crucial point to consider is the fact that an artificial flower does not 
> dissipate any energy to exist but a real flower has to and does.  It is 
> probably for this reason that an artificial flower can last much longer than 
> a real flower.

When you say “does not dissipate any energy to exist” could you clarify? Again, 
this seems a matter of degree from my perspective.

> “Equilibrium state” to me is the state of a thermodynamic system that 
> exhibits no measurable/observable changes (again within the limits of 
> Heisenberg’s uncertainty principle). As John pointed out, equilibrium and 
> dissipative states are mostly scale-dependent.

Right, but that then gets at the issue of whether we are talking ontology or 
simply “close enough analysis” — which I think the scale dependence gets at.



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

(Undistorted figures are attached.)


Dear Clark,

Thank for your informative comments. My responses to some of them follow:

> On Jul 28, 2014, at 6:24 PM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:
>
>> I don't understand what you mean by "holistically" here.  I thought
>> there s only one way to understand/interpret thermodynamics --
>> scientifically.
>
> Yes but any scientific model is simplified. You exclude other systems that
> the system under analysis is in connection with. So physicists will
> simplify things as closed systems or drastically limit what systems it is
> in contact with. In the real world what is marginalized in such
> idealizations can have a significance.

>To give a classic example
> Creationists often claim evolution violates the laws of thermodynamics
> because they neglect that the earth and even the solar system is not a
> closed system.
>
They are simply wrong.  As you know thermodynamic laws apply to all
material systems that divide into three categories  -- isolated (no energy
nor matter is exchanged between the system and its environment), closed
(only energy is exchanged),  and open (both energy and matter are
exchanged).

>> I suppose, depending on context, you can interpret thermodynamic
>> concepts and laws "non-scientifically", "non-professionally” or
>> "common-sensically”.

> No this really is pure physics. So I’m not trying to use thermodynamics
> loosely. While I’ll be the first to admit it’s been far too many years
> since I last took thermodynamics (my background is physics) I don’t think
> there’s anything I’ve said that doesn’t apply formally. I’m using all
> terms in their technical sense except later when I take you to be making a
> broader semiotics point on the basis of thermodynamics as analogy.

I am glad you are making a clear distinction between “physics” and
“semiotics”.

>> This statement is true but is missing the point of differentiating
>> between “equilibrium structures” and “dissipative structures”: A
>> magnetic tape is an equilibrium structure in contrast to the sound or
>> images it can be induced to generate upon energy input through a tape
>> reader.
>
> Again, at risk of being pedantic, it’s technically in a quasi-equilibrium
> state due to the temporal  issues at play.

>That is a tape left alone decays. My sense is that these temporal issues
are being
> marginalized in your analysis when they are actually quite important. (I
might be
>wrong in that - but it appears a common flaw in these sorts of analysis)

I agree that a tape will decay eventually but not while being read with a
tape reader (to produce sound or visual images that last only very briefly
relative to tape itself).

>> This statement is akin to the claim that there is a continuum between an
>> artificial flower and a real flower, which is true on one level but not
>> true on another level.  That is, at the morphological level, both
>> artificial and real flowers can be indistinguishable (or continuous),
>> while at the thermodynamic level,  the artificial flower does not
>> dissipative energy and the real flower does.  I would not be surprised
>> at all if Peirce discussed something similar in his writings on
>> synechism.
>
> I’m not sure that gets at the distinction. It would be better to say an
> idealized flower and a real flower since the artificial flower is still
> dissipative, to use your terminology.

The crucial point to consider is the fact that an artificial flower does
not dissipate any energy to exist but a real flower has to and does.  It
is probably for this reason that an artificial flower can last much longer
than a real flower.

> It’s this question of idealization which I think is quite key here.

I don’t think the terms “idealized flower” and “artificial flower” are
synonymous.  Viewing them synonymously may lead to undesirable logical
consequences.  In Figure 1 below, your “idealized flower” may correspond
to “model” and “artificial flower” to phenomenon.

>Again  by way of analogy to thermodynamics the ideal gas law is a very good
> example of what I’m getting at. Such idealizations are an important tool
> for physicists and chemists. But it is quite common to assume the
> idealizations are the reality, when they are a model.

I agree.  This is made clear in the diagram (Figure 1) for the MPM
category, or what I call the “ur-category” :



ab
Mechanism -->  Phenomenon  ->Model
   (Reality) (Idealization)
   |^
   ||
   | ___|
 c

Figure 1.  The MPM category as the ur-category or the theory of everything
(TOE).   a  = natural process; b = mental  modeling;  c =
validation/experimental proof.


> Now of course we can
> go down the tangent here of discussing scholastic real

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

John wrote:

"In particular I argued that dissipative and  (072914-1)
non-dissipative is a scale dependent distinction."

I would agree. That is, there may be no "absolute" scale at which some
systems are dissipative and some are at equilibrium. Perhaps we can define
a dissipative system only relative to its associated equilibrium system,
for example, a magnetic tape and its sound or images that can be produced
from it upon input of energy through a tape-reading device.  As Clark
pointed out, a magnetic tape can be viewed as not at equilibrium in an
absolute sense, since it's atomic configuration is not random and can
undergo changes under right environmental conditions.  Anything that can
undergo a change is, by definition not at equilibrium. Another example
would be the pair of an artificial rose but and a real rose bud.  An
artificial rose but is an equilibrium structure only in relation to its
real counterpart, since, again as pointed out by Clark, even an artificial
rose bud can undergo changes to a lower energy level upon being burned to
ashes and gases.

With all the best.

Sung
___
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net




> 
> 
> At 11:28 PM 2014-07-28, Clark Goble wrote:
> (Sorry for any repeats - I
> accidentally sent several emails from the wrong account so they didn’t
> make it to the list) 
> On Jul 26, 2014, at 7:28 PM, Sungchul Ji
> s...@rci.rutgers.edu>
> wrote:
> Peircean scholars and
> philosophers in general seem to find it difficult
> (or trivial) to distinguish between the two categories of
> structures,
> equilibrium and dissipative, probably because most philosophies have
> been
> done with written, not spoken, words since the invention of
> writing.
> A perhaps pedantic quibble. I think philosophy has been conducted with
> writing really just since the modern era and even then only on a large
> scale in more recent centuries. It’s just that the major works of
> philosophy that we have recorded are written. However I think for a large
> portion of our history (and perhaps arguably even today or at least until
> the advent of email) philosophy was dialogical in nature.
> Of course I think there’s a continuum between what you call equilibrium
> and dissipative (I’m a bit unsure what you mean by equilibrium -
> apologies if you’ve clarified this before. I’m behind in reading the
> list) Writing is frequently lost after all, we reinterpret its meanings
> as new contexts are introduced, etc. And of course old recordings degrade
> over time. Even data stored on hard drive loses data and can become
> corrupt. At the end all we have are traces of the original dialog. To
> follow Derrida (although he makes his point in an annoyingly petulant
> way) all we have are traces rather than some pure presence of
> communication we call speech.
> 
> I made the relevant distinctions in a book chapter in 1990,
> 
> http://web.ncf.ca/collier/papers/intrinfo.pdf";>Intrinsic
> Information (1990)
> but I had to introduce some new concepts and definitions to the
> usual thermodynamic ones. The lack of those has caused multiple
> confusions and misunderstandings when I have discussed the issues on
> mailing lists. In particular I argued that dissipative and
> non-dissipative is a scale dependent distinction. The goal was to ask
> what the world must be like if we get information from the world, as some
> philosophers hold. At that time I thought that semiotics was too far from
> my audience that I didn't mention it, tough I have dome some extensions
> in later papers. 
> John
> 
>
> 
> 
> Professor John
> Collier
> colli...@ukzn.ac.za
> Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South
> Africa
> T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F:
> +27 (31) 260 3031
> http://web.ncf.ca/collier"; eudora="autourl">
> Http://web.ncf.ca/collier
> 
> 
>
>



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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[John Collier]

At 11:28 PM 2014-07-28, Clark Goble wrote:
(Sorry for any repeats - I
accidentally sent several emails from the wrong account so they didn’t
make it to the list) 
On Jul 26, 2014, at 7:28 PM, Sungchul Ji

wrote:
Peircean scholars and
philosophers in general seem to find it difficult
(or trivial) to distinguish between the two categories of
structures,
equilibrium and dissipative, probably because most philosophies have
been
done with written, not spoken, words since the invention of
writing.
A perhaps pedantic quibble. I think philosophy has been conducted with
writing really just since the modern era and even then only on a large
scale in more recent centuries. It’s just that the major works of
philosophy that we have recorded are written. However I think for a large
portion of our history (and perhaps arguably even today or at least until
the advent of email) philosophy was dialogical in nature.
Of course I think there’s a continuum between what you call equilibrium
and dissipative (I’m a bit unsure what you mean by equilibrium -
apologies if you’ve clarified this before. I’m behind in reading the
list) Writing is frequently lost after all, we reinterpret its meanings
as new contexts are introduced, etc. And of course old recordings degrade
over time. Even data stored on hard drive loses data and can become
corrupt. At the end all we have are traces of the original dialog. To
follow Derrida (although he makes his point in an annoyingly petulant
way) all we have are traces rather than some pure presence of
communication we call speech.

I made the relevant distinctions in a book chapter in 1990, 

Intrinsic
Information (1990)
but I had to introduce some new concepts and definitions to the
usual thermodynamic ones. The lack of those has caused multiple
confusions and misunderstandings when I have discussed the issues on
mailing lists. In particular I argued that dissipative and
non-dissipative is a scale dependent distinction. The goal was to ask
what the world must be like if we get information from the world, as some
philosophers hold. At that time I thought that semiotics was too far from
my audience that I didn't mention it, tough I have dome some extensions
in later papers. 
John




Professor John
Collier
colli...@ukzn.ac.za
Philosophy and Ethics, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban 4041 South
Africa
T: +27 (31) 260 3248 / 260 2292   F:
+27 (31) 260 3031

Http://web.ncf.ca/collier




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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

On Jul 28, 2014, at 6:24 PM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:

> I don't understand what you mean by "holistically" here.  I thought there
> is only one way to understand/interpret thermodynamics -- scientifically.

Yes but any scientific model is simplified. You exclude other systems that the 
system under analysis is in connection with. So physicists will simplify things 
as closed systems or drastically limit what systems it is in contact with. In 
the real world what is marginalized in such idealizations can have a 
significance. To give a classic example Creationists often claim evolution 
violates the laws of thermodynamics because they neglect that the earth and 
even the solar system is not a closed system.

> I suppose, depending on context, you can interpret thermodynamic concepts and 
> laws "non-scientifically", "non-professionally” or "common-sensically”.

No this really is pure physics. So I’m not trying to use thermodynamics 
loosely. While I’ll be the first to admit it’s been far too many years since I 
last took thermodynamics (my background is physics) I don’t think there’s 
anything I’ve said that doesn’t apply formally. I’m using all terms in their 
technical sense except later when I take you to be making a broader semiotics 
point on the basis of thermodynamics as analogy.

> This statement is true but is missing the point of differentiating between 
> “equilibrium structures” and “dissipative structures”: A magnetic tape is an 
> equilibrium structure in contrast to the sound or images it can be induced to 
> generate upon energy input through a tape reader.

Again, at risk of being pedantic, it’s technically in a quasi-equilibrium state 
due to the temporal issues at play. That is a tape left alone decays. My sense 
is that these temporal issues are being marginalized in your analysis when they 
are actually quite important. (I might be wrong in that - but it appears a 
common flaw in these sorts of analysis)

> This statement is akin to the claim that there is a continuum between an 
> artificial flower and a real flower, which is true on one level but not true 
> on another level.  That is, at the morphological level, both artificial and 
> real flowers can be indistinguishable (or continuous), while at the 
> thermodynamic level,  the artificial flower does not dissipative energy and 
> the real flower does.  I would not be surprised at all if Peirce discussed 
> something similar in his writings on synechism.

I’m not sure that gets at the distinction. It would be better to say an 
idealized flower and a real flower since the artificial flower is still 
dissipative, to use your terminology.

It’s this question of idealization which I think is quite key here. Again, by 
way of analogy to thermodynamics the ideal gas law is a very good example of 
what I’m getting at. Such idealizations are an important tool for physicists 
and chemists. But it is quite common to assume the idealizations are the 
reality, when they are a model. Now of course we can go down the tangent here 
of discussing scholastic realism and the role of such idealisms as laws in 
science. But my sense is that perhaps gets us away from the questions at hand.

> You seem to assume here that the thermodynamic principles (e.g., principles 
> differentiating the  equilibrium and dissipative systems) obeyed in physics 
> and chemistry are somewhat different from those obeyed in more broad 
> semiotics.

I think there is a difference between idealized signs and the particular 
objects physics and chemistry studies in the real world. The question of the 
ontology of thermodynamics and thermodynamic law is an interesting one. However 
I’ve intentionally avoided that discussion. I’ll just say that I’m discussing 
thermodynamics as used in physics (and thereby chemistry) rather than 
attempting to connect *formally* thermodynamics and semiotics either via 
information theory or other ontological commitments. I’m just nervous enough 
about making that ontological leap. There may well be mathematical similarities 
between the two but the subject matter within physics simply is different. Put 
an other way while it is amazing the universe is as mathematical as it is I am 
not willing to make the leap to saying math is the fundamental ontology of the 
universe. That seems a leap too far and in need of considerable argument.

So yes, I’m making a distinction between semiotics and thermodynamics within 
physics conceived either phenomenologically (in the physics not philosophical 
sense) or in terms of statistical mechanics. I think we can discuss the latter 
as a semiotic system. But I think there’s a difference between semiotics in the 
abstract and physics just as there is a difference between mathematics and 
physics. The later applies the former to physical phenomena.

I recognize in saying this that at least the early Peirce adopts a 
quasi-neo-platonic ontology that would make semiotics a fundamental ontology. 
After once being convi

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

Clark wrote (072814-1), (- 2), (-3), (-4), (-5), (-6), (-12) and (-13):

"The implications of this are quite important and demand (072814-1)
we consider the thermodynamics far more holistically."

I don't understand what you mean by "holistically" here.  I thought there
is only one way to understand/interpret thermodynamics -- scientifically.

I suppose, depending on context, you can interpret thermodynamic concepts
and laws "non-scientifically", "non-professionally" or
"common-sensically".  Even then, it would be necessary for effective
communication to define what one means by certain thermodynamic terms and
clearly understand the difference between "scientific" vs.
"non-scientific" uses of such terms, including "equilibrium state",
"steady state", and "dissipative state".

“Whenever we talk about equilibrium we are always really(072814-2)
talking about equilibrium in a particular context and period.
What you say is fine for that. But when we move from these
more artificial chemical examples to the broader examples
of writing and speech that context matters and matters a lot.”

Context matters in both thermodynamics and semiotics, since both deal with
“system” and “environment” and their mutual roles in determining functions
and meanings.  In other words, functions and meanings are determined not
by systems alone (as often believed) but by the combination of a system
and its environment (for which I introduced a neologism, ‘systome’, in
[biosemiotics:4003] attached below for your convenience).

“The obvious example is the equilibrium of magnetic tape.  (072814-3)
 In practice we always end up with semi-permanent equilibrium.”

This statement is true but is missing the point of differentiating between
“equilibrium structures” and “dissipative structures”: A magnetic tape is
an equilibrium structure in contrast to the sound or images it can be
induced to generate upon energy input through a tape reader.

“Hopefully I clarified why there is at best a continuum (072814-4)
between these two categories.  And indeed I’d question
whether true equilibrium of the sort you specify is truly
possible except as a regulative theoretical concept.
(Much like the ideal gas law ends up being an idealization)”

This statement is akin to the claim that there is a continuum between an
artificial flower and a real flower, which is true on one level but not
true on another level.  That is, at the morphological level, both
artificial and real flowers can be indistinguishable (or continuous),
while at the thermodynamic level,  the artificial flower does not
dissipative energy and the real flower does.  I would not be surprised at
all if Peirce discussed something similar in his writings on synechism.

“Semiotically this is very important because contamination(072814-5)
is always going on. As in physics and chemistry we can do
theoretical or empirical perturbation analysis to see how
well a system can withstand “noise” and maintain its
equilibrium. However these are often statistical and there
usually is a point of external energy where the system starts
to break down. This energy can be external or internal (say
the very stability of particular chemicals over time).”


I agree with what you say here if I can replace “equilibrium” with “steady
state”.  Equilibrium systems can maintain their state against noise
without any help from outside, whereas steady-state systems cannot
maintain their “equilibrium” (or better “homeostasis” or “no-change”
state)  without receiving energy from external sources and can breakdown
with aging, but equilibrium systems do not breakdown, because they have
already done so to reach their equilibrium state.

“When one moves from physics and chemistry to more broad  (072814-6)
semiotics this principle becomes quite important since
equilibrium is maintained by a kind of replication of the
sign system as it undergoes semiotic process.”

You seem to assume here that the thermodynamic principles (e.g.,
principles differentiating the  equilibrium and dissipative systems)
obeyed in physics and chemistry are somewhat different from those obeyed
in more broad semiotics.  I disagree, because no sign system can exist in
an equilibrium state and still carry out semiosis.  I firmly believe that
that following statement is true (and hence recommend it to be referred to
as the First Principle of Semiotics, in analogy to the First Law of
Thermodynamics):

“No energy dissipation, no semiosis.”   (072814-7)

The following corollaries would result from Statement (072814-7):

“Sign systems cannot perform semiosis(072814-8)
in their equilibrium states.”

“Sign systems can perform semiosis if and (072814-9)
only if they are in non-equilibrium states.”



“Thermodynamic principles universally apply to all(072814-10)
physicochemical processes in nature, including those
underlying life and semiosis.”


“The statement that ‘equili

Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

On Jul 28, 2014, at 3:28 PM, Clark Goble  wrote:

> Effectively to deny this gap is to claim the legendary transcendental sign 
> which is key to certain philosophies - especially many Platonic ones. I think 
> a major theme of semiotics in the second half of the 20th century, regardless 
> of jargon, is the denial of such a transcendental sign. Effectively this is 
> the denial, in your terminology, of a pure equilibrium structure.

After saying all that about argument and not orthodoxy I probably should 
clarify the above somewhat.

The main point is that many different ways of thinking of semiotics tends to 
share this point. There are thus numerous arguments against the idea of a 
transcendental sign one can find in the literature. I’m partial to Derrida’s 
line of argument but I’d be the first to acknowledge he’s come to have such a 
bad reputation in the US as to make him a poor source to cite. Plus it requires 
some careful reading of Husserl and/or Saussure since Derrida tends to make 
immanent critiques.

A better argument might simply be your appeal by way of analogy to 
thermodynamics. The stability requires first a closed system and second no 
creation of energy within the system by any type of internal decay over time 
(say due to radioactive emission). Since those states don’t hold in the real 
world, there seems compelling reason to believe the transcendent sign doesn’t 
exist. Or, if it does exist, the burden of proof is on those claiming something 
that seems to go against prima facie reasoning.
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

On Jul 25, 2014, at 8:01 PM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:

> As you know, Prigogine (1917-2003) divided all structures in the Universe
> into two classes – equilibrium structures (ES) and dissipative structures
> (DS) [1, 2].  ESs do not but DSs do need to dissipate free energy for them
> to exist.  I think the ES-DS theory of Prigogine can be applied to
> linguistics and semiotics generally.
> 
> Thus, we can recognize two classes of “words” ---  (i) written words
> belonging to ES, and (ii) spoken words belonging to DS.  Written words
> cannot perform any work since they do not have any energy. They are like a
> hammer, an ES, which cannot move matter until an agent inputs some energy
> into it by, say, lifting and ramming it down on the head of a nail.  But
> spoken words, being sound waves (which are DSs), can perform work because
> they possess energy and hence can move matter, for example, causing the
> ear drum to vibrate.

Apologies for not reading this before that last post. 

I’d just say that according to this definition I don’t think there are any pure 
ES. The very idea of equilibrium suggests this since it would entail that ES is 
really multiple DS that create a quasi-permanent patter but whose parts 
sometimes change. This would be in Peircean terms a habit.


On Jul 28, 2014, at 10:47 AM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:

> Conversely, anything that remains unchanged when energy supply is removed
> would be equilibrium structures, such as an artificial candle or flower,
> the photograph of a computer screen with images, words written down on a
> piece of paper (which lasts a much longer time than a spoken word can
> after it leaves the vocal cord of the speaker), melodies encoded in sheet
> music, etc.

I’m not trying to be pedantic in what follows because I think it a key issue. 
We have to qualify this with “when a particular energy supply is removed.” This 
is key since of course we aren’t dealing with a closed system except in very 
artificial thought experiments. The implications of this are quite important 
and demand we consider the thermodynamics far more holistically. This then 
leads to the points I raised earlier. 

Whenever we talk about equilibrium we are always really talking about 
equilibrium in a particular context and period. What you say is fine for that. 
But when we move from these more artificial chemical examples to the broader 
examples of writing and speech that context matters and matters a lot. The 
obvious example is the equilibrium of magnetic tape.

In practice we always end up with semi-permanent equilibrium.


> By denying the distinction between equilibrium and dissipative structures
> in semiotics or philosophical discourse in general, one is denying the
> fundamental role that energy plays in these disciplines and hence the
> fundamental neurobiological mechanisms (or underpinnings) supporting such
> mental activities.

Hopefully I clarified why there is at best a continuum between these two 
categories. And indeed I’d question whether true equilibrium of the sort you 
specify is truly possible except as a regulative theoretical concept. (Much 
like the ideal gas law ends up being an idealization)

Semiotically this is very important because contamination is always going on. 
As in physics and chemistry we can do theoretical or empirical perturbation 
analysis to see how well a system can withstand “noise” and maintain its 
equilibrium. However these are often statistical and there usually is a point 
of external energy where the system starts to break down. This energy can be 
external or internal (say the very stability of particular chemicals over time)

When one moves from physics and chemistry to more broad semiotics this 
principle becomes quite important since equilibrium is maintained by a kind of 
replication of the sign system as it undergoes semiotic process. Yet (and this 
is key for Peirce’s semiotics) there is always a gap between object and 
interpretant in this process. For Peirce this is best conceived by way of the 
Epicurean notion of swerve. Peirce uses this by way of analogy I think. (Others 
might disagree) However regardless of how one takes Peirce’s ontology, I think 
the notion of this sign gap is a tremendously significant in semiotics.

Effectively to deny this gap is to claim the legendary transcendental sign 
which is key to certain philosophies - especially many Platonic ones. I think a 
major theme of semiotics in the second half of the 20th century, regardless of 
jargon, is the denial of such a transcendental sign. Effectively this is the 
denial, in your terminology, of a pure equilibrium structure.
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Clark Goble]

(Sorry for any repeats - I accidentally sent several emails from the wrong 
account so they didn’t make it to the list)

On Jul 26, 2014, at 7:28 PM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:

> Peircean scholars and philosophers in general seem to find it difficult
> (or trivial) to distinguish between the two categories of structures,
> equilibrium and dissipative, probably because most philosophies have been
> done with written, not spoken, words since the invention of writing.

A perhaps pedantic quibble. I think philosophy has been conducted with writing 
really just since the modern era and even then only on a large scale in more 
recent centuries. It’s just that the major works of philosophy that we have 
recorded are written. However I think for a large portion of our history (and 
perhaps arguably even today or at least until the advent of email) philosophy 
was dialogical in nature.

Of course I think there’s a continuum between what you call equilibrium and 
dissipative (I’m a bit unsure what you mean by equilibrium - apologies if 
you’ve clarified this before. I’m behind in reading the list) Writing is 
frequently lost after all, we reinterpret its meanings as new contexts are 
introduced, etc. And of course old recordings degrade over time. Even data 
stored on hard drive loses data and can become corrupt. At the end all we have 
are traces of the original dialog. To follow Derrida (although he makes his 
point in an annoyingly petulant way) all we have are traces rather than some 
pure presence of communication we call speech.
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Re: [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:6231] Re: biosemiotics is the basis for

[Sungchul Ji]

Dear Clark,

Thanks for your response.

What you say below is correct if we accept the meanings of "dissipative"
and "equilibrium" structures as you define them in your mind, and this
applies to Benjamin's previous response as well.

But the point I was making in my admittedly provocative email was based on
the meanings of "dissipative" and "equilibrium" structures carefully
defined in irreversible thermodynamics by workers such as I. Prigogine
(1917-2003) and his school in Brussels and Austin, for which Prigogine was
awarded the Nobel Prize for  Chemistry in 1977.

Anything that disappears in a physical system upon removing energy supply
can be identified with dissipative structures, such as the flame of a
candle, images on a computer screen, words coming out of the mouth of a
person, melodies coming out of a piano, action potential of neurons, the
airplane trajectories in the sky,  semiosis between persons or between
neurons,  etc.

Conversely, anything that remains unchanged when energy supply is removed
would be equilibrium structures, such as an artificial candle or flower,
the photograph of a computer screen with images, words written down on a
piece of paper (which lasts a much longer time than a spoken word can
after it leaves the vocal cord of the speaker), melodies encoded in sheet
music, etc.

By denying the distinction between equilibrium and dissipative structures
in semiotics or philosophical discourse in general, one is denying the
fundamental role that energy plays in these disciplines and hence the
fundamental neurobiological mechanisms (or underpinnings) supporting such
mental activities.

It may be useful, therefore, to distinguish between two types of semiotics
(or the study of signs) – the “classical semiotics” wherein no energy
consideration is necessary, and the “neo-semiotics” wherein the role of
energy dissipation is fundamental, since

“No energy, no semiosis.”  (072814-1)

which may be viewed as the “First Law of Semiotics”, in analogy to the
First law of Thermodynamics.

Coining these two terms, classical vs. neo-semiotics, conceptualizes the
dual necessity for semiosis, i.e., the continuity (as expressed in
‘semiotics’) and the discontinuity (as expressed in ‘classical’ vs.
‘neo-‘), just as the terms, “classical physics” and “new physics”
conceptualize the continuity of the Newtonian physics and its
discontinuity occasioned by the concept of energy quantization, the
Heisenberg uncertainty principle, and Einstein’s relativity.

Finally, I would like to suggest the following two statements for possible
discussions:

“Peirce’s semiotics is a major component of the (072814-2)
‘classical semiotics’while  biosemiotics is a major
component of the ‘neo-semiotics’.”

“Just as classical physics and new physics can co-exist (072814-3)
in physics so classical semiotics (e.g., the Peirce-L)
and neo-semiotics (e.g., biosemiotics) may be able to
co-exist in the semiotics of future.”

With all the best.

Sung
___
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701

www.conformon.net


>
> On Jul 26, 2014, at 7:28 PM, Sungchul Ji  wrote:
>
>> Peircean scholars and philosophers in general seem to find it difficult
>> (or trivial) to distinguish between the two categories of structures,
>> equilibrium and dissipative, probably because most philosophies have
>> been
>> done with written, not spoken, words since the invention of writing.
>
> A perhaps pedantic quibble. I think philosophy has been conducted with
> writing really just since the modern era and even then only on a large
> scale in more recent centuries. It’s just that the major works of
> philosophy that we have recorded are written. However I think for a large
> portion of our history (and perhaps arguably even today or at least until
> the advent of email) philosophy was dialogical in nature.
>
> Of course I think there’s a continuum between what you call equilibrium
> and dissipative (I’m a bit unsure what you mean by equilibrium - apologies
> if you’ve clarified this before. I’m behind in reading the list) Writing
> is frequently lost after all, we reinterpret its meanings as new contexts
> are introduced, etc. And of course old recordings degrade over time. Even
> data stored on hard drive loses data and can become corrupt. At the end
> all we have are traces of the original dialog. To follow Derrida (although
> he makes his point in an annoyingly petulant way) all we have are traces
> rather than some pure presence of communication we call speech.
>
>
>



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