Svar: Re: Vedr.: semiotics

Dear John

I do understand the philosophical position, but my point is that it is not compatible with Peirce's triadic philosophy, where the three categories and their internal dynamics are basic.They do work according to the "law of mind" and there is an inner aspect of firstness (pure feeling) in matter, but it does not develop into genuine signs before organized into living cells.

The problem is if you in a Peircian framework can say that you can have thirdness without sign quality. If you want to make the universe in itself an interpreter the answer is no. But what we call signs and semiosis are then working within quite different space and time frames. Thus I think that the concept is made so general that it loses its functionality.

>From a Peircian framework you have to admit that the universe is permeated with firstness, but one the other hand that is not the same thing as human awareness (though it is the origin of it). I would prefer an interpretation where the living systems and we most of all are the best offers so far on the universe' getting to be aware of itself.

You may then add the mystical the possibility of being aware on other levels and in the end being aware of the basic firstness uniting all things. But I do not think that Peirce ever wrote about such a thing and the meaning and reality of such a state of consciousness is very much discussed for instance in Journal of Consciousness Studies.

Søren Brier, +45 3528 2689

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

Ed. of Cybernetics & Human Knowing

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

>>> john.collier@kla.univie.ac.at 06/05 11:17 >>>
At 08:53 PM 05/06/02, you wrote:
>Dear John
>
>I am sorry to answer so late. I have been away.
>
>Your suggestion seems to imply that the basic building blocs of reality
>are signs. If so how can they then be triadic?
>
>Cheers

Well, they are under idealist accounts of reality, ranging from Berkeley's
objective idealism to Puntam's internal realism. They just swallow the idea
that meaning goes all the way down. Implicit in this is that there is some
unifying "guarantor" (I borrow the term from Wes Churchman) that gives the
real and irreducible relations among the apparent components. It is the
relation net that is at the bottom, not the parts. For Berkeley, the
guarantor is God. For Putnam it is the ideal limit of all of our
methodological principles having been satisfied. So we have a big network
of signs, presumably each with its interpretant in terms of the larger network.

Personally, I find this view distasteful for a number of reasons, but it
does have some advantages. For one, it ensures that everything is
meaningful in a strong sense, so there is no restriction on the application
of information theory because of qualms about information implying meaning.
This is just an aspect of its monolithic and holistic metaphysics. There is
also no mind-body problem in the traditional sense. Most importantly for
many of the proponents of idealism of this sort is that there is a truth to
be found, and we can find everything that is true (God willing).

Personally I think it is romantic hogwash, but it is hard to refute on
logical grounds.

John

----------
Dr John Collier john.collier@kla.univie.ac.at
Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research
Adolf Lorenz Gasse 2 +432-242-32390-19
A-3422 Altenberg Austria Fax: 242-32390-4
http://www.kli.ac.at/research.html?personal/collier
Received on Thu Jun 6 09:42:39 2002