No sure why one bothers with Peirces logic, modern Mathematical Category theory (CMT) and Topoi offers significant flexibility within mathematics and logic. Objects and arrows, association law and law of identity in CMT have at least a mathematical basis. Objects and arrows in CMT solves the problem of functions (processes) and structure. Further it is possible to build a qualitative Reality Model from CMT. -----Original Message----- From: fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es [mailto:fis-boun...@listas.unizar.es] On Behalf Of joe.bren...@bluewin.ch Sent: Monday, 21 March 2011 12:19 p.m. To: colli...@ukzn.ac.za; Pedro C. Marijuan; fis@listas.unizar.es Subject: Re: [Fis] Hannam's Contentious Postulate. The Peircean Mirror Dear John, Pedro, Jerry and All, Fortunately or unfortunately, I am convinced that for further progress in information, let alone other matters, some recognition of the limitations of Peirce may have to be recognized. John's statement that "pragmatics means action" can be applicable to real processes only if the pragmatics in question includes ontological (scientific) principles and not only epistemological classifications. As Queiroz, Emmeche and El Hani write: "In a Peircean model, Sign, Object and Interpretant are triadically coupled in a dynamically irreducible process. In other words, 'information' requires a triadic pattern of determinative relationships involving the Sign, Object and Interpretant." Information, in this view, has a "processual nature". In my view, this simply displaces the problem further, since the Peircean categories themselves are derivative, epistemological constructions which 'mirror', literally and figuratively, the underlying dynamic structure of the universe as Peirce saw it. The processes referred to by Q, E and EH are indeed interpreter-dependent objective processes, but they admit that they cannot be dissociated from the notion of a situated agent. Here, we have gone outside Peirce, since the discussion of the "agent" and his/her interactions requires a physical dialectics and logic that is absent in Peirce. To try to restate my interpretation, to say that for effective information, or effective semiosis to take place by having a Sign effectively communicate, by mediating the relation between Object and Interpretant, a form from the object to Interpretant by changing the state of the interpreter (emphasis mine) says no more than that information is something that changes the state of an agent. In the statement that an effective Sign, by being actualized (sic), has an actual effect on an interpreter (NOT interpretant), Sign is simply a placeholder for an undefined real process, since a "Sign defined as a medium for the communication of a form" is, again, simply an analytic mirror for some reality that operates according to as yet undefined rules. The Peircean processual approach to information seeks to acquire additional dynamics by distinguishing it from some structure considered as a totally static phenomenon. What has been missed are the actual and potential dynamic aspects of structure and form themselves - a sequence of nucleotides, for example, not in abstracto, but in a real cell. The consequences for an augmented theory of information, in which Peirce's work shares the theoretical space with non-epistemic approaches, follow. To paraphrase Antonio Salieri's famous "Prima la musica, dopo le parole", I say "first reality, then the signs". Thank you and best wishes, Joseph ----Ursprüngliche Nachricht---- Von: colli...@ukzn.ac.za Datum: 20.03.2011 23:02 An: "Pedro C. Marijuan"<pcmarijuan.i...@aragon.es>, <fis@listas.unizar.es> Betreff: Re: [Fis] Hannam's Contentious Postulate
At 06:09 PM 2011/03/17, Pedro C. Marijuan wrote: Dear FISers, Thanks to Loet for his modest proposal "Foundations of the Science of (DIS) Order"... (when managing the list I really agree!). The comments by Jerry are much appreciated, indeed: I am eagerly waiting for opinions and criticisms on the "knowledge recombination" theme. However, criticisms obliged, his whole approach to science and knowledge looks to me very interesting though rather biased. Rhetorically, for our foundations of info & knowledge we cannot rely on particular philosophical positions (Peircean philosophy---sorry to disagree with John too) but on scientific-disciplinary "facts" or theories. When Jerry talks about "new interpretations of signs from nature" he is cavalierly forgetting the action side, the practice: "In the beginning was the deed!" (Faustian motto emphasized by neuroscientist Alain Berthoz in his "The Brain's Sense of Movement", 2000---- the "fact" and not the "concept"). In neuroscience, in ecological psychology & the motor approach to consciousness, the perceptual cycle of action-perception cannot be reduced to any of the two branches alone. In cognitive terms, theory has always to accompany practice, and viceversa. Methologies, measurements, etc., are a crucial ingredient of knowledge, that refer to our own actions ---not just to "signs" of nature. Sorry, Pedro, but I fail to understand your distinction between a Peircean view and the one you are advocating. Peirce based his views on pragmatics, which means action. There is something severely wrong here. Regards, John Professor John Collier, Acting HoS and Acting Deputy HoS 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://collier.ukzn.ac.za/ _______________________________________________ fis mailing list fis@listas.unizar.es https://webmail.unizar.es/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/fis
