Jerry, list,
I really am falling behind in replying to posts; peirce-l is quite
active lately!
Responses interleaved below.
On 3/30/2014 11:53 PM, Jerry LR Chandler wrote:
> Ben, List:
> I would encourage you to undertake a bit of web-searching on this topic.
> A huge body of biological and biochemical research exists on this
topic, often under the general notion of "gene-for-gene" theory.
> This topic is of enormous economic importance for agriculture since
it is widely exemplified in plant pathology in the form of a
"predator-prey" relationship between plants and insects. The issue
focuses on the difference between individual strains of species and
their individual differences - the differences that make a difference.
In otehr words, the difference between objects and objectives.
That's a whole lot to tackle. I've tended to resist discussing
biosemiotics because I'm so out of my depth with biology. I was just
trying to take the comparatively smaller step of expanding Peirce's
"Ground arms!" example to cover plants. It's been pointed out to me both
on and off list that I picked a rather complicated example,
'co-evolution.' Problem was that I needed to think of the plant's
evolution as the quasi-utterer of a sign, then I needed to think of some
second organism (or its evolution) as the quasi-interpreter; then in
order apply Peirce's "Ground arms!" example of objective-as-object, I
needed to think of the second organism's potential behavior as the
objective-as-semiotically-determinative-object of the first organism's
quasi-uttered sign, even while I thought of that potential behavior as a
potential interpretant (from the second organism's standpoint) of the
first organism's sign. So my attempt to apply Peirce's "Ground arms!"
examples makes that co-evolution seem to involve some perspectivally
complex quasi-dialogue in semiosis.
> Bottom line is relatively simple. It is a question of mutuality. Of
community. Of biological harmony in an ecosystem.
> The putative "cause-effect" relationships must be viewed over the
time span of generations and of chemical memory of both species; of
information exchange among species, a sort of "tit-for-tat" emergence
of relationships between species.
I agree with that. It's also been pointed out to me off-list that the
second organisms' species' members' past behavior (that of bees in my
example), as opposed to their potential behavior, is in a sense (some
of) the efficient cause in the scenario, and that biologists like to
keep focused on that rather than on a potentiality as 'like' an
efficient cause (in being a source of semiotic determination). I'll try
to get into that in some other post.
> As far as I am aware, the usual Aristotelian conceptualization of
four sorts of causality is inappropriate for this form of relation
among species. Or, do you have a philosophical view that infers that
Aristotelian categories are relevant to this discussion?
I have a philosophical interest that involves trying to apply something
like the classical/Scholastic four causes (except that I see form
(structure) or entelechy not as a branch of act-as-cause, but instead as
borne-(/_passum_/)-as cause, a more or less stable balance of motions /
forces / agencies; that 'passum' is why I got back into philosophy; I
should add that I'm pretty sure that the Scholastics never used that
Latin term in the way that I use it, that is, as naming a causal
principle on a par with agent, patient, and act). At most I can only
hope as to the four causes' relevance to biology, and I lack the
background in biology for any forecast by me about the issue to be worth
anything anyway. I find that my comparative ignorance limits me to very
broad and sometimes rhetorical-sounding statements whose interest so far
as I can see is in the collective pattern that they make, but I seldom
get into that at peirce-l. In response to a post by one or another
person (I actually forget whom, I've so much catching up to do) here at
peirce-l, I expect to say something about Peirce's treatment of the four
causes.
> Frankly, in this case, I believe that facts are more informative
than philosophical narratives.
I'm ill-qualified to judge of it, but I wouldn't be surprised if you're
right.
> In my view, what Tori is saying is that biological causality within
a community of organisms is vastly more perplex than philosophers are
able to diagram or iconize (or semantically express.)
I don't know whether that's what she is saying, but it could well be true.
> BTW, I did a few scientific experiments in this area as an
undergraduate and one of my colleagues developed a highly successful
scientific career in this area.
> I personally find it to be a fascinating topic from several
perspectives - mathematics, genetics, biochemistry, molecular biology,
metaphysics, epistemology, ontology and logic. It is a substantial
pragmatic issue, rather contrary to logical positivism, as a source of
directed emergence of biological properties where the source of
direction lies external to the identity of the organism.
> Cheers
> jerry
Best, Ben
> On Mar 30, 2014, at 9:11 PM, Benjamin Udell wrote:
Gary F., Tori, list,
I figure that the imperative might be generalizable to vegetable
cases if one considers evolution as quasi-mind.
I'll give it a try:
A flower has evolved a certain scent only because it appeals to bees.
In evolution's quasi-mind, the objective has determined or influenced
the scent and represents the _/general/_ attracted bee in some sense
- it's an indexical legisign (instantiated in particular cases) of
the general attracted bee AS part of a universe of objects needed by
the flowering plant and insofar as that universe is determined by the
bee being a part of it. Well, that's a case of not so much an
imperative as an invitative. But as long as the outcome of the
command or invitation is up in the air, they're more like each other,
both partaking of a kind of interrogative-imperative, than like a
matter-of-fact prescriptive recommendation or 'how-to'.
Generally I'm willing to look at all the four causes as being like
each other at various levels. My remarks about the end - i.e. the
final cause - as being sometimes 'agent-like' are about its being
like an efficient cause. I should have made clearer in my on-list
post that agent cause = efficient cause, same idea, two phrases.
Tori, it seems like you're saying that, in biosemiosis, the final
causes are the real efficient causes and that the usual so-called
efficient causes aren't efficient causes at all. A key question is,
does do you regard the semiotic object as the source of semiotic
determination?
Best, Ben
On 3/28/2014 8:12 AM, Gary Fuhrman wrote:
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