List, I recently came upon this quite short article, "A necessary condition for proof of abioticsemiosis," by Marc Champagne (Semiotica, issue 197 (October 2013), pp. 283–287).
*Abstract:* This short essay seeks to identify and prevent a pitfall that attends less careful inquiries into “physiosemiosis.” It is emphasized that, in order to truly establish the presence of sign-action in the non-living world, all the components of a triadic sign – including the interpretant – would have to be abiotic (that is,not dependent on a living organism). Failure to heed this necessary condition can lead one to hastily confuse a natural sign (like smoke coming from fire) for an instance of abiotic semiosis. A more rigorous and reserved approach to the topicis called for. John Deely endorsed, and so in a way (re)introduced, the idea of *physiosemiosis* (a term he is credited with coining) to contemporary semiotic communities, including the Peircean community. *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*. Thus the argument whether the manner in which the action of signs permeates the universe includes the nonliving as well as the living stands, as it were, as determining the "final frontier" of semiotics. Deely's argument, which he first expressed at the 1989 Charles Sanders Peirce Sesquicentennial International Congress at Harvard University, if successful, would render nugatory Peirce's "sop to Cerberus." Deely's *Basics of Semiotics*, of which six expanded editions have been published across nine languages, deals with semiotics in this expansive sense. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Deely#Contributions_to_semiotics In a footnote on Deely's approach to this matter, Champagne remarks: Although Deely was prompted to endorse the idea of physiosemiosis by his syncretistic study of Charles S. Peirce and John Poinsot (cf. Deely [Basics of semiotics, Indiana University Press] 1990: 87–91), his ambitious promissory note can also be motivated (perhaps more persuasively) by an inference to the best explanation. On this view,a complete absence of semiosis outside the living world would turn out to be more surprising/unlikely than its presence, however minute or sparse, in the non-living world . . . Deely's "inference to the best explanation" (that the "absence of semiosis outside the living world would turn out to be more surprising/unlikely than its presence") has always seemed persuasive enough to me. But then the question immediately arises: whence comes this "semiosis outside the living world"? Again, Champagne argument is that "in order to truly establish the presence of sign-action in the non-living world, all the components of a triadic sign – *including the interpretant* – would have to be abiotic" (emphasis added). But is this necessarily so? Or rather, is there a way of viewing one of the "components of a triadic sign" as *not* abiotic ("signs grow" CSP)? A theist might argue that this aboriginal semiosis is *not *strictly 'a*bio*tic', that it comes from the 'action' (so to speak) of a "*living* God." But then I was immediately reminded of Terrence Deacon's arguments in his "stunningly original, stunningly synoptic book" (Stuart Kauffman), *Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter* (2012), which I have always thought would be more accurately subtitled, "How mind emerged from *constraints on* matter." But does that approach in a way beg the question? Whence those 'constraints'? Best, Gary R “Let everything happen to you Beauty and terror Just keep going No feeling is final” ― Rainer Maria Rilke *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
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