John,
OK, now I see that the problem is terminological. I don’t recall anyone (including Deacon, Peirce and Stjernfelt) referring to icons as “firsts” and indices as “seconds”, so I don’t think you could expect that to be understood. Also, as NP Chapter 3 makes very clear, dicisigns necessarily involve both iconic and indexical functions, so they can’t very well “precede” them in semiotic evolution. Frederick’s main point here (especially in 6.9) is the holistic one that biologically simple signs evolved from primitive inference processes by differentiation, not by assembly of pre-existing components. I think we all agree on that. But investigation into that evolution has nothing to do with phaneroscopy (except indirectly, as all inquiry does, since its basic principles are logical/semiotic, and these in turn depend on mathematics and phaneroscopy, according to Peirce.) So I was confused by your usage of phenomenological/phaneroscopic terms in a discourse where they don’t belong, e.g. “firsts and seconds as objects of attention”. gary f. From: John Collier [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 3-Dec-14 1:57 AM To: [email protected]; Peirce Discussion Forum Subject: [biosemiotics:7664] Re: Natural Propositions Chapter 6 and phaneroscopy See the first chapter of Natural Propositions. I don't want to go back over work we have already covered. The issue arise because of Deacon's assumption that firsts (icons) evolve first, then seconds (indexes) and finally thirds, all through a process of combination. Frederik's view is that dicents are there from the beginning in biology, and there are no "naked" firsts or seconds that are specifically biological. I concur. I think that firsts and seconds as objects of attention are purely abstracted and theoretical, and are not the place to start investigations. John On 2014-12-02 11:40 PM, Gary Fuhrman wrote: John, I have no idea what you might mean by “firsts and seconds in biology”, or how dicent signs could “precede” them. Perhaps Frederik does, since you attribute that opinion to him … But maybe this will be clarified by your concluding post on Chapter 6 of NP. (We’ll wait for that before we start Chapter 7.)
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