Frances to Michael and others...
Your quest is now better understood by me, and your details on
the issue of mental mapping are quite insightful. The issue can
of course be addressed by pragmatism and its semiotics possibly
in ways other than mapping. Pragmatism has as its eventual goal
the logical realization of signs globally in science, but it can
be applied to aesthetic and artistic issues. The passages by
Peirce that define and explain the correlative connecting and
mapping of objects to each other to some referent effect can be
found throughout his published writings. The passages on
representation seem to be most relevant, but my search will
continue. The following long reply of mine is my tentative
understanding of those passages as might be relevant to the
issues you posited. It is also my assumption that this kind of
reply is what you are seeking, and that will suit your purposes.
01.
On signs in the world, all ordinary existent objects are assigned
by evolving nature as signs, and then reassigned by signers as
signs of other objects. The objects and signs are objective
phenomenal constructs that exist and even as atomic particles,
and are thus independent of mind. The connective correlation of
objects to objects therefore occurs simply by way of signs, but
as an act of awareness it is in relation to minds. Without minds
to be aware of signs and their objects all of semiosis would be
pointless. The logic of relations or relativity is further used
by pragmatists to support this semiotic contention. On relations
in the mind, the signer is held to be brought into a relative
relation with the objective phenomenal object sensed to be a sign
of another object, either inside or outside the mind, rather than
into a relation with their own subjective sense of the object and
as a sign; because it is after all the object that is held to be
a sign, and not the sense of it.
02.
The key to finding out how signers use the different kinds of
signs available, and how they use moderating signs as different
kinds of representations, will be found in the grounds where
signs and their objects lay in waiting to evoke an effect. The
signs in their grounds are icons or indexes or symbols. The
limiting grounds are formal or causal or conventional. The
referred objects of signs are possible or actual or agreeable.
The referred contents of referred objects are abstract or
concrete or discrete. The consequential effects of signs in their
grounds are immediate or intermediate or mediate. All of this
baroque categorical structure furthermore constitutes only the
first of three grand divisions for speculative semiosis and
semiotics. Those ascribed progressive divisions are roughly
called: informative or inscriptive grammatics; and evaluative or
descriptive critics; and evocative or prescriptive rhetorics. The
informatic or grammatic division basically deals with addressing
exactly what the information is that a sign may bear it.
03.
On objects in their ground, where the form of the sign as a
vehicle and the object as a referent lay together, it is the
referred object that determines by way of limits the main kind a
representative sign will be in any act of semiosis. The same
referred object for example can be referred by any amount of
translated signs. It is then the sign that determines the main
kind of interpretant effect that will occur as acted upon by the
signer. The interpretant incidentally is not the interpreter, but
it is the logical or grammatical consequences of the sign when
moderating between the referent object and the interpretant
effect. The signer also need not necessarily be held as say the
perceiver or interpreter of the sign, because the signer can be
the object itself engaged in automatic acts of self reference, as
say an evolving atom might do in being a contained signal.
04.
On signs in the mind, signs all moderate to some degree between
their referents and their interpreting signers. In moderating
their referred objects or contents, signs can mainly be iconic or
indexic or symbolic, but they do lay or rest in different
grounds, and will hence take various times to get their objects
or contents into the mind. Formal icons of stuff are directed to
whole states, and are thus more immediate. Causal indexes of
stuff are redirected to specific particulars, and are thus more
intermediate. Conventional symbols are indirect in an invented
arbitrary way, and are thus more mediate. Any sign will initially
evoke at least an image in mind as its primary content, but the
main kind of sign used will vary as to the time it takes for that
image to get into the mind. The image furthermore may also be the
eventual goal or end of the sign in mind; but not necessarily so,
because for any signer the image may be only the first step up
the ladder of final semiosis.
05.
In regard to the presence of signs in mind, every sign is a
progressive hierarchy of icons and indexes and symbols to some
degree; but each situation of usage will determine the main kind
a sign will be in each situation as an icon or index or symbol.
In addition to considering this performance by signs, there is
also the competence of the signers to consider. It might be held
that images evoked by icons are somewhat more global to humans,
while those images evoked by symbols may require more rational or
cultural and social skills. If for example the referred object or
content or subject or meaning of a symbol such as a lingual word
is not fully known, then no overt or explicit image will be
forthcoming, although some moderated abstract image will be
evoked at least by the form of the symbol. It is a fact for
semiotics that every form of any sign will initially evoke some
image in mind.
06.
The correlation of an inner mental idea, to an external objective
object, or of an inner mental idea to an internal subjective
object like another idea, is structured only by way of signs in
the mind. Both the original ideas and their referred objects are
all moderating signs, but all this mental stuff is nonetheless
originally derived from the initial experience of existential
phenomena, because the brain and its mind cannot generate its
initial ideas epiphenomenally on its own solely alone without the
prior sense of stuff. The feeling of stuff as seeming to be what
stuff is, by mapping and graphing as signing, will lead to
minding the stuff and thinking about it.
07.
Any form or object may formally be an icon of its represented and
referred object, but only if they are both symmetrically similar
to each other. Examples of icons are marks and tones and images
and maps and photos and models and metaphors. In making an icon,
the mind correlates or connects the forms of objects to each
other based on their similarity to one another. The iconic
similarity however will be a matter of symmetrical degree, in
that icons can range from being merely apparent images, to being
structural diagrams, to being analogical metaphors and models.
The icon is symmetrical in that the referred object is also like
the represented sign, in that either one can be a sign of the
other.
08.
Any form or object will be an index of an object, if the index is
an effect of some cause by way of continuity or contiguity.
Examples of indexes are signals and pointers and artifacts and
markings and imprints and gestures and symptoms. In making an
index, the mind correlates or connects the causes of objects to
their signed effects based on their contiguity to each another.
The cause and effect relation can also leap forward or backward,
thereby at once making the referred object a sign and the sign a
referred object. This is especially the case in medicine with
pathogens and their symptoms.
09.
Any form or object can arbitrarily be a symbol to moderate and
mediate and stand for any other object, but only if signers agree
to this usage by a communal convention. Examples of symbols are
artifices and rituals and myths and trademarks and emblems and
heralds and names and languages. In making a symbol, the mind
correlates or connects the association of objects arbitrarily to
the sign based on the consensus of a common repertory familiar to
the signer. Many formal artificial marks used in depicted
figurative pictures for example can become abstract symbols that
are agreed known to signify a recognized object.
10.
The initial representation of objects is by way of formal iconic
similarities. Even vague and ambiguous correlations between
different objects as temporarily or deliberately mapped onto one
another to some represented effect are the result of formal
iconic similarities. The signer in interpreting the
representation of signs as say a pictorial depiction must have
some phenomenal consciousness and collateral experience at least
in regard to the familiarity and identity and similarity of signs
in relation to their objects.
11.
The effect of depicted likeness that may be called naturalistic
or realistic, and between objects used as signs of objects, is
the result of formal similarities and thus a matter of iconic
degree. The degree of figurative similarity can range from
abstraction to accurate concretization to independent discretion.
Abstract mystical mapping occurs by using possible phantomical
objects. Concrete material mapping occurs by using actual
physical objects. Discrete mental mapping occurs by using
agreeable psychical objects. The drift from realistic natural
figuration, as the greater concretization of a depicted pictorial
sign, toward greater abstraction on the one hand or toward
greater discretion on the other, will impact on the representant
and referentant and interpretant of the informative sign.
12.
The abstraction may of course be syntactic or semantic or even
pragmatic. If it is syntactic and formal the abstraction may at
least be isomorphic or biomorphic or geometric. Isomorphic
abstraction can be intriguing when found to be similar, but when
taken to its extreme it can become confusing to mind. Biomorphic
