Peter, Jon, List,
Peter, thank you for pointing to your paper, "Thinking with Machines: Intelligence Augmentation,
Evolutionary Epistemology, and Semiotic," which I remember reading many years ago when Joe Ransdell
recommended that I read it and another of your papers, "Peirce, Virtuality, and Semiotic." I found
both of them most relevant and valuable at that time. While many of the links on Arisbe are not working, I
was able to find "Thinking with Machines" on the Wayback Machine.
https://web.archive.org/web/20070522213854/http://www.cspeirce.com/menu/library/aboutcsp/skagesta/thinking.htm
Of your three papers on Arisbe, only the link to "Peirce, Virtuality, and
Semiotic" is still live. https://www.bu.edu/wcp/Papers/Cogn/CognSkag.htm
The third paper, "The Mind's Machines,"is unfortunately a dead link on Arisbe
(I've asked Ben Udell to write a short note to the List on the problem assessing many
papers on Arisbe).
I met Doug at the 2001 ICCS conference, the first of many I was to attend, once at lunch
meeting which included Aldo de Moor, John Sowa, and Mary Keeler, and another time just
preceding John's presenting his session paper when I was able to speak with Doug briefly
one-on-one. I must admit that I was a bit intimidated at the time having just entered the
world of "conceptual structures" and having heard from Aldo of Engelbart's
storied career in developing the computer mouse, interactive computing, hypertext,
collaborative knowledge systems, networked collaboratories, and human-computer interfaces
that later became foundational technologies for modern AI development and human-AI
collaboration. That, I should note, is a partial list.
I'd like to quote a section of your conclusion of "Thinking with Machines" to
suggest the themes of your paper:
*In the above we have examined and documented a coherent set of ideas common to
Engelbart's augmentationism, Popper's evolutionary epistemology, and Peirce's
pragmatistic semiotic. Let us summarize these ideas in eight theses, not all of
them explicitly shared by all three thinkers:
1. Human evolution proceeds exosomatically, through the evolution of external
artifacts.
2. Human knowledge does not reside in the head, but in a subclass of our evolved artifacts: Engelbart's
"external symbols", Popper's "World 3", Peirce's "signs".
3. The Whorfian hypothesis: Our fundamental world view is shaped by one of our
evolved exosomatic organs, namely our language.
4. The Neo-Whorfian hypothesis: Our thinking is also shaped in a variety of
ways by other exosomatic organs, specifically the tools by which we manipulate
external symbols.(84)
5. Abstract, critical thought is made possible only by the existence of
written language. This thesis is also embraced by Buehler and Havelock.
6. The possible degrees of abstraction (as well as the possible kinds of
intellectual projects) available to us depend on the logical or effective
features of the symbols by which we represent abstractions -- Arabic numerals,
parentheses, and the like -- i.e. not what the symbols look like, but what they
can and cannot do.
7. The possible degrees of abstraction available to us depend on the physical
features of the tools with which we produce and manipulate symbols -- pencils,
computers, and the like.
8. The digital computer is most fruitfully regarded as a means for augmenting
human intelligent activity by automating and accelerating the production and
manipulation of symbols, rather than as an independent source of intelligent
behavior.
*
I would encourage all those interested in the topic to read "Thinking with
Machines." Thanks again, Peter, for directing us to it.
Best,
Gary
On Thu, Jul 9, 2026 at 8:03 AM Peter Skagestad <[email protected]> wrote:
Gary, list,
It may be of interest that I argued for the relevance of Peirce’s semiotic
to Engelbart’s intelligence augmentation in my 1993 paper ‘Thinking with
Machines’, available on the Peirce Telecommunity website. Doug read the paper,
we had a couple of conversations about it, and I think I can claim the credit
for Doug’s taking an interest in Peirce in his later years.
Best,
Peter
Sent from my iPhone
On Jul 9, 2026, at 12:54 AM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]> wrote:
Jon, Ulysses, Jeff, List,
I agree that "AQI" (or even "AQ-I") is quite unlikely to catch on any day
soon.
Recently I've been reflecting on Doug Engelbart's project,/ Intelligence Augmentation/ (IA),
which my friend and colleague, Aldo de Moor, has done much 'hands-on' work through his work on
/CommunitySense /(https://www.communitysense.nl). Aldo describes his project as "Building on
and generalizing from Engelbart’s views," and summarizes Engelbart's vision in "Making
Doug’s Dream Come True: Collaboratories in Context"
(https://communitysense.nl/papers/iccs02b.pdf)
In [Engelbart's] view, the only feasible approach [to developing
'collaboratories' functioning as mediators of distributed groups working with
systems of information tools] is a long term, pragmatically guided whole-system
evolution.*It is crucial not just to create good socio-technical systems,
consisting of co-evolving Human and Tool Systems. Also, one should continuously
improve this design process, in other words “improve the improvement capability
of the organization”*.
In rereading Aldo's paper I was reminded that as early as 2000 I had a keen interest
in this kind of research: See a paper Aldo, Mary Keeler, and I collaborated on,
"Towards a Pragmatic Web"
(https://repository.tilburguniversity.edu/server/api/core/bitstreams/953ea141-d6d4-4cf9-961e-40542bd4d2f3/content).
Recently I've been working on the possibility of building on and developing
Engelbart's and de Moor's work on collaboratories in consideration of AI, an
idea that I've been referring to as IAAI (Intelligence Augmentation meets
Artificial Intelligence). That acronym may not take hold either, but I think it
captures the gist of the idea of a contemporary approach to how we humans might
approach grappling with such extraordinary LLM developments.
Best,
Gary R
xx
On Wed, Jul 8, 2026 at 12:39 PM Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]>
wrote:
Gary R., Ulysses, List:
I find your latest formulations considerably less objectionable than ascribing genuine intelligence
to "AI" systems themselves. They are indeed diagrammatic tools that augment /human /intelligence,
facilitating inquiry when they are intelligently used /by humans/ for that purpose. Since they at least
arguably qualify as quasi-minds, we /might /be able to refer to them accurately as /quasi/-intelligent; but
even if so, I doubt that "AQI" would ever catch on as a replacement for "AI." :-)
Thanks,
Jon
On Wed, Jul 8, 2026 at 1:26 AM Gary Richmond <[email protected]>
wrote:
Jon, Ulysses, List,
Jon, I found your mention of the conference presentation on HAI especially
relevant. It immediately brought to mind Douglas Engelbart's research program which he
called /intelligence augmentation/ (IA) [See his paper (1962), "Augmenting Human
Intellect: A Conceptual Framework," https://www.dougengelbart.org/content/view/138]
Engelbart's central idea, as I understand it, is that the really important question is
not whether machines themselves become intelligent, but how human intelligence may be
augmented through interaction with computational systems.
In any event, I find myself thinking less about AI considered in
isolation than about the larger semiotic processes within which both humans and
machines participate. In other words, the most interesting unit of analysis is
most definitely /not/ the machine itself, but the continuing inquiry in which
machine-generated signs aid human thinking about important issues, perhaps
eventually even some of our most criticall, world-unsettling 'wicked problems'.
Ulysses' description of LLMs as diagrams also seems quite relevant
here. A diagram, after all, is not itself an argument or an inquiry (let alone
an inquirer). Yet diagrams have long played an indispensable role in
mathematical and scientific discovery because, as Peirce definitively showed,
especially the 'manipulation' of them permit relations to become visible that
might otherwise remain unnoticed. If AI systems are understood somewhat
analogously, then perhaps their significance lies /not/ in their possessing
intelligence than in augmenting the semeiotic processes through which inquiry
develops.
I wonder whether Engelbart's idea of IA points towards a
formulation which might reconcile our differing emphases. The machine need not
be regarded as an autonomous intelligent agent, nor merely as a passive
artifact. Rather, its significance may lie in the way that it can augment the
continuing semiosis through which communities of inquiry generate fruitful
concepts, programs, discoveries, etc.
Best,
Gary R
On Tue, Jul 7, 2026 at 11:48 PM Ulysses <[email protected]>
wrote:
I am at least commenting on the semiotic and categorical
capabilities of the AI model itself in order to understand what it is capable
of contributing to broader inquiry and what human users need to bring to the AI
model if they are to use them for inquiry.
My position is large language models are, from a semiotic
perspective, a diagram. Which is to say, potentially very useful for inquiry
but not an artificial “mind” capable of symbolic thought, which is necessary,
in my view, for intelligence.
The thing I might disagree with Jon on is I am probably more
likely to consider the training process itself as quasi intelligent, albeit
with a lot of caveats.
On Tue, 7 Jul 2026 at 11:27 pm, Jon Alan Schmidt
<[email protected]> wrote:
Gary R., List:
As you know, I understand Peirce's late topical conception
of continuity to be top-down, not bottom-up; the whole is ontologically
primordial, not an assemblage of discrete parts. From that standpoint, the
notion of /locating /the continuity of semiosis does not really make sense--the
/entire universe/ is a vast semiosic continuum from which individual signs,
individual sign-users, and larger inquiries can be prescinded as artifacts of
analysis. This obviously does not entail that the entire universe is properly
characterized as /intelligent/; on the contrary, it still encompasses discrete
things and their brute dyadic reactions, including the sequential operations
within a digital computer, as /degenerate /outcomes of continuous and triadic
semiosis.
When most people refer to "artificial intelligence," it seems to me that they
are ascribing intelligence to an individual artificial system--exactly what I find problematic--not the
larger inquiry that results when humans /use /it for that purpose. In fact, one of the most interesting
presentations at a conference that I attended last month advocated greater attention to human interaction
with "AI" systems, which effectively turns them into "HAI" systems. Research suggests
that improvements in that interface might make a bigger positive difference going forward than further
advancing the capabilities of the technology itself.
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, Jul 7, 2026 at 3:11 PM Gary Richmond
<[email protected]> wrote:
Jon, List,
I wonder if it is possible that we are now considering
somewhat different questions. It seems to me that you are commenting more on
/the semiotic character of the AI system/ itself, while I increasingly find
myself reflecting on /the semeiotic character of the larger inquiry /in which
AI seems to me to be capable of participating. Your sticking point as I see it
seems to be that the internal operations of present AI systems consist entirely
of dyadic reactions and, therefore, cannot participate in the continuous
triadic semiosis that Peirce identifies with intelligence.
Say, for the sake of argument, that everything you say
about the machine's internal operations is correct, still does it necessarily
follow that the larger inquiry within which those operations become signs for
further interpretation cannot, then, exhibit genuine semiosis?
So, I'm beginning to think that our principal
disagreement has less to do with AI, but increasingly seems concerned with
/where one ought to locate the continuity of semiosis itself/. Is it primarily
within the individual sign-user, or may that continuity also characterize the
larger inquiry through which interpretants are generated, criticized,
corrected, etc.? If the latter, then intelligence may be seen in the living
semiosis through which inquiry continually develops.
Best,
Gary R.
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