Vedr.: disconnected points

I would like to support Edwina on this very well thought formulations that are very much in accordance with Peirce's philosophy and semiotics. the question of physio-semiotics has been coming up again and again lately on conferences I have participated in. The semiotician and philosopher of science John Deeley is one of several promoters of such a view. There are some important, profound and complicated problems worth discussing here. The first issue of CHK next year will bring a very important article by Winfried Nöth on how Peirce view part of this problem.

Søren Brier

http://www.flec.kvl.dk/personalprofile.asp?id=sbr&p=engelsk

Ed. of Cybernetics & Human Knowing

http://www.imprint-academic.com/C&HK

>>> taborsky@primus.ca 17-12-01 16:51 >>>
In reply to Pedro's post of today, and the suggestion that we limit
our examination of information processes by considering the living
cell as 'the zero system' to start the analysis, my perspective of
information processes actually seeks to include physics. I include
physical processes within information and consider it a grave error to
set up physical processes as closed 'Laws' rather than evolving
Rules. That is, to set up an analysis of reality as operating within a
dyadic frame that has physical processes as inviolate Laws on one
side, and evolutionary processes on the other side, is to me, an
error. Are physical processes immune to evolution? Do they exist 'per
se', by themselves, or do they work within the biological to 'evolve'
in a type of secondary form? Do we really know? My concern is that if
we view physics as essentially formal, because its actions add nothing
to the processes of biology, then, I think we may mislead ourselves. I
don't think that physics is purely formal, ie, Lawful.

As Pedro says, we may have to revise the central tenets of physics and
we can't do this by beginning only with the living cell. That, in a
sense, continues the 'imperialism of physics' of which Pedro speaks,
for we, by ignoring its nature, accept that nature as as an area
closed to further research. However, in physics itself, researchers
are finding that the processes which were previously thought of as
inviolate Laws are not that fixed. I am most certainly not proposing
that we define the processes of physics as 'biological', just as we
don't define the processes of biology as 'physical'. However, physical
processes are a vital component of the biological; they provide its
capacity for expansion (within the processes of quantum mechanics) as
well as its capacity for closure (within the processes of classical
mechanics) and we should explore these physical processes and see how
the biological and the social realms have transformed these 'Laws'
into 'Rules' which can be entangled to develop more complex
interactional capacities.

Edwina Taborsky
39 Jarvis St. #318
Toronto, Ontario M5E 1Z5
(416) 361.0898
Received on Wed Dec 19 12:40:04 2001