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}John, list: As you say - you've evaded the issue.
My own interest is in examining the 'rational materialization of
Mind' - each of which I consider a Sign, or rather, a Sign-process,
since nothing is static. So, rather than saying that a single
bacterium 'has' a quasi-mind, I'd consider that bacterium to be a
semiosic materialization of Mind. The brain is not the same as Mind.
Edwina
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On Sun 02/04/17 12:00 PM , John F Sowa [email protected] sent:
On 4/2/2017 11:04 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
> I like your terms and yes, Peirce has indeed used all of them.
> My question is: What would your definition be of a 'sign'?
> You use it often in the chart but it has no definition.
I'm glad that you approve of the choice of terms.
Re definition of sign: I agree with all of Peirce's definitions.
He used different words and phrases on various occasions, but I
believe that they are consistent ways of expressing the fundamental
relationships.
In "Signs and Reality", I quoted one of them (CP 2.228), but it uses
the word 'person', which would exclude computers. Later, I quoted
“Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain” (CP 4.551).
And I also believe that his term 'quasi-mind' is important for
biosemiotics and computer systems.
In short, I evaded the issue. But I think that Peirce also evaded
the issue -- for a very good reason: Within a particular formal
system (axioms in some version of logic), it's possible to state
necessary and sufficient conditions that cover all and every use
of a term within that system.
But the question of how or whether a particular formal theory
applies to some aspect of the real world is an empirical issue.
Nobody knows what kinds of quasi-minds might exist somewhere
in the universe.
Even within our own brains, neuroscientists are constantly
discovering unexpected features. If a single bacterium could
be considered to have a quasi-mind, what about a single neuron
in the brain? A single eukaryotic cell has several organelles,
derived from more primitive cells that have been "swallowed"
and incorporated into the larger cell. Are those organelles
also "quasi-minds"?
Marvin Minsky coined the term 'Society of Mind'. Are our brains
societies of billions of quasi-minds (neurons), each of which is
a society of even smaller quasi-minds?
John
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