List, Gary, JAS I agree, I think, in gist, with what JAS has to say regarding the limitations of computation with respect to what one might term "genuine" semiosis (or genuine anything, to be honest).
The core of the misfit is that the simulation is a series of numbers — that is, whatever the front-end product of any given application/AI, the back-end is merely a series of numbers in one respect or another. That is, to take AI as genuine thought or semiosis, would be, metaphorically, to assume that a television can understand the human interaction with whatever is its "front-end" display when, if we make it AI-ish, it could only refer back to numbers regarding the output (the core is numerical/processual, and this is not true for people's experience of essentially everything). In other words, there is a poverty of stimulus, unbridgeable in AI which, though the models get processually better, as would any dynamic algorithm over time, especially ones which use people for training —they can never possibly understand what is never processual to begin with when no matter how sophisticated they get, they will always be processual in one degree or another: people need not, ever, be that way at all. Valuable tools, but reminds me of the pharmakon (Plato/Derrida). A double edged sword unless you can design it (I have some proto designs) in such a way that the person is in control and the AI (of whatever model) does two things: one, takes a seconday position to the person meanwhile also runs its own primary-secondary operations but which (even here) the person has final say over. Vast potential for this kind of thing across all sectors but ontologically, which is the debate here, really, I agree with much of what has been said and I think we see rare agreement with everyone (or many) on this list regarding this topic (increasingly, it is an agreement which is, by my discernment, also being understood in the sciences in different ways). Best, Jack ________________________________ From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, January 7, 2026 6:42 PM To: Peirce-L <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Surdity, Feeling, and Consciousness, was, Truth and dyadic consciousnessg Gary R., Gary F., List: The discussion of surdity echoes a List exchange<https://list.iu.edu/sympa/arc/peirce-l/2025-09/msg00024.html> that happened a few months ago, in which I noted that "every proposition involves at least one index or precept for finding an index to denote its dynamical object, not just words describing that object"; and the linked paper is reminiscent of the reservations that I expressed at that time about characterizing LLMs as "artificial intelligence." JAS: One of Peirce's definitions of "logic as semiotic" is the science that ascertains "what must be the characters of all signs used by a 'scientific' intelligence, that is to say, by an intelligence capable of learning by experience" (CP 2.227, c. 1897). LLMs do not qualify because they do not have that capability--they have no beliefs with corresponding habits of conduct that can be corroborated or confounded by the "outward clash" with reality itself. Just like formal systems of deductive logic, LLMs cannot establish truth, only preserve it once they have been "trained" by being fed a vast quantity of information; the principle of "garbage in, garbage out" still applies. LLMs cannot even verify the truth of any given sentence apart from comparing it with other sentences, so it is no wonder that they sometimes suffer from "hallucinations" that produce false or misleading responses to prompts. Manheim wonders whether LLMs themselves could someday be "genuine Peircean interpretants," but what he presumably means is that they could someday be quasi-minds whose determinations are "genuine Peircean interpretants." Even this is not quite right, because according to Peirce, any actual effect of a sign token is a dynamical interpretant of that sign token--a determination of an interpreting quasi-mind, which need not be an individual conscious mind like that of a human, such that LLMs presumably qualify already. My sense is that Manheim is really asking whether LLMs could someday go beyond only accessing and processing texts to have genuine Peircean experience of reality--the compulsive (2ns) aspect of cognition (3ns)--which would render them intrinsically self-correcting in the long run, if they consistently conform to the normative principles of inquiry (method of science). In any case, I still do not share his optimism, for the reasons expressed above. Moreover, although Manheim addresses the objection that LLMs are "finite-state systems" and situates human minds in that same category, he overlooks the fact that the former are always executing discrete operations while the latter (at least arguably) are performing continuous inferences. If genuine semiosis is truly continuous, as I maintain, then a digital computer, no matter how sophisticated, can only ever simulate it--just as the real numbers do not constitute a true continuum, but usefully approximate one for most practical purposes. After all, whenever we humans break up our own reasoning (arguments) into discrete steps--namely, "definitely formulated premisses" and conclusions (argumentations; see CP 6.456, EP 2:435, 1908)--we are always doing so artificially and retrospectively, after the real and continuous inferential process has already run its course (see CP 2.27, 1902; LF 3/1:234-5, 1906). Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt<http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt<http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Tue, Jan 6, 2026 at 8:55 AM <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: Gary R, list, I’d like to pick up where your post ended, Gary: GR: Can we say that consciousness is, in its 'primitive' form, surd, while mind in its fullest sense is semiosic', that consciousness offers the brute 'given' of existence, while thought supplies the purposive, essentially semiotic structure that consciousness itself cannot provide? GF: Peirce’s remarks about surdity are mostly in the context of Secondness, i.e. dyadic relations. I would say it is the dyadic consciousness that “offers the brute ‘given’ of existence,” and that’s why “real relations” — genuine indexicality — are necessary to ground the ability of triadic or semiotic relations to convey information, or for a proposition to be true. Phaneroscopically, the “pure consciousness” of Firstness lacks that grounding. But this never happens in (what we call) reality! For the sense or feeling of reality to occur in perception, something must be “present to the mind” and other than the mind, external to it or independent of it, in order for words like “true” or “real” to have any meaning. So you can’t have genuine Thirdness without genuine Secondness. Or to put it physiologically, both the perceived object and the perceiver must be embodied, and the quality of the experience is determined by the real relation between the two. The percept is not just a representation of the object, nor is it just an artifact of internal activity within the perceiving mind or brain. It feel rather odd to even be writing this because it seems so obvious and yet feels like beating around the bush when I try to express it verbally. However I just came across an open access article which strikes me as an important application of it. It’s in Philosophy & Technology (2026) 39:9, https://doi.org/10.1007/s13347-025-00975-5, “Language Models’ Hall of Mirrors Problem: Why AI Alignment Requires Peircean Semiosis,” by David Manheim. Here is the abstract: [[ This paper examines some limitations of large language models (LLMs) through the framework of Peircean semiotics. We argue that basic LLMs exist within a “hall of mirrors,” reflecting only the linguistic surface of training data without indexical grounding in a shared external world, and manipulating symbols without participation in socially-mediated epistemology. We then argue that newer developments, including extended context windows, persistent memory, and mediated interactions with reality, are moving towards making newer Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems into genuine Peircean interpretants, and conclude that LLMs may be approaching this goal, and we identify no fundamental architectural barriers that would prevent this. This lens reframes a central challenge for AI alignment: without grounding in the semiotic process, a model’s linguistic encoding of goals may diverge from real-world values. By synthesizing Peirce’s pragmatic view of signs, contemporary discussions of AI alignment, and recent work on relational realism, we illustrate a fundamental epistemological and practical challenge to AI safety and point to part of a solution. ]] Love, gary f Coming from the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg From: [email protected]<mailto:[email protected]> <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> On Behalf Of Gary Richmond Sent: 2-Jan-26 00:29 To: Peirce List <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>>; Gary Fuhrman <[email protected]<mailto:[email protected]>> Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Surdity, Feeling, and Consciousness, was, Truth and dyadic consciousnessg Gary F, List, The material you linked to in Turning Signs on 'consciousness' and 'feeling' is thought-provoking, especially your comments on 'surdity' in relation to 'feeling' and 'consciousness'. I have changed the subject line to show my emphasis on surdity. In TS you write: GF:The truth of a proposition depends on the dyadic or real relation (as opposed to a relation of reason) between that sign and its dynamic object. It must involve ‘action of brute force, physical or psychical,’ of the dynamic object upon the sign, so that the relation between the two is ‘real,’ i.e. surd – no sign can express or describe it. GR: I agree that the real relation between a sign and its object is surd, which concept I'd like to explore a bit in this post. You continued: GF: The Secondness of experience itself is a dyadic relation or dynamic action between two subjects; it is ‘brute,’ ‘surd,’ indicible, ineffable. But a subject capable of both attention and intention can become a host, as it were, of Thirdness, or semiosis, so that another subject can become an ‘object of thought’ (Peirce, CP 1.343, 1903). Now we have a triadic relation involving the object, the sign or ‘thought,’ and the experiencing subject, the system of interpretation or ‘mind.’ This is the essential structure of mental experience. The 1ns of experience would be the pure feeling that there is something other than feeling itself – a world appearing to the subject, and thus becoming an object of attention (emphasis added by GR). This reminded me that Peirce remarked -- and Joe Ransdell emphasized this point in several of his papers, on Peirce-L, and in private conversations -- that there can be no pure icon, which is to say that a qualisign must be embodied in a sinsign in order to be operative at all. So, there are no pure qualisigns in actual semiosis, only qualitative aspects of sinsigns: a qualisign is a 1ns that can signify only by being instantiated as a sinsign and interpreted via a legisign. At bottom consciousness is tied to what is immediate and irreducible, and this is linked to surdity. Consciousness is feeling: “. . . consciousness is nothing but Feeling, in general” (CP 7.365). Feeling is simple, immediate, yet qualitative. It can't infer, intend, or mean anything as it is non-relational and non-purposive. In this primitive (primary?) sense, then, consciousness lacks any internal rational structure: it simply is what it is. This primary consciousness is pure 1ns, a qualitative 'given' of unmediated feeling. This is to say that it is not a sign at all (which, btw, contradicts the pansemiotic views of some theorists). Peirce is careful not to conflate surdity with mentality, so he distinguishes consciousness from mind: consciousness belongs to 1ns as feeling, while mind belongs to 3ns in semiosis. “The mediate element of experience is the mental element, which is semiosic but not necessarily conscious” (CP 7.366). Mentality does not essentially require consciousness since semiosis can -- and often does -- proceed without awareness (the famous example of the growth of a crystal; but there are many others). What defines mind isn't consciousness itself but, rather, final causation, purpose, mind being a living complexus of signs, habits, and consequent effects which these produce. In an essential sense, surdity would seem to take on the form of brute reaction (2ns) which may or may not be conscious. For example, the pain of touching a hot burner is a conscious instance of 2ns, while the reflex of removing the hand from the source of the pain isn't. Can one say that surdity lies in the brute action/reaction itself, while consciousness accompanies surdity only when feeling is present? In contrast, 3ns interprets brute facts and, over time, can make experience intelligible. Yet, I firmly believe that 3ns cannot eliminate surdity without cutting thought off from brute actuality, the hic et nunc. So Peirce argues that thought requires resistance, and that signs require dynamic objects as a kind of check on thought. Consciousness, then, is the ground upon which both semiosis and thought operate. This would seem to resolve an apparent contradiction in Peirce’s use of the term 'consciousness.' In its primary sense, consciousness is feeling, so surd, immediate, so, categorially 1ns. In a looser sense, Peirce speaks of “three modes of consciousness” (CP 8.256): the awareness of feeling, action, law. I would say that this usage represents, at best, a secondary, mediated consciousness. Can we say that consciousness is, in its 'primitive' form, surd, while mind in its fullest sense is semiosic', that consciousness offers the brute 'given' of existence, while thought supplies the purposive, essentially semiotic structure that consciousness itself cannot provide? Best, Gary R
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