On Gary’s first point, cf. Peirce, "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws", discussed by Lucia Santella, in Sign System Studies, the reference at https://philpapers.org/rec/SANMAE-8
I recall, and cannot find, Peirce saying somewhere something like that the purpose of signs for inquiry is the reduction of thinking, that is, that when habits are formed and deployed, they leave consciousness (my term, not Peirce’s) free to observe new objects (again, my terms). Do any of you have the source for Peirce on this, or something like it? From: Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com> Reply-To: Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com> Date: Tuesday, February 13, 2018 at 3:57 AM To: Peirce-L <peirce-l@list.iupui.edu> Subject: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Knowledge Bases in Inquiry, Learning, Reasoning Jon, list, 1. I am inclined to agree with you on this. As I understand it, the end of semiosis--both its final cause and its termination--is the production of a habit; a substance is a bundle of habits; and a material substance is a bundle of habits that are so inveterate, it has effectively lost the capacity for Habit-change. Nicely said. And I would suggest that to the extent that a person has "effectively lost the capacity for Habit-change," has become, say, 'set in his ways' or 'married to his theories, that he is, in a sense, to that extent intellectually 'hardened' or spiritually 'deadened'. I'll be interested to see how you develop your idea that the "irreducibly triadic action of semiosis" requires a Quasi-interpreter. I agree that 'things', especially those in nature, can serve as Quasi-utterers of degenerate Signs. 2. Something is a Sign by virtue of having a DO, an IO, and an II--not necessarily a DI, so I do not see the relevance of the mother's inability (at first) to interpret the Sign (correctly, in my view) as standing for the hot burner. She would presumably find this out very quickly, of course, after rushing into the kitchen. I disagree. Whether or not the mother interprets the DI (the cry of her daughter) correctly or not, the cry is part of the child's semiosis, not that of the mother. You continue: The Dynamic Object determines the Sign--perhaps a neural signal of pain--of which the girl's scream is a Dynamic Interpretant; and every Sign determines its Interpretant to stand in the same relation to the Sign's Dynamic Object as the Sign itself does. Hence both the internal neural signal and the external scream are Indices of the hot burner; at least, that is how I see it at the moment. I would say that the Interpretant standing in the same relation to the Sign's DO as the Sign does concerns the child's sign only. I see the mother as grounding (in the sense of semiotic 'determination') her Immediate Object for her, the mother's) semiosis not in the distant burner but in the cry of her child. So I still hold that the child is the Dynamic Object of the mother's Sign action (semiosis). Again, in my understanding the interpretant standing "in the same relation to the Sign's Dynamic Object as the Sign itself does" applies to a different Sign, namely, that of the child. 3. Did you mean to say "Quasi-mind," rather than "Quasi-sign"? My current tentative definition of "Quasi-mind" is a bundle of Collateral Experience and Habits of Interpretation (i.e., a reacting substance) that retains the capacity for Habit-change (i.e., learning by experience), and thus can be the Quasi-utterer of a genuine Sign (since this requires a purpose) and the Quasi-interpreter of any Sign. Yes, of course I meant Quasi-mind and not Quasi-sign (an impossibility, I'd think). I'll have to reflect on your "current tentative definition of 'Quasi-mind' " which at first blush seems quite promising. 4. I addressed this already in the "Aristotle and Peirce" thread. It would be helpful for me if you'd comment on my thought that Edwina may be using 'Form' in a different sense than Peirce such that in her sense it would connect more to 3ns than to 1ns. And of course I'd be especially eager to hear what Edwina thinks about that interpretation. Best, Gary R [Gary Richmond] Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York 718 482-5690<tel:(718)%20482-5690> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 10:01 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com<mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com>> wrote: Gary R., List: 1. I am inclined to agree with you on this. As I understand it, the end of semiosis--both its final cause and its termination--is the production of a habit; a substance is a bundle of habits; and a material substance is a bundle of habits that are so inveterate, it has effectively lost the capacity for Habit-change. As a result, it seems to me that the behavior of such "things" can in most or all cases be adequately analyzed in terms of dyadic action/reaction, rather than the irreducibly triadic action of semiosis. In fact, I am leaning toward seeing the latter as requiring a Quasi-mind (see #3 below), at least to serve as the Quasi-interpreter, even though "things" can certainly serve as Quasi-utterers (i.e., Dynamic Objects) of degenerate Signs. 2. Something is a Sign by virtue of having a DO, an IO, and an II--not necessarily a DI, so I do not see the relevance of the mother's inability (at first) to interpret the Sign (correctly, in my view) as standing for the hot burner. She would presumably find this out very quickly, of course, after rushing into the kitchen. The Dynamic Object determines the Sign--perhaps a neural signal of pain--of which the girl's scream is a Dynamic Interpretant; and every Sign determines its Interpretant to stand in the same relation to the Sign's Dynamic Object as the Sign itself does. Hence both the internal neural signal and the external scream are Indices of the hot burner; at least, that is how I see it at the moment. 3. Did you mean to say "Quasi-mind," rather than "Quasi-sign"? My current tentative definition of "Quasi-mind" is a bundle of Collateral Experience and Habits of Interpretation (i.e., a reacting substance) that retains the capacity for Habit-change (i.e., learning by experience), and thus can be the Quasi-utterer of a genuine Sign (since this requires a purpose) and the Quasi-interpreter of any Sign. 4. I addressed this already in the "Aristotle and Peirce" thread. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt<http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt<http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Mon, Feb 12, 2018 at 7:05 PM, Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com<mailto:gary.richm...@gmail.com>> wrote: Jon S, Edwina, list, For now, just some preliminary thoughts on Jon's several bullet points. In response to Edwina, Jon wrote: 1. It seems like we both struggle, although in different ways, with talking about Signs as individual "things"--like "a stone on a sandy beach," or "an organism" trying to survive--vs. talking about Signs within a continuous process. That is why I find your tendency to use the term "Sign" for the entire interaction of DO-[IO-R-II] problematic, and why I hoped that when we jointly recognized the internal triad of [IO-R-II] some months ago, we would thereafter conscientiously call this (and only this) the Sign, while always acknowledging that there is no Sign without a DO. My view is that while such an individual thing as a crystal has been created by some semiosic process, that the semiosis is (internally) more or less complete once the crystal is formed, and this is so even as we can analyze aspects of the three categories present in/as the crystal (these no longer being semiotic, but rather, phenomenological categories). John Deely, who introduced the idea of physiosemiosis, did not argue for a, shall we say, vital 'process' of physiosemiosis once rocks and the like have been formed: "Deely . . . notably in Basics of Semiotics, laid down the argument that the action of signs extends even further than life, and that semiosis as an influence of the future played a role in the shaping of the physical universe prior to the advent of life, a role for which Deely coined the term physiosemiosis." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Deely As suggested above, I think that it was Peirce's view that what Delly termed "physiosemiosis" not only "played a role in the shaping of the physical universe prior to the advent of life" but has played one since and does so today, and not only in the formation of crystals. But, again, in my view, once the crystal is formed the (internal) semiosis ends (yes, it continues to have a relation to its environment, and there will be atomic and sub-atomic activity necessarily occurring, but I personally have yet to be convinced that such activity constitutes a form of semiosis, while some physicists have argued that it does). Living organisms present a more difficult problem. The work of Stjernfelt (esp. in Natural Propositions: The Actuality of Peirce's Doctrine of Dicisigns), not to mention the whole thrust of the science of Biosemiotics holds not only that any living organism, but the organism in relation to its environment (its Umwelt) is fully involved in complex semiosic activity. I would tend to strongly agree. 2. As I noted in my own reply to Gary, I instead view the DI of the child (the utterer) as an external Sign for the mother (the interpreter), and its DO is still the hot burner. While I also view the DI of the child as an external Sign for her mother, I do not see the DO as the hot burner. The mother, say, who was out of the room for the moment of the accident, hearing her child's scream may not connect the scream (the Sign) with the stove at all. So then what is the DO? I think that rather than the hot burner (as Jon holds) that it's the child herself. 3. Your mind is indeed an individual manifestation of Mind; but again, I suspect that Peirce used "Quasi-mind" to accommodate cases that most people would not normally associate with "mind." As I've posted now a couple of times, in my opinion the concept "Quasi-sign" needs much further discussion, perhaps a thread of its own. I would for now merely suggest that while it no doubt does "accommodate cases that most people would not normally associate with "mind," that the concept includes more ordinary cases as well. 4. If to you "Form has [parameters] and laws and continuity," then you are not referring to the same thing that Peirce called "Form" when he contrasted it with Matter in NEM 4:292-300 and EP 2:303-304. At times in this discussion as to the meaning of 'Form', while there seems to me that for Peirce 'Form' is 1ns, Edwina's analysis of Form seems to me more related to structure--the forms of the organization of related elements in a material system, rather than the forms of the elements themselves. In that physical system the organization would in many if not all cases have "parameters, laws, and continuity." Best, Gary R [Gary Richmond] Gary Richmond Philosophy and Critical Thinking Communication Studies LaGuardia College of the City University of New York 718 482-5690<tel:(718)%20482-5690> ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. 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