Dear Gary and others,
Having read this it occurred to me that in practopoietic systems the
sign would correspond to "downward pressure for adjustment". That is,
the components of the system, individually or more of them collectively,
detect signs indicating that there is a need to act -- a need to make
changes either on the organism itself or on its environment.
But only a subset of those would be considered as a part of the mind
-- provided that mind is defined in mainstream terms.
One may however, generalize to other cybernetic systems too. So, in a
thermostat a "sign" would be any physical event indicating a difference
in the target and actual temperature of a room and hence, indicating a
need for action.
This brings an interesting question for me, but maybe trivial for
you: What does Peirce say about thermostats? Does his theory apply at all?
Danko
On 30/03/15 06:29, Sungchul Ji wrote:
Gary F, Danko, lists,
I wonder if a diagram, in addition to words, might be helpful in
clarifying the complex relations among "theories". "laws", "sings" ,
"objects", "mind", etc.
As all Peirceans would agree, the sign is irreducibly triadic, which I
often represent diagrammatically thus [1, see Table V]:
f
g
Object ------------> Sign (also called
'Representamen') ------------> Interpretant
|
^
|
|
|_______________________________________________________|
h
Figure 1. The Peircean sign as an irreducible triad characterized by
the commutative relation, f x g = h, meaning that operation f followed
by operation g leads to the same results as operation h, where f =
natural process, g = mental process, and h = information flow [1].
Gary F's remark above seems to map "laws" and "theories" on to the
triadic tempalte of teh sign difgferently from mine, as shown in the
following table:
______________________________________________________________
Table 1. Possible mappings of "theories", "laws", and "phenomena"
on to
the triadic template of the Peircean sign.
______________________________________________________________
author Object Sign
Interpretant
______________________________________________________________
Gary F Laws Theories ?
Sung Laws Phenomena Theories
.
.
.
_______________________________________________________________
In the definition of signs by Peirce, the 'mind' is not explicitly
implicated as an element of the triad but, without it, the sign cannot
exist, since the interpretant is the effect that a sign has on the
mind of the interpreter of the sign. The following two quotes from [2]
clarifies the relation between a sign and a mind:
/*
4 - 1873 - MS 380 - Of logic as a study of signs .*/
"A sign is something which stands for another thing to a mind."
/*9 - v. 1897_- C.P. 2-228 - Division of signs .*/
A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for
something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is,
creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign or perhaps a
more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the
interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its
object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in
reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes called the ground
of the representamen. [...]
Finally, I would like to point out that the triadic definition of a
sign and that of a mathematical category is almost identical, and that
many mathematicians and theoretical physicists seem to believe that
physics and mathematics can be unified under the framework of the
category theory [3, 4], in agreement with Table V in [1].
With all the best.
Sung
Reference:
[1] Ji, S. (2015). Planckian distributions in molecular machines,
living cells, brains: The wave-particle duality in biomedical
sciences. Proceedings of the International Conference on Biology and
Biomedical Engineering, Vienna, March 15-17, 2015, pp. 115-137. PDF
previously circulated on these lists and will be provided upon request.
[2] 76 Definitions of The Sign by C. S. Peirce collected and
analyzed by Robert Marty at
http://www.iupui.edu/~arisbe/rsources/76DEFS/76defs.HTM
<http://www.iupui.edu/%7Earisbe/rsources/76DEFS/76defs.HTM>.
[3] Grand Unification of Physics and Mathematics.
https://www.math.columbia.edu/~woit/wordpress/?p=7114
<https://www.math.columbia.edu/%7Ewoit/wordpress/?p=7114>
[4] Burgin, M. (2004). Unified Foundations for Mathematics.
arXiv:math/0403186v1 <http://arxiv.org/abs/math/0403186v1> [math.LO].
On Sun, Mar 29, 2015 at 8:31 AM, Gary Fuhrman <[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>> wrote:
Danko, you “consider physical laws to be a product of our minds.”
A more Peircean view would be that physical /theories/ are
products of our minds, or rather of our inquiries. Theories of
course are /signs/; and the /objects/ of those signs, insofar as
the theories are testable and fallible, are the real physical laws
which actually govern what happens in the physical universe
whether anyone knows it or not. If you are saying that there are
no physical laws operating independently of our minds, i.e. no
/real/ and general physical laws, then your metaphysics is
nominalistic. Peirce’s on the other hand was realistic.
gary f.
-----Original Message-----
From: Danko Nikolic [mailto:[email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>]
Sent: 29-Mar-15 6:54 AM
To: Evgenii Rudnyi; [email protected]
<mailto:[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] abduction in the brain
Dear Evgenii,
My replies bellow:
On 29/03/15 11:09, Evgenii Rudnyi wrote:
> Thank you. I have one more question about physical. We talk
after all
> about processes in time and the question would be on how it happens
> according to your view. To this end, let me quote from Tim
Maudlin's
> "The Metaphysics Within Physics"
>
> “I believe there is a fundamental physical state of the world.”
>
No.
> “In addition to the physical state of the universe, I believe in
> fundamental physical laws.”
>
No.
> “Once the total physical state of the universe and the laws of
physics
> are fixed, every other fact, such as may be, supervenes.”
>
Not in reality. However, this may be a damn good approximation,
maybe the best that we can come up with. So, for all practical
purposes, perhaps yes. But in reality, not really.
> Would you agree with such a description of physical processes?
Or do
> you consider a physical process differently?
>
I consider it differently.
I consider physical laws to be a product of our minds. They are
not really fundamental. Our physics is just a practical way of
organizing knowledge. These laws are fundamental only for our way
of thinking about it. If we had different minds i.e., if the
evolution took some other direction to make us intelligent enough
to develop technology, we would have different "physics" too. We
would consider some other descriptive rules as fundamental.
It would be more fair to say that minds came first and that these
minds then invented physical laws (and mathematics and so on).
However, having said that, I also have to make a qualifier. I
disagree that science (i.e., physics-based science) will never
explained qualia or mind.
I believe that with our physics-based model of the universe we
will be able to explain qualia -- despite physics not being
fundamental. (This is what practopoiesis is about, anyway.)
It may not be the simplest or most practical explanation but,
importantly, we can do it.
Once we have done it, we can look back more accurately to
reconsider what we want to adopt as fundamental. What should be
the most elegant model of "everything"? In which way can we make
most accurate descriptions and predictions of as many phenomena
with as parsimonious model possible?
Maybe at that time it will become apparent to the mainstream
science that physics needs to be replaced with something else.
Perhaps we should establish the rules of the mind, use them as
fundamental and consider physics "supervening" on these rules. In
fact, I would argue that this is exactly what we can do already
today, using results from mainstream science of the mind and add
to it even the mainstream physiology and anatomy of the brain. We
can find the rules that "govern our universe" already in the
functional anatomy of the cerebrum and in the ways how we think in
general and make decisions, categorizations, inferences.
Maybe Peirce has already hinted on that mind-based approach. Or
has he already elaborated it to a substantial degree?
I wouldn't know. Please tell me.
Danko
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--
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 <http://www.conformon.net>
--
Prof. Dr. Danko Nikolić
Web:
http://www.danko-nikolic.com
Mail address 1:
Department of Neurophysiology
Max Planck Institut for Brain Research
Deutschordenstr. 46
60528 Frankfurt am Main
GERMANY
Mail address 2:
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Wolfgang Goethe University
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