Gary F, Gary R, List,
I always thought that information theorists should study Peircean
semiotics because
"The Peircean sign may be viewed as the fundamental (042414-1)
carrier of information."
This morning it occurred to me that the Peircean sign, viewed as a
mathematical category, may account for the three aspects of information
simultaneously i.e., AMOUNT, MEANING, and VALUE thus:
(1) In Step a in Figure 1, an object generates n possible signs in the
human brain.
(2) A possible sign determines m possible interpretants.
(3) The human selects only those possible signs connected to their
possible interpretants that are in turn compatible with the object.
a b
Object --------> Sign ---------> Interpretant
| ^
| |
|_________________________________________|
c
Figure 1. The Peircean sign as a mathematical category. a = sign
production; b = meaning production; c = value production.
I am tempted to suggest that the following quantitative relations may hold
for each of the three steps in Figure 1:
a = the AMOUNT of information is determined as log_2 n bits.
b = the MEANING of information is determined as log_2 m bits.
c = the VALUE of information is determined as log_2 (1/D), where D is the
dis-similarity or discrepancy between object and an interpretant which
reduces the probability of action or the belief to act.
With all the bet.
Sung
___________________________________________________
Sungchul Ji, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Department of Pharmacology and Toxicology
Ernest Mario School of Pharmacy
Rutgers University
Piscataway, N.J. 08855
732-445-4701
www.conformon.net
> Gary F., List,
>
> Gary, thanks for this message. We seem to see things a bit differently
> terminologically, and there are a couple of substantive matters upon which
> we seem to be in disagreement as well. You concluded your interesting
> comments on the question of moving from the phaneron to what is extracted
> from it for cognitive purposes:
>
>
> GF: The connection is that just as phaneroscopy looks for the essential
> elements of the phaneron, a "scientific definition" aims to identify the
> essential elements of the concept.
>
>
> So, to begin with, the elements we're looking to extract from the phaneron
> would seem to analogous to the elements which factor in a "scientific
> definition". But that doesn't get us very far. You continued:
>
>
> GF: Kees in 7.1 quotes Peirce as saying that "a concept is the living
> influence upon us of a *diagram*, or*icon*, with whose several parts are
> connected in thought an equal number of feelings or ideas"; so it makes
> sense to regard this logical analysis as "iconoscopy" (De Tienne's term),
> and as a process which moves us from the prelogical into the realm of
> logic. This forms part of the larger process whose method we call
> "pragmatism" or pragmaticism, which I think of as cyclic, or spiralling if
> it makes some kind of progress.
>
>
> While "Iconoscopy" is, indeed, de Tienne's term, you may recall that in
> his
> paper on that topic that he finds his own term not quite right:
>
>
> *AdT: The fact is that Peirce often uses the word 'image' in many
> different
> contexts, from the mathematical to the psychological through the logical,
> and that not all of his uses refer to the same thing. But the stronger
> reason that favors using the word 'image' at this juncture rather than the
> word 'icon' is precisely that Peirce gave the word 'icon' a technical
> definition that removes it from the field of phaneral experience to the
> benefit of semeiotic, while he frequently uses the word 'image' in order
> to
> insist on the experiential dimension that accompanies icons, whether it be
> phenomenological or psychological (de Tienne, in "Iconoscopy between
> Phaneroscopy and Semeiotic").*
>
>
>
> Now calling it something like, say, 'imagoscopy', would certainly be to
> give it a name ugly enough to protect it from kidnappers. Nonetheless, I
> agree with the thrust of the above quotation, namely, that 'icon' is a
> technical term in semeiotic, so perhaps less suitable for use in
> phenomenology. On the other hand, despite his reservations, de Tienne
> settled on 'iconoscopy'. You continued:
>
>
> GF: I'm reluctant to say anything about "Category Theory" as a further
> step
> along the pragmatistic path, for two reasons. One is that the definition
> we
> arrive at by logical analysis or "iconoscopy" (such as the definition of
> *sign* that Peirce works out in MS 318) does not necessarily make explicit
> use of the three "categories" (though of course they are implicit
> everywhere in concepts, and there are often good reasons for making them
> explicit).
>
>
> I'm a bit confused here as you seem to have leaped from iconoscopy to
> speculative grammar in speaking of a "logical analysis. . .such as the
> definition of sign that Peirce works out (etc.)" DeTienne writes that
> iconoscopy does none of the following: "makes assertions, formulates
> hypotheses, expresses doubts, holds reasonings, or offers
> interpretations."
> Rather, the iconoscopist extracts *images* "of things categorial" (de
> Tienne). My sense is that both phanerscopy and iconoscopy are
> methodologically studies which individuals take up, who then generalize
> their findings. In any event, you continued:
>
>
> GF: The other is that I've been reading Zalamea's book on *Peirce's Logic
> of Continuity*, which has a lot to say about category theory *in
> mathematics* and how it is related to Peirce's logic and especially to
> existential graphs. I'm not mathematician enough to follow all of
> Zalamea's
> argument, but some of his excitement about Peircean and post-Peircean
> developments in the graphs has rubbed off on me. One result is that I'm
> inclined to leave the term "category theory" to the mathematicians rather
> than apply it to a subdivision of Peirce's classification of sciences.
>
>
>
> I mentioned once or twice on the list that I met with this kind of
> terminological argument/resistance regarding my use of the term 'vector'
> (to refer to one of the six paths possible through a trichotomic relation)
> from mathematicians attending the ICCS conferences in the first decade of
> this century. Fortunately, there were a number of folk at those very
> inter-disciplinary gatherings who defended my use of it, the principal
> argument being that 'vector' is a term employed not only in mathematics,
> but also in physics, computer science, nursing, biology, business, etc.
> The
> ICCS mathematicians came to agree that they did not have an exclusive
> claim
> to that term.
>
>
> So, while mathematicians may want to claim "category theory" as their own
> exclusive term, I would argue that, as with 'vector', that they have no
> legitimate right to do so. Additionally, in the context of Peircean
> phenomenology (or wherever in Peirce's classification of the sciences that
> category theory may fall), I doubt that there could be any confusion as to
> what 'category' means in that expression. Finally, and in passing, I
> earlier noted that indeed it wasn't I but rather Joe Ransdell who first
> used "category theory" to refer to the analysis of trichotomic relations
> (that is, 3-category, or tri-categorial relations in Peirce's sense of,
> especially, genuine trichotomic relations).
>
>
> Btw, Mats Bergman once suggested that I call this science 'Schematology',
> but I find that term rather too vague, and category theory *much more
> specific* as to the matter it studies.
>
>
> As for your comments on "the proof of pragmatism," although I tend to
> agree
> with them, I'll hold off on discussing them until Phyllis takes it up a
> bit
> later in the discussion. Perhaps she'll want to comment on them then.
>
>
> Best,
>
>
> Gary R.
>
>
> GF: As for "the proof of pragmatism," I now see it as a climax of Peirce's
> whole philosophical journey, and his two major works of around 1906 (MS
> 318
> and the "Prolegoma to an Apology for Pragmaticism") bring together his
> semiotic, his diagrammatology (work on the graphs and iconicity), his
> phaneroscopy and his logic of abduction into a unified framework(!) that
> he
> calls pragmaticism. The EP2 editors go so far as to say that "his proof is
> complete" in MS 318 (EP2:398), but the more I pore through his work of
> this
> period, the more I think that he showed why it can never be complete, any
> more than Mind (or Nature) can be complete.
>
>
>
>
>
> *Gary Richmond*
> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
> *Communication Studies*
> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
>
>
> On Thu, Apr 24, 2014 at 11:41 AM, Gary Fuhrman <g...@gnusystems.ca> wrote:
>
>> Returning to Gary's question about moving from the phaneron to what is
>> extracted from it 'for cognitive purposes' -- I don't know whether my
>> impressions will advance the discussion, but I might as well voice them
>> anyway.
>>
>>
>>
>> First, the act of "extracting" anything from the phaneron is (to me)
>> essentially the act of making it an object of attention, i.e. focussing
>> on
>> it as *a* phenomenon of some kind. Then, if we're doing science, the
>> question of *what* kind arises; and if the object of our attention is a
>> concept, that question amounts to asking for a definition of it. Peirce
>> makes it clear in MS 318 (EP2:403) and elsewhere that one frames a
>> scientific definition by "phaneroscopic" analysis; the quotation marks
>> are
>> Peirce's, and to me they suggest that the analysis is a logical one in
>> the
>> sense of *logica docens*, and therefore an outgrowth (rather than a
>> part)
>> of phaneroscopy in its strict prelogical sense. The connection is that
>> just
>> as phaneroscopy looks for the essential elements of the phaneron, a
>> "scientific definition" aims to identify the essential elements of the
>> concept.
>>
>>
>>
>> Kees in 7.1 quotes Peirce as saying that "a concept is the living
>> influence upon us of a *diagram*, or *icon*, with whose several parts
>> are
>> connected in thought an equal number of feelings or ideas"; so it makes
>> sense to regard this logical analysis as "iconoscopy" (De Tienne's
>> term),
>> and as a process which moves us from the prelogical into the realm of
>> logic. This forms part of the larger process whose method we call
>> "pragmatism" or pragmaticism, which I think of as cyclic, or spiralling
>> if
>> it makes some kind of progress.
>>
>>
>>
>> I'm reluctant to say anything about "Category Theory" as a further step
>> along the pragmatistic path, for two reasons. One is that the definition
>> we
>> arrive at by logical analysis or "iconoscopy" (such as the definition of
>> *sign* that Peirce works out in MS 318) does not necessarily make
>> explicit use of the three "categories" (though of course they are
>> implicit
>> everywhere in concepts, and there are often good reasons for making them
>> explicit). The other is that I've been reading Zalamea's book on
>> *Peirce's
>> Logic of Continuity*, which has a lot to say about category theory *in
>> mathematics* and how it is related to Peirce's logic and especially to
>> existential graphs. I'm not mathematician enough to follow all of
>> Zalamea's
>> argument, but some of his excitement about Peircean and post-Peircean
>> developments in the graphs has rubbed off on me. One result is that I'm
>> inclined to leave the term "category theory" to the mathematicians
>> rather
>> than apply it to a subdivision of Peirce's classification of sciences.
>>
>>
>>
>> As for "the proof of pragmatism," I now see it as a climax of Peirce's
>> whole philosophical journey, and his two major works of around 1906 (MS
>> 318
>> and the "Prolegoma to an Apology for Pragmaticism") bring together his
>> semiotic, his diagrammatology (work on the graphs and iconicity), his
>> phaneroscopy and his logic of abduction into a unified framework(!) that
>> he
>> calls pragmaticism. The EP2 editors go so far as to say that "his proof
>> is
>> complete" in MS 318 (EP2:398), but the more I pore through his work of
>> this
>> period, the more I think that he showed why it can never be complete,
>> any
>> more than Mind (or Nature) can be complete. Maybe that's too vague to be
>> worth saying, but it's all I can manage at the moment!
>>
>>
>>
>> gary f.
>>
>>
>>
>> } Experience and scientific understanding are like two legs without
>> which
>> we cannot walk. [Varela, Thompson and Rosch] {
>>
>> www.gnusystems.ca/gnoxic.htm }{ gnoxics
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> *From:* Gary Richmond [mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com]
>> *Sent:* 22-Apr-14 12:45 AM
>>
>> List,
>>
>>
>>
>> I'll continue now with section 7.1, an analysis of "How To Make Our
>> Ideas
>> Clear," which Kees calls "a sustained attempt at a methodology" for
>> doing
>> just that.
>>
>>
>>
>> According to Peirce we enter each inquiry with a jumble of confused
>> ideas
>> concerning whatever topic we are inquiring into, so that it behooves us
>> to
>> clarify each important idea: 'idea' defined by Peirce as "an immediate
>> object of thought." Kees links this to phenomenology by stating that,
>> for
>> Peirce, making our ideas clear involves "the process of extracting
>> something from the phaneron so that it optimally serves some cognitive
>> purpose."
>>
>>
>>
>> This may well be. But how does this 'extraction' occur given that the
>> phaneron is one? Andre de Tienne has argued that a second branch of
>> phenomenology is needed, one which he calls (while suggesting that the
>> term
>> is inexact, which it most surely is) *Iconoscopy*, a science in part
>> meant to connect the myriad objects to the three universal categories
>> discovered in the phaneron. (I have argued that yet a third branch of
>> phenomenology may be required in "the process of extracting something
>> from
>> the phaneron [to serve] some cognitive purpose," a phenomenological
>> science
>> which analyzes trichotomic relations involving all three categories,
>> what
>> I've called *Category Theory* ever since Joe Ransdell referred to it as
>> such in commenting on the tricategorial diagrams (trikons) which
>> appeared
>> in my first paper and ppt slides on the topic).
>>
>>
>>
>> I would be interested in what Kees and others see involved in this
>> process
>> moving from the phaneron to what is extracted from it "for cognitive
>> purposes." It is, for example, presently unclear to me whether
>> Iconoscopy
>> and Category Theory need employ only a logica utens, or whether they
>> retrospectively, as it were, employ a logica docens, specifically,
>> Peirce's
>> logic as semeiotic (once it is sufficiently developed).
>>
>>
>>
>> The chapter continues with a discussion of the three grades of clearness
>> of an idea as outlined in "How to Make Our Ideas Clear" (and. much
>> later,
>> in "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God"). These 'grades' may, I
>> think, be associated with the categories (reading 1ns -> 2ns -> 3ns):
>>
>>
>>
>> (1ns) familiarity with/recognition of a concept
>>
>> |> (3ns) enlivening the abstract def. by developing habits of conduct
>> following the PM
>>
>> (2ns) "an abstract logical analysis of the concept into its ultimate
>> elements" (CP6.481), i.e. an abstract definition
>>
>>
>>
>> Kees emphasizes that a "pragmatistic definition" will therefore
>> necessarily be "open-ended" in the sense that we can always come to know
>> *more* about the object, knowledge which might then modify the
>> definition. Still, even a pragmatistic definition--as a mere "jumble of
>> particulars" (CSP)--would make for a very poor kind of concept
>> clarifier.
>> So, for Peirce, the several parts must must be connected in a kind of
>> diagram (icon), one which will tend to have an influence "creative of a
>> living mind."
>>
>>
>>
>> This would all seem to follow naturally from considering that logic as
>> semeiotic, influenced by normative esthetics and ethics, is concerned
>> with
>> thought capable of self-control, which takes the form of developing
>> habits
>> of thought directed towards the end of achieving greater reasonableness.
>> The PM is applied by Peirce exclusively to "intellectual", which is to
>> say,
>> *general* concepts, such that the only meaning which a concept can have
>> is in its conceivable effects upon conduct. By 'practical' in this
>> context
>> Peirce does not at all refer to physical actions dependent on brute
>> force
>> (2ns), but rather on establishing exactly those habits tending toward
>> furthering the development of reasonableness (3ns) in oneself and in the
>> world (involving also social habits which, as Kees insightfully notes,
>> tend
>> to shape us more than we shape them, this paralleling Peirce's notion
>> that
>> we are in ideas more than they are in us).
>>
>>
>>
>>
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