Helmut, et al.,
By casting “reasons” as a can of worms, I certainly didn’t intend to diminish their semiotic significance in the least! Does it constitute its own category of indexicality? If so, how does human causal agency (where I assume at least some ‘reasons’ originate) interweave semiotically with empirical causality?
The (so-called) ‘climate change’ problem would be an especially interesting case to explore from the indexical perspective. IMHO, crucial distinctions between ‘climate change’ on one hand and ‘climate crisis’ on the other are all too easily obscured and lost precisely because of difficulties in grasping the semiotics of causality, especially with respect to human causal agency. Again … more to ponder, research, and study.
Thanks!
Terry
From: Helmut Raulien <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2019 4:33 PM
To: Terry L Rankin <[email protected]>
Cc: Jerry Rhee <[email protected]>; Peirce List <[email protected]>
Subject: Aw: RE: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Is Semiotics nonhumanist?
Thank you, Terry, List,
you wrote, that regarding reasons for prerequisites (for the capacity to send and receive different kinds of signs) strikes you as opening another can of worms, regarding purposes etc. This can contents is exactly what I find interesting: reasons as different kinds of causality (efficient, final, volitional), and their emergences as system qualities, corresponding to inventions/emergences of nature, like matter/energy, life, neurons.
Best,
Helmut
30. November 2019 um 18:43 Uhr
"Terry L Rankin" <[email protected]>wrote:
Thanks, Helmut!
My question was more philosophical than scientific, I think. Perhaps “sign utterance and reception” as such roughly maps onto linguistics and communications, while the “capability of uttering and receiving signs” refers to the cognitive (semiotic) predispositions to utter and receive signs. Simple ‘send / receive’ seems more fitting than ‘utterance and reception’ perhaps – both humans and microwave towers possess inherent predispositions to send and receive signs (or signals), but the difference is categorical, I think: signal towers are neither sentient nor sapient but semiosic humans are both (in name at least).
My initial response would be ‘yes’ to both questions: the (communications or linguistic) science of sending and receiving signs (or signals) would include or at least intersect with the (physical and cognitive) sciences concerning the (electronic or neurological) predispositions forming the capacity to do so – specifically as prerequisites for that capacity. “Reasons” for doing so strikes me as another can of worms entirely, regarding motives, intents, purposes, etc. for exercising that capability.
RE: organisms as signs, or specifically “Man is a sign” -- don’t semioticians generally agree that signs may be primitive, compound, complex, more or less systematically or haphazardly arranged, sent, received, etc.? As sign systems, ordinary languages (all 7,000+ of them) as well as specialized languages (maths, programming, codes, etc.) appear to be clear examples where form and structure (syntax?) contain and carry (send / receive) meaning and relevance, belief and truth (semantics?), usually (but not always) to serve some purpose (pragmatics?). Inasmuch as these all relate mainly if not entirely to symbolic semiotics, when the wider 1stness and 2ndness of iconicity and indexically fold into the semiotic fabric, then it seems quite plausible to view both living (organisms) and non-living things (everything else) as being (more or less) complex arrangements of (more or less) systematically interrelated signs of all three kinds. I take this to be the “perfusion of signs” often cited in what Sebeok calls Peirce’s “bedazzling sentence.”
Closing note: a semiotic extension of the communications concept of ‘signal-to-noise ratio’ would seem to play an important role here – e.g., wouldn’t superstring theory suggest that all things living and non-living alike exist or not based on the harmonious resonance, as it were, through which all things coalesce into wholes of their semiotic parts, all within a universally semiotic brane? Would those wholes dissipate, dissolve, disintegrate, collapse, implode, or shatter as that resonance became dissonant due to noise levels in their semiotic structure (recall those cheesy “Is it live or is it Memorex?” commercials)? I realize I’m stretching a metaphor here, of course, but intuitively at least, this SNR idea seems to have an intriguing semiotic relevance. Perhaps it’s a case of the “much unfinished research still to do” …?
Terry
From: Helmut Raulien <[email protected]>
Sent: Saturday, November 30, 2019 11:33 AM
To: Terry L Rankin <[email protected]>
Cc: Jerry Rhee <[email protected]>; Peirce List <[email protected]>
Subject: Aw: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Is Semiotics nonhumanist?
Terry, All,
I dont know. My question would be: Does the science about sign utterance and reception by organisms include the science about their capabilty of uttering and receiving signs, and the reasons and prerequisites for having and using this capability, or not?
And: To just call organisms signs too, isnt that a quick shot? On the other hand: To dualize it in the way of Luhmann and Maturana and Varela, by saying that the communications are one system, the communicators another, both being structurally coupled, is this a shortcut too, explaining the problem (of the epistemic cut or whatever) away by introducing the term "structural coupling"?
If the answer to both questions is "yes" (which I just suspect, but am not sure about), then I guess there is much unfinished research work still to do.
Best,
Helmut
30. November 2019 um 02:21 Uhr
"Terry L Rankin" <[email protected]>
wrote:
All,
Am I missing something or isn’t this the primary focus of biosemiotics and cybersemiotics?
Still in One Peace,
Terry
From: Jerry Rhee <[email protected]>
Sent: Friday, November 29, 2019 5:22 PM
To: Helmut Raulien <[email protected]>
Cc: Peirce List <[email protected]>
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Is Semiotics nonhumanist?
Dear Helmut list,
‘Man is a Sign.’
Accordingly, just as we say that a body is in motion, and not that motion is in a body we ought to say that we are in thought and not that thoughts are in us.
With best wishes,
Jerry R
On Fri, Nov 29, 2019 at 3:32 PM Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> wrote:
Hello List,
I am having the idea that maybe semiotics is non-humanist. But what would be humanist? Examples:
- Kant said, that humans do not have value, but dignity, and that you should not treat them merely as means, but always as aims too.
- In Buddhism people (and other organisms) have an innate Buddha-nature.
- In Judaeo-Christian-Islamic religions, and in Brahmanism people have an immortal soul. It is arguable however, whether religions are humanist or rather their antithesises are. Depends on interpretation, I guess, and whether one conceptualizes a benign or a wrathful God.
In Semiotics it is all about signs, performance. In Capitalism it is about the value in the sense of performance people give for serving the rich ("human capital"). In Semiotics it is about the value/performance for the phaneron. The interpreting system is not denied, but mostly ignored. So I donot suspect,that semiotics is antihumanist, just nonhumanist, like just not talking about the interpreters, but only about the interpretants. I guess that is ok for some time, but at some point maybe it would be ok too to take the interpreting systems, like people and other organisms into account too, and combine semiotics with systems theories? What do you think?
Best,
Helmut
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