Frances to Boris... There is a little story in pragmatism that might be relevant here. It is about the sun and earthly stuff using it. The sun it seems gives of its energy freely for its own sake and wants nothing in return for the effort. The sunflower on earth takes this energy and uses it, which it also must do to survive. The essence and existence of the sunflower represents the energy and existence of the sun, by which acting toward such represented status other reproduced sunflowers can benefit. The sun in turn also represents the sunflower in its presence. The existent sunflower however is not a sign of the sun, nor is the existent sun a sign of the sunflower. They are however representative "representamen" of each other. This story establishes that things continuing in the evolving world do so basically by a process of representation and are thus phenomenal representamen, and also that there are representamen which are not signs and representamen that are signs. In summary, everything in the world therefore is a seeming phenomenon, and then anything in the world can be a representamen, yet something in the world will be a sign; so that not everything in the world is a sign.
Now, if signs exist objectively and independently of humans and minds, then signers signing with signs can be mechanisms of matter or organisms of life. This means that matter is effete or weak mind that engages in quasi thought at least with signals as it evolves. This also means that all biotic life feels, and that some life senses if it is animal, so that all animal organisms are consciously aware of their own existence to some degree in that they normally act only to survive and thrive. All animals including humans will thus consciously sense their own self as a sign signifying themselves as a subject of the self. Even consciousness of the animal and human as pure feeling is nonetheless a sign, because it is prone to doubt and error by the self and therefore must be interpreted. Pragmatism holds that all matter is phenomenal and potentially a sign that bears information which it feels, and mainly in the form of an index that is a signal. This goes to the attributed essences and manifested substances and exemplified presences of originating matter and its subsequent forms of life. The continuance and existence of matter or life as an object is thus at least a crude and brute signal that tends to represent its very being to other stuff in the world, and this representation is via objects acting as signs. This metaphysical approach is a realist position, and of course may not be the same as your position. Boris wrote... For me, existence of a rock is a 'signal' of its physical presence to the environment regardless of subjective element of humans.
