(Sorry for the length, but it’s a subtle point I’m after) > On Sep 10, 2014, at 2:31 PM, Sungchul Ji <[email protected] > <mailto:[email protected]>> wrote: > > According to Edwina, all well-formed formulas of the form y = f (x) > implicates semiosis. So my question is > > "Does entropy or entropy change implicate semiosis ?" (091014-4)
If I understand Frederick correctly (and I thank him for his explanations), he is more interested in the sort of “z stands for X for Y." Examples of that sort aren’t in physics as normally done. I agree with Frederick there. And again, I agree with Frederick that explanations of that form are rather common in biology. Teleological explanations being the most common example. Now it’s true that in the 50’s and 60’s there was a strong reductionist move to make biology reducible to physics. (Although clearly it goes back long before then) While this movement ultimately failed, I think it did make biologists more careful about their explanations. Especially in evolution. So while biologists will still say things like eyes evolved for mammals to see, when pressed they’ll give an explanation in terms of chance, selection and efficient causation. This then leads one to the question of when we are simply using sign-like explanations and when we think they are in the phenomena itself. (The distinction Frederick makes in his last reply to me) I confess that this seems a rather blurry distinction at best. Further it seems a distinction to which we’ll give different answers depending upon whether we are descriptive or prescriptive in our pronouncements. It seems undeniable that physicists use teleological language, albeit far less frequently than biologists. (The exception perhaps being cosmology and astronomy) However I’d also say that most physicists would quickly say such language is metaphoric. That is they’d say it is purely pedagogical and not a real description of the physics. On the other hand biologists are quite a bit more willing to say such descriptions are unavoidable in biology. Not just as a shorthand to say things like, “the peacock shows its tail features to attract a mate” but in deeper ways. I’ll confess a certain sympathy for those who still think biology could use a bit more reductionist fervor. On the other hand it also seems undeniable that when talking about humans or things like human, signs are unavoidable. While it’s an article of faith among physicalists that things can be reduced to something like physics, I also confess I’m very skeptical of most forms of physicalism’s description of mind. Peirce’s view seems the most reasonable to my mind, adopting a position at least somewhat similar to property dualism. (Not properly of course - rather than a dualism Peirce would see a continuum) However I think he sees mind as an irreducible facet of the universe and thus any higher order type of mind would be emergent in more simple says from physical stuff with quasi-mental like properties. That said, if mind or at least quasi-mind is an irreducible facet of the universe, what does that say about physics? I suspect it’ll mean that eventually some future physics will have to deal with mind, and thereby signs. Even if, as Frederick correctly recognizes, it looks askance at such notions now. (To say the least) The question then becomes whether elements of this quasi-mind are in existing physical descriptions. That’s much more controversial. And considering how Frederick is carefully using semiotics, I’d say that right now it’s not required. That’s not to say it isn’t there. I think the observer in some formulations of quantum mechanics and arguably the same in relativity are usually seen as artifacts of thought experiments. The question is, however, given that they seem unavoidable in physical description, aren’t they like the teleology in biology? The difference being only that physicists when they use them don’t take them seriously? Much like a biologist seeing “the eye is for seeing” as a shorthand for a complex evolutionary process due to efficient causation. I bring this up since while I can now understand why Frederick makes the point he does, I think it ends up being more about how common a particular stance is within each science. So psychologists, for instance, clearly take signs seriously and physicists tend to see it as an artifact. This means, however, that the ambiguity Frederick raised between “whether there is a sign process going on when we’re not looking,” and “we use sign-like concepts in shaping our knowledge” hinges upon a perspective about what the final truth of the matter in physics is. Which seems problematic.
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