On Jul 28, 2014, at 6:24 PM, Sungchul Ji <[email protected]> wrote:
> I don't understand what you mean by "holistically" here. I thought there > is only one way to understand/interpret thermodynamics -- scientifically. Yes but any scientific model is simplified. You exclude other systems that the system under analysis is in connection with. So physicists will simplify things as closed systems or drastically limit what systems it is in contact with. In the real world what is marginalized in such idealizations can have a significance. To give a classic example Creationists often claim evolution violates the laws of thermodynamics because they neglect that the earth and even the solar system is not a closed system. > I suppose, depending on context, you can interpret thermodynamic concepts and > laws "non-scientifically", "non-professionally” or "common-sensically”. No this really is pure physics. So I’m not trying to use thermodynamics loosely. While I’ll be the first to admit it’s been far too many years since I last took thermodynamics (my background is physics) I don’t think there’s anything I’ve said that doesn’t apply formally. I’m using all terms in their technical sense except later when I take you to be making a broader semiotics point on the basis of thermodynamics as analogy. > This statement is true but is missing the point of differentiating between > “equilibrium structures” and “dissipative structures”: A magnetic tape is an > equilibrium structure in contrast to the sound or images it can be induced to > generate upon energy input through a tape reader. Again, at risk of being pedantic, it’s technically in a quasi-equilibrium state due to the temporal issues at play. That is a tape left alone decays. My sense is that these temporal issues are being marginalized in your analysis when they are actually quite important. (I might be wrong in that - but it appears a common flaw in these sorts of analysis) > This statement is akin to the claim that there is a continuum between an > artificial flower and a real flower, which is true on one level but not true > on another level. That is, at the morphological level, both artificial and > real flowers can be indistinguishable (or continuous), while at the > thermodynamic level, the artificial flower does not dissipative energy and > the real flower does. I would not be surprised at all if Peirce discussed > something similar in his writings on synechism. I’m not sure that gets at the distinction. It would be better to say an idealized flower and a real flower since the artificial flower is still dissipative, to use your terminology. It’s this question of idealization which I think is quite key here. Again, by way of analogy to thermodynamics the ideal gas law is a very good example of what I’m getting at. Such idealizations are an important tool for physicists and chemists. But it is quite common to assume the idealizations are the reality, when they are a model. Now of course we can go down the tangent here of discussing scholastic realism and the role of such idealisms as laws in science. But my sense is that perhaps gets us away from the questions at hand. > You seem to assume here that the thermodynamic principles (e.g., principles > differentiating the equilibrium and dissipative systems) obeyed in physics > and chemistry are somewhat different from those obeyed in more broad > semiotics. I think there is a difference between idealized signs and the particular objects physics and chemistry studies in the real world. The question of the ontology of thermodynamics and thermodynamic law is an interesting one. However I’ve intentionally avoided that discussion. I’ll just say that I’m discussing thermodynamics as used in physics (and thereby chemistry) rather than attempting to connect *formally* thermodynamics and semiotics either via information theory or other ontological commitments. I’m just nervous enough about making that ontological leap. There may well be mathematical similarities between the two but the subject matter within physics simply is different. Put an other way while it is amazing the universe is as mathematical as it is I am not willing to make the leap to saying math is the fundamental ontology of the universe. That seems a leap too far and in need of considerable argument. So yes, I’m making a distinction between semiotics and thermodynamics within physics conceived either phenomenologically (in the physics not philosophical sense) or in terms of statistical mechanics. I think we can discuss the latter as a semiotic system. But I think there’s a difference between semiotics in the abstract and physics just as there is a difference between mathematics and physics. The later applies the former to physical phenomena. I recognize in saying this that at least the early Peirce adopts a quasi-neo-platonic ontology that would make semiotics a fundamental ontology. After once being convinced that was the view of the mature Peirce I’m not much more skeptical of that idea. In either case even in Peirce did believe this I don’t think he offers sufficient argument for me to adopt such a view. No matter how attractive it might seem. > I firmly believe that that following statement is true (and hence recommend > it to be referred to as the First Principle of Semiotics, in analogy to the > First Law of > Thermodynamics): > > “No energy dissipation, no semiosis.” (072814-7) > > The following corollaries would result from Statement (072814-7): > > “Sign systems cannot perform semiosis (072814-8) > in their equilibrium states.” > > “Sign systems can perform semiosis if and (072814-9) > only if they are in non-equilibrium states.” > I confess I don’t see how those are true, depending upon how you specify energy dissipation. Or, perhaps an other way of putting it within a physical system is a total lack of energy dissipation possible? (I suspect, given what I said earlier, this quest for something beyond absolute zero is perhaps again the quest for the transcendent sign) I would like you to perhaps break out a little more what you mean by equilibrium state. Again there are temporal issues at play. For instance even a system that, when perturbed, returns to its original state can be said to be in a kind of equilibrium yet when analyzed carefully along a temporal analysis there are places where actions are taking place. (In particular the purtebation) It seems like you are considering a start state and end state but neglecting what happens in the middle. Now of course for some sorts of physics (say within Feynman diagrams for the quantum mechanical analogy of Lagrangian mechanics interactions) we can talk about virtual particles and can’t say whether such virtual particles are really modifying or not. Mathematically they are the same as if they were undergoing all sorts of changes. However in terms of the thermodynamic analysis in which you are making of course there’s all the difference in the world. > “Yet (and this is key for Peirce’s semiotics) there is (072814-12) > always a gap between object and interpretant in this > process. For Peirce this is best conceived by way of > the Epicurean notion of swerve.” > > This statement is interesting to me because it seems to bring together > semiotics and thermodynamics in an imaginative manner. If I am right in > interpreting the Epircurean swerve as analogous to Brownian motions in > statistical mechanics, i.e., the microscopic version of thermodynamics, > just as Democritus’ atom is analogous to the quantum mechanical atom, I > can see how Epicurean swerve may be implicated in semiosis. Brownian > motions are random, whereas semiosis is non-random, but these two may be > fundamentally linked if we can assume that semiosis implicates selecting > one out of all possible choices made available by random motions. This > picture of semiosis is suggested by my recent findings (i) that the > decision-time histograms fit the Plackian distribution function (PDF), > also called GPE, the generalized Planck equation (see Eq. (2) in [1]) and > (ii) that PDF can be derived from the Gaussian distribution function > based on the drift-diffusion model of decision making [2, 3]. While Epicurus’ swerve has some parallel to statistical mechanics I think he meant it in a far more fundamental ontological fashion. Peirce’s adoption of this notion also was a fundamental ontology. One can of course disagree with Peirce but it is quite interesting that he did adopt such a notion during an era of physics when determinism ruled. Decades before quantum mechanics was discovered let alone accepted uncontroversially. I think one should be careful here or at least make explicit ones assumptions. (Peirce is quite good about that) I think Peirce’s point though is that semiosis unavoidedly has this random element to it. This can be conceived along two different axes. First the semiotic evolution as the object determines its interpretant. (It is key for Peirce’s semiotics that one starts with object not the interpreter as in so many others conceptions - in modern philosophical parlance I think this means that Peirce is an Externalist. At least epistemologically and semantically and most likely in other ways as well.) There is an element of swerve in this process from object via sign to interpretant. Indeed this gap is key to Peirce’s conception of sign. (He makes this quite explicit in his mature thought such as in his Letter to Lady Webly) When we reverse this process in order to interpret signs in order to understand their object we have to bridge this gap with a guess. This is the place of abduction. The gap can never be eliminated which is why such regulatory concepts as Peirce’s “in the long run” and “the community of inquirers” play such an important role. The problem of treating this gap as “random” can be dangerous as one must then unpack what one means by random. I confess this is an area of Peirce I just haven’t read much on. So perhaps others can chime in. My sense is that random as used in gaussian distributions or the like assumes a particular distribution that the gap in a sign doesn’t assume. That is randomness of the sort we typically worry about in physics or statistics is actually well defined. (Thus our focus on gaussian or poisson distributions for example) What Peirce wants is something far more fundamental in its indeterminism. How far he wishes to go, whether merely epistemological or ontological I can’t say. Certainly in his early neoPlatonic period it seems quite deep indeed. (See “Peirce as a NeoPlatonist: The Ascent of the Soul to Nous” by Kelly Parker for an excellent treatment although in one key place in his argument the evidence isn’t quite as strong as one would wish)
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