RE: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[kirstima]

Good points. But both of you seem to move only within the thin air of 
abstractions. There is a need for concrete demonstrations. Examples to 
examine, for example.


Kirsti

g...@gnusystems.ca kirjoitti 19.2.2018 14:47:

Jon,

Your collection of Peirce quotes deploying the term “quasi-mind”
(if each is taken in context) seemed to me quite enough to clarify
what the term signifies — so I haven’t followed your additional
explanation very closely, as it seemed to me redundant. But I think it
may also be misleading in a couple of ways.

First, you seem to be developing a concept of “quasi-mind” which
makes it _more specific_ than “mind,” as if it has some special
qualities that other kinds of “mind” don’t have. I think this is
a mistake, because in Peirce’s usage, “quasi-mind” is a broader,
_more general_ term than “mind.” He was directing attention to
something that has mindlike qualities but not necessarily _all_ those
qualities or functions which we habitually associate with “mind,”
and not necessarily _only_ those qualities or functions. For instance,
a human mind is one kind of quasi-mind, not the other way round.

Second, Peirce says (EP2:545) that “Such perfect sign is a
quasi-mind,” but you seem to be interpreting this as if it said that
_every quasi-mind is a perfect sign_. I don’t see any warrant for
that.

Pardon me if I’ve misread you, but if so, at least you know that
such misreadings are possible!

Gary f.

FROM: Jon Alan Schmidt [mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com]
SENT: 18-Feb-18 20:41
TO: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
SUBJECT: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

List:

Having received no corrections or objections to my summary of the
relevant Peirce quotes, I would like to offer some further comments.

In these contexts, at least, Quasi-minds are clearly indispensable to
Sign-action. In fact, there must be at least _two _Quasi-minds (#4-5)
involved, such that the Sign serves as a medium for communication of a
Form _between _them (#6), "welding" them such that they are at one in
the Sign itself. Hence the term "Sign" here evidently refers to what
Peirce elsewhere called a _genuine _Sign--one that requires
Quasi-minds serving as _both _utterer _and _interpreter, which may be
past and future versions of the _same _Quasi-mind. By contrast, a
_natural _(or degenerate) Sign does not require a Quasi-mind to _utter
_it, just a Dynamic Object to _determine _it.

The Dynamic Object does this _only _in the particular respect that
enables the (genuine or natural) Sign to act upon the second
Quasi-mind _as if _the Dynamic Object itself were acting upon it (#7).
I take this "respect" to be the Immediate Object, the _partial
_combination of attributes of the Dynamic Object by which the Sign
_denotes _it. Thus "deputized" by its Object, the Sign _determines
_the second Quasi-mind to produce a feeling, exertion (action), or
other Sign (thought) as its Dynamic Interpretant (#8), which is a
_singular _event (#3). The Sign is best regarded as this very
determination of the interpreting Quasi-mind, rather than as an Object
that addresses itself to that Quasi-mind (#9).

So what is a Quasi-mind? My last tentative definition called it a
bundle of Collateral Experience and Habits of Interpretation (i.e.,
_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. I still think that this is close to
the mark, but can now clarify that a Quasi-mind is a _Sign _that
constitutes an aggregate or complex of all _previous _Signs that have
determined it, which are so connected together as to produce _one
_Interpretant (#1). As such, a Quasi-mind _includes _the Immediate
Objects of all those previous Signs, which serve as its Collateral
Experience, as well as their Final Interpretants, which serve as its
Habits of Interpretation.

I also still believe that the capacity for Habit-change is what
distinguishes a Quasi-mind from a brute Thing--a strictly _material
_reacting substance whose Habits of Interpretation have become
inveterate ("matter as effete mind," CP 6.25; 1891). I was previously
leaning toward also requiring a Quasi-mind to be a center of
consciousness (i.e., _unity of feeling_), based primarily on the
following passage, as expounded in a recent book chapter by Vincent
Colapietro ("Habits, Awareness, and Autonomy," in Donna E. West and
Myrdene Anderson, Eds., _Consensus on Peirce's Concept of Habit_, pp.
297-313).


CSP: Of course, each personality is based upon a "bundle of habits,"
as the saying is that a man is a bundle of habits. But a bundle of
habits would not have the unity of self-consciousness. That unity
must be given as a centre for the habits. The brain shows no central
cell. The unity of consciousness is therefore not of physiological
origin. It can only be metaphysical. So far as 

Aw: Re: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Helmut Raulien]

Dear Jerry,

you wrote that we have had experiences. I dont remember them so well. In any case, it is not so, that I would see you representing a certain way of thinking I would categorically oppose. I cannot put you into a drawer. But I dont want to put people into drawers anyway. Some things you write seem quite wise. Some others I did not grasp. Sometimes you quoted some "Strauss", whoever that is, and I remember, that these quotes often have stirred a feeling of objection in me. Which drawer am I in? Myself I would describe as liberal democrat. But nowadays, these two attributes seem to drift apart, each of them easily being connected with false friends: "Liberal" with neoliberalism and elitarism, and "Democrat" with populism (people against other people). I will not let myself be driven into the edge of the box, saying I´m an anarchist, because anarchists are against any state, and I guess, without a state, mafia organisations would rule. And I don´t believe that anarchists would be able to resist them properly, as anarchists are peaceful people, as universalists reluctant to hurt other people, other than the mafia people are. So I think, that a state with a power monopol is necessary. But enough of that, I am not a game player anyway, and would never become a politician. Awful job, I´d puke all the time. Of course you are right to redivert the attention to Peirce. but not, because I would not care about what you would say, but because Gary would, very justifiedly, claim that we have to be Peirce-related.

Oops, I have not been, sorry, ok, so much for that, I promise to be Peirce related next time again,

Best,

Helmut

 

 21. Februar 2018 um 23:38 Uhr
Von: "Jerry Rhee" 
 



Dear Helmut,

 

You said,

All that is a reflection in another mirror, a bit further away. Solipsism is assuming an endless series of mirrors behind mirrors. Sounds like hell. Can you show a way out..

 

I would presume based on our past experiences that you wouldn’t care for me to show you a way out, but rather, for me to say how Peirce would show a way out.  

 

I am not sure what the following means but it is in Some Consequences, and many scholars, pragmatists, pragamticists, have already spoken on its connected themes.  

 

I suppose one could argue that whether they had anything relevant to say would depend on whether the reader makes any effort to follow their argument, rather than being satisfied that he can work it out on his own by reflecting on the issues, himself, in isolation.  To help matters, though, Peirce did follow up with Man's Glassy Essence, 'tho it adds to the amount of things one has to think about..

In any case, here it is:

 

The individual man, since his separate existence is manifested only by ignorance and error, so far as he is anything apart from his fellows, and from what he and they are to be, is only a negation. This is man,

 

". . . proud man,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence."

 

As for Peirce, he also says this, of course:

 

The apostle of Humanism says that professional philosophists “have rendered philosophy like unto themselves, abstruse, arid, abstract, and abhorrent.” But I conceive that some branches of science are not in a healthy state if they are not abstruse, arid, and abstract, in which case, like the Aristotelianism which is this gentleman’s particular bête noire, it will be as Shakespeare said (of it, remember)

 

“Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,

But musical as is Apollo’s lute,” etc.

 

I hope I have led you to a way out,

Jerry R


 
On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 4:10 PM, Helmut Raulien  wrote:





Jerry,

when a mirror appears in the field of sight, then the eye can see itself. Its owner may ask him/herself: What is behind that mirror? But the mirror is there, so behind it is also what is behind the eye. But the world too. So it is the (eye-owner´s) world, and the owner of the world, being a part of it. All that is a reflection in another mirror, a bit further away. Solipsism is assuming an endless series of mirrors behind mirrors. Sounds like hell. Can you show a way out, for Quasimodo of Notre-Dame, and us all? Something like transcendence or what ever?

Best,

Helmut

 

21. Februar 2018 um 20:53 Uhr
Von: "Jerry Rhee" 
 





Dear list,

 

Speaking of the person who sees the vase, who happens to be a Quasi-mind:

 

5.6          

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

 

5.61       

Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also its limits.

We cannot therefore say in logic: This and this there is in the world, that there is not.

 

For that would apparently presuppose that we exclude certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case since otherwise logic must get outside the limits of the world: that is, if it could consider these limits from the other side also.

 

What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina, List:

Our very different readings of Peirce and models of semiosis are
manifesting again, so I will leave it at that, with two exceptions.

First, Peirce *did not* say that "the whole universe is composed of
signs."  I assume that you are alluding to this long sentence, which should
always be read in its entirety.

CSP:  It seems a strange thing, when one comes to ponder over it, that a
sign should leave its interpreter to supply a part of its meaning; but the
explanation of the phenomenon lies in the fact that the entire
universe--not merely the universe of existents, but all that wider
universe, embracing the universe of existents as a part, the universe which
we are all accustomed to refer to as "the truth"--that all this universe is
perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs. (CP 5.448,
EP 2:394; 1906)


Second, you are still talking about the explicit metaphor from EP 2:392,
rather than offering me reasons *from the text itself* to believe that CP
5.119 is "mere metaphoric rhetoric."

Regards,

Jon S.

On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 8:20 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Jon
>
> 1]  Mind, which is to say, Thirdness, is operative in 6 of the ten sign
> classes. Of these 6, there are only 3 that also use the Symbolic
> Relation.  Therefore - my view is that only 3 of the ten refer to human
> semiosis.[And only ONE of these three is an Argument].
>
>  But - Mind operates in those three that do NOT use the Symbolic Relations.
>
> But - the other four sign classes, which do not use Mind, are still
> triadic - and I consider that these too are semiosic. They will become part
> of a more complex Mind-filled interaction. Even if one sees a dyadic
> interaction, my view is that it is part of a larger triadic interaction.
> A tree bending in the wind can be superficially  considered dyadic, but the
> matter-that-is-a-tree is operative within a triadic composition - and the
> air molecules/heat etc that is the wind is also operative within a triadic
> composition.
>
>  To say that 'the whole universe is composed of signs' [as Peirce said ] -
> would you consider that reductionistic? That is - is a 'universal' -
> reductionistic?
>
> 2] I've pointed out your logical error of declaring that a metaphor sets
> up a fictional image vs a factual image. The FACT that the chemical-realm
> interacts using MIND does NOT mean that these same chemicals use symbols
> and argument semiosis. I've pointed out to you that MIND operates in SIX
> of the ten basic classes - and the Argument only appears in ONE; and the
> SYMBOL only appears in THREE. That means that a chemical semiosic
> interaction, which involves MIND - can be, for example, a Rhematic
> Indexical Legisign, that most basic and I'd say most common in nature -  of
> Peircean signs.
>
> A symbol is an intellectual and totally arbitrary construct. That is why I
> confine it to the human species, whose knowledge base is intellectual and
> arbitrary and thus, open to constant change.
>
> Edwina
>
> On Wed 21/02/18 8:39 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent:
>
> Edwina, List:
>
> 1.  What exactly are you claiming that I deny?  I have repeatedly quoted
> CP 4.551 (crystals and bees), while you are the one who confines Symbols
> and Arguments to human conceptual semiosis.  What I have pointed out is
> that Peirce did not treat triadic semoisis as the only kind of action
> operative in the world; there is also dyadic action/reaction.
>
> CSP:  All dynamical action, or action of brute force, physical or
> psychical, either takes place between two subjects,--whether they react
> equally upon each other, or one is agent and the other patient, entirely or
> partially,--or at any rate is a resultant of such actions between pairs.
> (EP 2:411; 1907)
>
>
> I obviously do not consider the entire natural world to be dyadic and
> reactive--after all, my own reply to Gary R. specifically discussed
> "natural Signs"--but clearly some aspects of nature are dyadic and
> reactive.  It is just as reductionist to insist that everything is triadic
> and semiosic as it is to insist that everything is dyadic and reactive.
>
> 2.  In that case, the fact that you interpret CP 5.119 as "mere metaphoric
> rhetoric," for which you still have not provided any kind of reasonable
> justification, likewise does not suggest or imply that the universe is not 
> really
> a Symbol and an Argument.  Please try to convince me--why should I believe
> that it is just a metaphor?  It is textbook question-begging simply to
> reply, "Because Symbols and Arguments are, by definition, confined to human
> conceptual semiosis."
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 5:55 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
> wrote:
>
>> Gary R - thanks for a wonderful post as moderator. I don't know how 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina, List:

1.  What exactly are you claiming that I deny?  I have repeatedly quoted CP
4.551 (crystals and bees), while you are the one who confines Symbols and
Arguments to human conceptual semiosis.  What I *have *pointed out is that
Peirce *did not* treat triadic semoisis as the *only *kind of action
operative in the world; there is *also *dyadic action/reaction.

CSP:  All dynamical action, or action of brute force, physical or
psychical, either takes place between two subjects,--whether they react
equally upon each other, or one is agent and the other patient, entirely or
partially,--or at any rate is a resultant of such actions between pairs.
(EP 2:411; 1907)


I obviously *do not* consider the *entire *natural world to be dyadic and
reactive--after all, my own reply to Gary R. specifically discussed
"natural Signs"--but clearly *some *aspects of nature *are *dyadic and
reactive.  It is just as reductionist to insist that everything is triadic
and semiosic as it is to insist that everything is dyadic and reactive.

2.  In that case, the fact that you interpret CP 5.119 as "mere metaphoric
rhetoric," for which you still have not provided any kind of reasonable
justification, likewise does not suggest or imply that the universe is
not *really
*a Symbol and an Argument.  Please try to convince me--why should I believe
that it is just a metaphor?  It is textbook question-begging simply to
reply, "Because Symbols and Arguments are, by definition, confined to human
conceptual semiosis."

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 5:55 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Gary R - thanks for a wonderful post as moderator. I don't know how to
> describe it - but- it was 'reasonable and moderate'. I have two comments:
>
> 1] Since Peirce considered that Mind is operative in all of nature,
> then, Mind operates within the physic-chemical, and biological realms as
> well as within the human conceptual realm. As such, Mind must operate
> within a triadic semiosic process in all realms, for Mind operates only
> within a triad.
>
> I note that Jon AS denies this - and considers that the 'natural world' is
> dyadic and reactive rather than operating within the triad of Mind. Again,
> I note that Peirce insisted that Mind is operative even within crystals.
> And by Mind's operation, I do not mean one 'hide-bound with habits' but
> capable of interaction. Atoms interact within molecules - according to
> their laws of organization - and therefore, are within the domain of Mind.
>
> I consider that the Quasi-mind is, as I said, the LOCAL emergence of this
> universal Mind, which occurs between an utterer and an interpreter, in a
> Local situation. I think this is a simple explanation of Quasi-Mind and
> feel that no further explanation is needed. The nature of this interaction
> as Local and direct [which includes therefore Firstness and Secondness] is
> added to the habits of Thirdness within both parties. That's also why I
> refer to the role of the Rhematic Indexical Legisign - but that's not the
> important point.
>
> 2] The fact that the example of the liquid in test-tubes is a metaphor of
> the operation of Quasi-minds does not suggest or imply that Quasi-minds do
> not exist or function within chemical compounds and their interactions.
>
> To say that the 'hurricane wind was like a charging bull' doesn't imply
> that a bull does not charge'. The metaphor is just a vivid comparison
> between two things/events that are similar in type. Both can exist.
>
> Edwina
>

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Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Gary R., List:

I honestly did try to pause at a couple of points--after posting the
initial list of quotes, and then after posting my own summaries of them--to
give others a chance to comment, but my eagerness to put my ideas out there
and get feedback on them eventually got the best of me.  I agree that
Quasi-mind is "the semeiotically more important concept," and thus am not
at all opposed to focusing specifically on that for a while, then later
reexamining its relationship to the concept of perfect Sign.

However, I do need to correct one apparent misunderstanding on your
part--my three bullet points, which you reproduced below, are *not *two
premisses and the conclusion of an argument.  Instead, they are three
*alternative
*interpretations of Peirce's *only *statement that directly connects the
concepts of perfect Sign and Quasi-mind with each other--"Such perfect sign
is a quasi-mind.  It is the sheet of assertion of Existential
Graphs"--given in order from most to least restrictive (also presumably
most to least controversial).  That is why the third bullet *contradicts *the
first one--in fact, only *one *of the three can be correct, and we can
leave which one as an open question for the time being.

My thesis that a genuine Sign requires three Quasi-minds--two distinct
ones, the utterer and the interpreter, and their "welding" in the Sign
itself--comes directly from CP 4.551.  This is followed, of course, by the
conventions for the Existential Graphs--including the Phemic Sheet as "the
*Quasi-mind* in which the Graphist and Interpreter are at one," as well as
"a Pheme of all that is tacitly taken for granted between the Graphist and
Interpreter, from the outset of their discussion" (CP 4.553).  I just
noticed an interesting parallel with another relevant passage, likewise
written in the spring of 1906.

CSP:  ... that mind into which the minds of utterer and interpreter have to
be fused in order that any communication should take place ... may be
called the *commens*. It consists of all that is, and must be, well
understood between utterer and interpreter, at the outset, in order that
the sign in question should fulfill its function. (EP 2:478)


As for whether nature can be an utterer, it looks to me like Peirce
actually *denied *such a possibility, *defining *a "natural Sign" precisely
as one that has *no *utterer.

CSP:  But why argue, when signs without utterers are often employed? I mean
such signs as symptoms of disease, signs of the weather, groups of
experiences serving as premisses, etc. (EP 2:404; 1907)


CSP:  [There are] two incompatible ways of conceiving of a weathercock: as
a natural sign, and therefore as having no utterer; and as a human
contrivance to show the direction of the wind, and as such, uttered by its
original inventor (for I speak of the weathercock,--the type, not the
single instance). (EP 2:406; 1907)

CSP:  ... the question may arise whether I ought not to have recognized a
division according as the sign is a *natural sign*, which has no party to
the dialogue as its author, or whether it be an *uttered sign*, and in the
latter case, is the very sign that is getting uttered or another. But it
seems to me that this division turns upon the question of whether or not
the sign uttered is a sign of a sign as its Object. For must not every
sign, in order to become a sign, get uttered? (EP 2:484; 1908)


CSP:  But it appears to me that all symptoms of disease, signs of weather,
etc., have no utterer. For I do not think we can properly say that God
*utters *any sign when He is the Creator of all things. (CP 8.185, EP
2:496; 1909)


The first two quotes are yet again from "Pragmatism," where Peirce also
suggested that Signs without *interpreters *might likewise be
possible--giving as examples the cards for a Jacquard loom, model ships,
and the books of a bank.  This would be consistent with the principle that
a *possible *(Immediate) Interpretant is sufficient for a Sign, such that
an *actual* (Dynamic) Interpretant is not strictly necessary.  However, in
another draft, he called a Jacquard loom a "quasi-sign," because "it seems
to me convenient to make the triadic production of the interpretant
essential to a 'sign'" (CP 5.473).  In any case, Peirce embarked on a
lengthy quest for "some ingredient of the utterer [especially] and some
ingredient of the interpreter which not only are so essential, but are even
more characteristic of signs than the utterer and the interpreter
themselves," eventually identifying them as the Object and the
Interpretant--the latter as a "would-be" when there is no interpreter (EP
2:404-410).  He concluded the exercise with what Mats Bergman, in *Peirce's
Philosophy of Communication* (which I just finished reading), called "one
of Peirce's finest sign definitions."

CSP:  I will say that a sign is anything, of whatsoever mode of being,
which mediates between an object and an interpretant; since it is both
determined by the object *relatively to the 

Re: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Stephen C. Rose]

Nice response -- here's mine

Do not pretend to know my name

The words I use are weak and lame

They cannot tell from whence they came

They don’t pretend to know my name

+

There is no reason to say more

I do not know what this is for

There is no why there’s no wherefore

Why is there reason to say more

+

I have an inkling that is all

Our weather changes spring to fall

Still no one know’s what’s past time’s wall

save for an inkling that is all


amazon.com/author/stephenrose

On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 5:38 PM, Jerry Rhee  wrote:

> Dear Helmut,
>
>
>
> You said,
>
> All that is a reflection in another mirror, a bit further away. Solipsism
> is assuming an endless series of mirrors behind mirrors. Sounds like hell.
> Can you show a way out..
>
>
>
> I would presume based on our past experiences that you wouldn’t care for
> me to show you a way out, but rather, for me to say how Peirce would show a
> way out.
>
>
>
> I am not sure what the following means but it is in *Some Consequences*,
> and many scholars, pragmatists, pragamticists, have already spoken on its
> connected themes.
>
>
> I suppose one could argue that whether they had anything relevant to say
> would depend on whether the reader makes any effort to follow their
> argument, rather than being satisfied that he can work it out on his own by
> reflecting on the issues, himself, in isolation.  To help matters, though,
> Peirce did follow up with *Man's Glassy Essence, *'tho it adds to the
> amount of things one has to think about..
>
> In any case, here it is:
>
>
> The individual man, since his separate existence is manifested only by
> ignorance and error, so far as he is anything apart from his fellows, and
> from what he and they are to be, is only a negation. This is man,
>
>
> ". . . proud man,
> Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
> His glassy essence."
>
>
>
> As for Peirce, he also says this, of course:
>
>
>
> The apostle of Humanism says that professional philosophists “have
> rendered philosophy like unto themselves, abstruse, arid, abstract, and
> abhorrent.” But I conceive that some branches of science are *not* in a
> healthy state if they are not abstruse, arid, and abstract, in which
> case, like the Aristotelianism which is this gentleman’s particular bête
> noire, it will be as Shakespeare said (*of it*, remember)
>
>
>
> “Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,
>
> But musical as is Apollo’s lute,” etc.
>
>
>
> I hope I have led you to a way out,
>
> Jerry R
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 4:10 PM, Helmut Raulien  wrote:
>
>> Jerry,
>> when a mirror appears in the field of sight, then the eye can see itself.
>> Its owner may ask him/herself: What is behind that mirror? But the mirror
>> is there, so behind it is also what is behind the eye. But the world too.
>> So it is the (eye-owner´s) world, and the owner of the world, being a part
>> of it. All that is a reflection in another mirror, a bit further away.
>> Solipsism is assuming an endless series of mirrors behind mirrors. Sounds
>> like hell. Can you show a way out, for Quasimodo of Notre-Dame, and us all?
>> Something like transcendence or what ever?
>> Best,
>> Helmut
>>
>> 21. Februar 2018 um 20:53 Uhr
>> *Von:* "Jerry Rhee" 
>>
>>
>> Dear list,
>>
>>
>>
>> Speaking of the person who sees the vase, who happens to be a Quasi-mind:
>>
>>
>>
>> *5.6  *
>>
>> *The limits of my language** mean the limits of my world.*
>>
>>
>>
>> *5.61*
>>
>> Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also its limits.
>>
>> We cannot therefore say in logic: This and this there is in the world,
>> *that* there is not.
>>
>>
>>
>> For *that* would apparently presuppose that we exclude certain
>> possibilities, and this cannot be the case since otherwise logic must get
>> outside the limits of the world: that is, if it could consider these limits
>> from the other side also.
>>
>>
>>
>> What we cannot think, *that* we cannot think: we cannot therefore *say* what
>> we cannot think.
>>
>>
>>
>> *5.62*
>>
>> *This remark provides a key to the question, to what extent solipsism is
>> a truth.*
>>
>> In fact what solipsism *means*, is quite correct, only it cannot be
>> *said*, but it shows itself.
>>
>> That the world is *my* world, shows itself in the fact that the limits
>> of the language (*the* language which I understand) mean the limits of
>> *my* world.
>>
>>
>>
>> *5.63*
>>
>> I am the world. (The microcosm.)
>>
>>
>>
>> *5.633*
>>
>> *Where in* the world is a metaphysical subject to be noted?
>>
>> You say that this case is altogether like that of the eye and the field
>> of sight. But you do *not* really see the eye.
>>
>> And from nothing *in the field of sight* can it be concluded that it is
>> seen from an eye.
>>
>>
>>
>> *5.6331*
>>
>> For the field of sight has not a form like this:
>>
>> http://www.kfs.org/jonathan/witt/f56331.gif
>>
>>
>>
>> *5.64*
>>
>> *Here we see that solipsism 

Re: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jerry Rhee]

Dear Helmut,



You said,

All that is a reflection in another mirror, a bit further away. Solipsism
is assuming an endless series of mirrors behind mirrors. Sounds like hell.
Can you show a way out..



I would presume based on our past experiences that you wouldn’t care for me
to show you a way out, but rather, for me to say how Peirce would show a
way out.



I am not sure what the following means but it is in *Some Consequences*,
and many scholars, pragmatists, pragamticists, have already spoken on its
connected themes.


I suppose one could argue that whether they had anything relevant to say
would depend on whether the reader makes any effort to follow their
argument, rather than being satisfied that he can work it out on his own by
reflecting on the issues, himself, in isolation.  To help matters, though,
Peirce did follow up with *Man's Glassy Essence, *'tho it adds to the
amount of things one has to think about..

In any case, here it is:


The individual man, since his separate existence is manifested only by
ignorance and error, so far as he is anything apart from his fellows, and
from what he and they are to be, is only a negation. This is man,


". . . proud man,
Most ignorant of what he's most assured,
His glassy essence."



As for Peirce, he also says this, of course:



The apostle of Humanism says that professional philosophists “have rendered
philosophy like unto themselves, abstruse, arid, abstract, and abhorrent.”
But I conceive that some branches of science are *not* in a healthy state
if they are not abstruse, arid, and abstract, in which case, like the
Aristotelianism which is this gentleman’s particular bête noire, it will be
as Shakespeare said (*of it*, remember)



“Not harsh and crabbed, as dull fools suppose,

But musical as is Apollo’s lute,” etc.



I hope I have led you to a way out,

Jerry R


On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 4:10 PM, Helmut Raulien  wrote:

> Jerry,
> when a mirror appears in the field of sight, then the eye can see itself.
> Its owner may ask him/herself: What is behind that mirror? But the mirror
> is there, so behind it is also what is behind the eye. But the world too.
> So it is the (eye-owner´s) world, and the owner of the world, being a part
> of it. All that is a reflection in another mirror, a bit further away.
> Solipsism is assuming an endless series of mirrors behind mirrors. Sounds
> like hell. Can you show a way out, for Quasimodo of Notre-Dame, and us all?
> Something like transcendence or what ever?
> Best,
> Helmut
>
> 21. Februar 2018 um 20:53 Uhr
> *Von:* "Jerry Rhee" 
>
>
> Dear list,
>
>
>
> Speaking of the person who sees the vase, who happens to be a Quasi-mind:
>
>
>
> *5.6  *
>
> *The limits of my language** mean the limits of my world.*
>
>
>
> *5.61*
>
> Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also its limits.
>
> We cannot therefore say in logic: This and this there is in the world,
> *that* there is not.
>
>
>
> For *that* would apparently presuppose that we exclude certain
> possibilities, and this cannot be the case since otherwise logic must get
> outside the limits of the world: that is, if it could consider these limits
> from the other side also.
>
>
>
> What we cannot think, *that* we cannot think: we cannot therefore *say* what
> we cannot think.
>
>
>
> *5.62*
>
> *This remark provides a key to the question, to what extent solipsism is a
> truth.*
>
> In fact what solipsism *means*, is quite correct, only it cannot be *said*,
> but it shows itself.
>
> That the world is *my* world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of
> the language (*the* language which I understand) mean the limits of *my*
>  world.
>
>
>
> *5.63*
>
> I am the world. (The microcosm.)
>
>
>
> *5.633*
>
> *Where in* the world is a metaphysical subject to be noted?
>
> You say that this case is altogether like that of the eye and the field of
> sight. But you do *not* really see the eye.
>
> And from nothing *in the field of sight* can it be concluded that it is
> seen from an eye.
>
>
>
> *5.6331*
>
> For the field of sight has not a form like this:
>
> http://www.kfs.org/jonathan/witt/f56331.gif
>
>
>
> *5.64*
>
> *Here we see that solipsism strictly carried out coincides with pure
> realism*. The I in solipsism shrinks to an extensionless point and there
> remains the reality co-ordinated with it.
>
>
>
> *There is in the dictionary a word, solipsism, meaning the belief that the
> believer is the only existing person. Were anybody to adopt such a belief,
> it might be difficult to argue him out of it. But when a person finds
> himself in the society of others, he is just as sure of their existence as
> of his own, though he may entertain a metaphysical theory that they are all
> hypostatically the same ego**.*
>
>
>
> Hth,
>
> Jerry R
>
> On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 1:01 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <
> jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> Edwina, List:
>>
>> 1.  A hypothesis is not intended to be an 

Aw: Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Helmut Raulien]

Jerry,

when a mirror appears in the field of sight, then the eye can see itself. Its owner may ask him/herself: What is behind that mirror? But the mirror is there, so behind it is also what is behind the eye. But the world too. So it is the (eye-owner´s) world, and the owner of the world, being a part of it. All that is a reflection in another mirror, a bit further away. Solipsism is assuming an endless series of mirrors behind mirrors. Sounds like hell. Can you show a way out, for Quasimodo of Notre-Dame, and us all? Something like transcendence or what ever?

Best,

Helmut

 

21. Februar 2018 um 20:53 Uhr
Von: "Jerry Rhee" 
 



Dear list,

 

Speaking of the person who sees the vase, who happens to be a Quasi-mind:

 

5.6          

The limits of my language mean the limits of my world.

 

5.61       

Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also its limits.

We cannot therefore say in logic: This and this there is in the world, that there is not.

 

For that would apparently presuppose that we exclude certain possibilities, and this cannot be the case since otherwise logic must get outside the limits of the world: that is, if it could consider these limits from the other side also.

 

What we cannot think, that we cannot think: we cannot therefore say what we cannot think.

 

5.62       

This remark provides a key to the question, to what extent solipsism is a truth.

In fact what solipsism means, is quite correct, only it cannot be said, but it shows itself.

That the world is my world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of the language (the language which I understand) mean the limits of my world.

 

5.63   

I am the world. (The microcosm.)

 

5.633

Where in the world is a metaphysical subject to be noted?

You say that this case is altogether like that of the eye and the field of sight. But you do not really see the eye.

And from nothing in the field of sight can it be concluded that it is seen from an eye.

 

5.6331 

For the field of sight has not a form like this: 

http://www.kfs.org/jonathan/witt/f56331.gif

 

5.64       

Here we see that solipsism strictly carried out coincides with pure realism. The I in solipsism shrinks to an extensionless point and there remains the reality co-ordinated with it.

 

There is in the dictionary a word, solipsism, meaning the belief that the believer is the only existing person. Were anybody to adopt such a belief, it might be difficult to argue him out of it. But when a person finds himself in the society of others, he is just as sure of their existence as of his own, though he may entertain a metaphysical theory that they are all hypostatically the same ego.

 

Hth,

Jerry R


 
On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 1:01 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt  wrote:


Edwina, List:
 

1.  A hypothesis is not intended to be an argument.  However, your point about providing multiple terms for the same concept is well-taken.  With that in mind, I now see three interpretive possibilities for Peirce's statement, "Such perfect sign is a quasi-mind.  It is the sheet of assertion of Existential Graphs."



	A perfect Sign and a Quasi-mind are one and the same, and the Sheet of Assertion is an example.
	A perfect Sign and the Sheet of Assertion are one and the same, but there are other kinds of Quasi-minds.
	Every Sheet of Assertion is a perfect Sign, but there are other kinds of perfect Signs; and every perfect Sign is a Quasi-mind, but there are other kinds of Quasi-minds.



I am sorry that you do not find my identification and exploration of these options enlightening.

 

2.  I posted my current tentative definition of a Quasi-mind a few days ago.  It is a bundle of habits (reacting substance) that has the capacity for Habit-change (learning by experience); the latter is what distinguishes it from a brute Thing, a strictly material reacting substance whose habits have become inveterate, like a mere "set of molecules."  It is also a perfect Sign that constitutes an aggregate or complex of all previous Signs that have determined it, which are so connected together as to produce one Interpretant; this is the sense in which it "stores" the Immediate Objects of all those previous Signs, which serve as its Collateral Experience, as well as their Final Interpretants, which serve as its Habits of Interpretation.

 

As for what a Quasi-mind "does," I see it as an indispensable ingredient for any semiosis to occur.  For natural Signs, there is no utterer, but the interpreter is a Quasi-mind.  For genuine Signs, the utterer is a Quasi-mind, the interpreter is a Quasi-mind, and their overlap--where they are "welded" and become one in the Sign itself--is a Quasi-mind.  This is illustrated by the Phemic Sheet, which is the Quasi-mind where the Graphist and Interpreter are at one--not only in the Signs that they proceed to scribe on it, but also in everything that is tacitly taken for granted between them from the 

Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jerry Rhee]

Dear list,



Speaking of the person who sees the vase, who happens to be a Quasi-mind:



*5.6  *

*The limits of my language** mean the limits of my world.*



*5.61*

Logic fills the world: the limits of the world are also its limits.

We cannot therefore say in logic: This and this there is in the world,
*that* there is not.



For *that* would apparently presuppose that we exclude certain
possibilities, and this cannot be the case since otherwise logic must get
outside the limits of the world: that is, if it could consider these limits
from the other side also.



What we cannot think, *that* we cannot think: we cannot therefore *say* what
we cannot think.



*5.62*

*This remark provides a key to the question, to what extent solipsism is a
truth.*

In fact what solipsism *means*, is quite correct, only it cannot be *said*,
but it shows itself.

That the world is *my* world, shows itself in the fact that the limits of
the language (*the* language which I understand) mean the limits of *my*
 world.



*5.63*

I am the world. (The microcosm.)



*5.633*

*Where in* the world is a metaphysical subject to be noted?

You say that this case is altogether like that of the eye and the field of
sight. But you do *not* really see the eye.

And from nothing *in the field of sight* can it be concluded that it is
seen from an eye.



*5.6331*

For the field of sight has not a form like this:

http://www.kfs.org/jonathan/witt/f56331.gif



*5.64*

*Here we see that solipsism strictly carried out coincides with pure
realism*. The I in solipsism shrinks to an extensionless point and there
remains the reality co-ordinated with it.



*There is in the dictionary a word, solipsism, meaning the belief that the
believer is the only existing person. Were anybody to adopt such a belief,
it might be difficult to argue him out of it. But when a person finds
himself in the society of others, he is just as sure of their existence as
of his own, though he may entertain a metaphysical theory that they are all
hypostatically the same ego**.*



Hth,

Jerry R


On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 1:01 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
wrote:

> Edwina, List:
>
> 1.  A hypothesis is not intended to be an argument.  However, your point
> about providing multiple terms for the same concept is well-taken.  With
> that in mind, I now see *three *interpretive possibilities for Peirce's
> statement, "Such perfect sign is a quasi-mind.  It is the sheet of
> assertion of Existential Graphs."
>
>- A perfect Sign and a Quasi-mind are one and the same, and the Sheet
>of Assertion is an example.
>- A perfect Sign and the Sheet of Assertion are one and the same, but
>there are other kinds of Quasi-minds.
>- Every Sheet of Assertion is a perfect Sign, but there are other
>kinds of perfect Signs; and every perfect Sign is a Quasi-mind, but there
>are other kinds of Quasi-minds.
>
> I am sorry that you do not find my identification and exploration of these
> options enlightening.
>
> 2.  I posted my current tentative definition of a Quasi-mind a few days
> ago.  It is a bundle of habits (reacting substance) that has the capacity
> for Habit-change (learning by experience); the latter is what distinguishes
> it from a brute Thing, a strictly *material *reacting substance whose
> habits have become *inveterate, like a mere "set of molecules*."  It is
> also a perfect Sign that constitutes an aggregate or complex of all
> previous Signs that have determined it, which are so connected together as
> to produce one Interpretant; this is the sense in which it "stores" the
> Immediate Objects of all those previous Signs, which serve as its
> Collateral Experience, as well as their Final Interpretants, which serve as
> its Habits of Interpretation.
>
> As for what a Quasi-mind "does," I see it as an indispensable ingredient
> for any semiosis to occur.  For *natural *Signs, there is no utterer, but
> the interpreter is a Quasi-mind.  For *genuine *Signs, the utterer is a
> Quasi-mind, the interpreter is a Quasi-mind, and their overlap--where they
> are "welded" and become one in the Sign itself--is a Quasi-mind.  This is
> illustrated by the Phemic Sheet, which is the Quasi-mind where the Graphist
> and Interpreter are at one--not only in the Signs that they proceed to
> scribe on it, but also in everything that is tacitly taken for granted
> between them from the outset of their discussion, when the sheet itself is
> still *blank*.  As always, these two Quasi-minds can be different
> temporal versions of the *same* Quasi-mind.
>
> As for Peirce's example of molecules, *unlike *when he called the
> universe a Symbol and an Argument, he *explicitly stated* that he was
> presenting it as a metaphor to help explain what he meant by
> "determination."
>
> CSP:  This perplexes us, and an example of an analogous phenomenon will do
> good service here. Metaphysics has been said contemptuously to be a fabric
> of metaphors. 

Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina, List:

1.  A hypothesis is not intended to be an argument.  However, your point
about providing multiple terms for the same concept is well-taken.  With
that in mind, I now see *three *interpretive possibilities for Peirce's
statement, "Such perfect sign is a quasi-mind.  It is the sheet of
assertion of Existential Graphs."

   - A perfect Sign and a Quasi-mind are one and the same, and the Sheet of
   Assertion is an example.
   - A perfect Sign and the Sheet of Assertion are one and the same, but
   there are other kinds of Quasi-minds.
   - Every Sheet of Assertion is a perfect Sign, but there are other kinds
   of perfect Signs; and every perfect Sign is a Quasi-mind, but there are
   other kinds of Quasi-minds.

I am sorry that you do not find my identification and exploration of these
options enlightening.

2.  I posted my current tentative definition of a Quasi-mind a few days
ago.  It is a bundle of habits (reacting substance) that has the capacity
for Habit-change (learning by experience); the latter is what distinguishes
it from a brute Thing, a strictly *material *reacting substance whose
habits have become *inveterate, like a mere "set of molecules*."  It is
also a perfect Sign that constitutes an aggregate or complex of all
previous Signs that have determined it, which are so connected together as
to produce one Interpretant; this is the sense in which it "stores" the
Immediate Objects of all those previous Signs, which serve as its
Collateral Experience, as well as their Final Interpretants, which serve as
its Habits of Interpretation.

As for what a Quasi-mind "does," I see it as an indispensable ingredient
for any semiosis to occur.  For *natural *Signs, there is no utterer, but
the interpreter is a Quasi-mind.  For *genuine *Signs, the utterer is a
Quasi-mind, the interpreter is a Quasi-mind, and their overlap--where they
are "welded" and become one in the Sign itself--is a Quasi-mind.  This is
illustrated by the Phemic Sheet, which is the Quasi-mind where the Graphist
and Interpreter are at one--not only in the Signs that they proceed to
scribe on it, but also in everything that is tacitly taken for granted
between them from the outset of their discussion, when the sheet itself is
still *blank*.  As always, these two Quasi-minds can be different temporal
versions of the *same* Quasi-mind.

As for Peirce's example of molecules, *unlike *when he called the universe
a Symbol and an Argument, he *explicitly stated* that he was presenting it
as a metaphor to help explain what he meant by "determination."

CSP:  This perplexes us, and an example of an analogous phenomenon will do
good service here. Metaphysics has been said contemptuously to be a fabric
of metaphors. But not only metaphysics, but logical and phaneroscopical
concepts need to be clothed in such garments. For a pure idea without
metaphor or other significant clothing is an onion without a peel. Let a
community of quasi-minds consist of the liquid in a number of bottles ...
(EP 2:392; 1906)


3.  We are still in the (abstract) retroductive and deductive stages of
this inquiry.  Moving on to the (concrete) inductive stage would involve
analyzing an example like the bird that flees upon hearing a loud sound, the
vase that someone sees upon opening his eyes, or the child who screams upon
touching a hot burner.  The bird, the person who sees the vase, and the
child and her mother are all presumably Quasi-minds.

I do not expect you to say anything further about any of this.

Regards,

Jon S.

On Wed, Feb 21, 2018 at 11:12 AM, Edwina Taborsky 
wrote:

> Jon -
>
> 1. All I can say is that your definitions are circular. You repeat that 'a
> perfect mind= a quasi-mind= the sheet of assertion of the EG. This,
> frankly, is not an argument; it is not enlightening; it doesn't MEAN
> anything. I must even wonder why, if you are correct - Peirce provided all
> these terms for the SAME thing.
>
> I'm not going to repeat my interpretation of the Rhemetic Indexical
> Legisign - since we won't get anywhere with that.
>
> 2. I also disagree with your view of the Quasi-mind...You don't provide a
> definition of WHAT it does; you merely tell us all the synonyms for it. I
> understand it as a local emergence of Mind, emerging within a semiosic
> interaction between an 'utterer and an interpreter' [which could be between
> two chemicals, between two insects, between two people or in one person].
> The point is - it's a LOCAL and dialogic interaction of, so to speak, the
> Universal Mind, and is thus - as local - a 'Quasi-Mind'.
>
>  So- yes, a 'mere set of molecules' qualifies as a Quasi-mind when in
> interaction. After all Peirce provided such an example of molecules as an
> example of a quasi-mind.
>
> 3. You don't propose a definition; you simply copy words from Peirce;
> collate them; use them as synonyms - but - the function of what these terms
> stand for - is ignored. So- I don't see the point of this discussion and

Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Edwina Taborsky]

 

 BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px; }
 Jon - 

1. All I can say is that your definitions are circular. You repeat
that 'a perfect mind= a quasi-mind= the sheet of assertion of the EG.
This, frankly, is not an argument; it is not enlightening; it doesn't
MEAN anything. I must even wonder why, if you are correct - Peirce
provided all these terms for the SAME thing.

I'm not going to repeat my interpretation of the Rhemetic Indexical
Legisign - since we won't get anywhere with that.

2. I also disagree with your view of the Quasi-mind...You don't
provide a definition of WHAT it does; you merely tell us all the
synonyms for it. I understand it as a local emergence of Mind,
emerging within a semiosic interaction between an 'utterer and an
interpreter' [which could be between two chemicals, between two
insects, between two people or in one person]. The point is - it's a
LOCAL and dialogic interaction of, so to speak, the Universal Mind,
and is thus - as local - a 'Quasi-Mind'.

 So- yes, a 'mere set of molecules' qualifies as a Quasi-mind when
in interaction. After all Peirce provided such an example of
molecules as an example of a quasi-mind.

3. You don't propose a definition; you simply copy words from
Peirce; collate them; use them as synonyms - but - the function of
what these terms stand for - is ignored. So- I don't see the point of
this discussion and won't continue.

Edwina
 On Wed 21/02/18 11:52 AM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
 Edwina, List:
 1.  We can say two things for sure based on that straightforward
pair of sentences by Peirce--first, that a perfect Sign, whatever
else it might be, is a Quasi-mind; and second, that the Sheet of
Assertion of Existential Graphs is a perfect Sign.  We also know,
from various other quotes, that the Sheet of Assertion (or Phemic
Sheet) is a Quasi-mind.  My current hypothesis is that a perfect Sign
and a Quasi-mind are one and the same, but Gary F. has challenged
this; and if he (or anyone else) provides a clear counterexample, I
will abandon it accordingly and be grateful for the correction.  The
alternative, as I see it, is that a perfect Sign and the Sheet of
Assertion are one and the same, but there are also  other kinds of
Quasi-minds.
 In CP 4.550-553, Peirce characterized both Mind ("in one of the
narrowest and most concrete of its logical meanings") and the Phemic
Sheet ("representing the Mind" and "being the Quasi-mind") as "a Seme
of the Truth, that is, of the widest Universe of Reality"; so in that
sense, the Sheet of Assertion is indeed a Rheme.  However, he went on
to say that it is, " at the same time, a Pheme of all that is tacitly
taken for granted between the Graphist and Interpreter, from the
outset of their discussion"; so in that sense, the Sheet of Assertion
is also a Dicisign.  He also stated, "We are to imagine that two
parties collaborate in composing a Pheme, and in operating upon this
so as to develop a Delome"; so in that sense, the Sheet of Assertion
is also an Argument.  The reason why it can be all three Sign classes
simultaneously is because every  Argument involves Dicisigns, and
every Dicisign involves Rhemes.
 Since the Sheet of Assertion is both an Argument and a perfect Sign,
it obviously cannot be the case that what Peirce means by "perfect
Sign" is a Rhematic Indexical Legisign.  Furthermore, "perfect" in
this context does not necessarily imply the ability to "do everything
and anything semiosic," although I find it noteworthy that an Argument
is the only  class of Sign that involves all of the others.  Again, I
strongly suspect that "perfect" is instead related to Entelechy,
especially in light of Peirce's statement elsewhere that "We may
adopt the word to mean the very fact, that is, the ideal sign which
should be quite perfect, and so identical,--in such identity as a
sign may have,--with the very matter denoted united with the very
form signified by it" (EP 2:304; 1904).
 2.  I obviously cannot read your mind and do not have your
experience, so the only way for me to see how you justify your
position--that  CP 5.119 is "mere metaphoric rhetoric"--is if you
provide an explanation.  Since "thought is not necessarily connected
with a brain" (CP 4.551) and "matter is effete mind" (CP 6.25),
"mental association" is  not  confined to human conceptual  semiosis;
it can (and does) occur in any  Quasi-mind.  I am certainly not
claiming that a mere "set of molecules" qualifies as a Quasi-mind;
are you? 
  3.  What we are pursuing here is, like all thought, a dialogic
process of inquiry.  We propose a definition (Retroduction),
explicate its implications (Deduction), test it against experience
(Induction), and revise/repeat as needed. 
 Regards,
 Jon S. 
 On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 9:01 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
Jon - 

1]You are the one who is 'asserting' Peirce's sentence: " Such
perfect sign is a quasi-mind. It 

Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina, List:

1.  We can say two things for sure based on that straightforward pair of
sentences by Peirce--first, that a perfect Sign, whatever else it might be,
is a Quasi-mind; and second, that the Sheet of Assertion of Existential
Graphs is a perfect Sign.  We also know, from various other quotes, that
the Sheet of Assertion (or Phemic Sheet) is a Quasi-mind.  My current
hypothesis is that a perfect Sign and a Quasi-mind are one and the same,
but Gary F. has challenged this; and if he (or anyone else) provides a
clear counterexample, I will abandon it accordingly and be grateful for the
correction.  The alternative, as I see it, is that a perfect Sign and the
Sheet of Assertion are one and the same, but there are also *other *kinds
of Quasi-minds.

In CP 4.550-553, Peirce characterized both Mind ("in one of the narrowest
and most concrete of its logical meanings") and the Phemic
Sheet ("representing the Mind" and "being the Quasi-mind") as "a Seme of
the Truth, that is, of the widest Universe of Reality"; so in that sense,
the Sheet of Assertion is indeed a Rheme.  However, he went on to say that
it is, "at the same time, a Pheme of all that is tacitly taken for granted
between the Graphist and Interpreter, from the outset of their discussion";
so in that sense, the Sheet of Assertion is *also *a Dicisign.  He also
stated, "We are to imagine that two parties collaborate in composing a
Pheme, and in operating upon this so as to develop a Delome"; so in that
sense, the Sheet of Assertion is *also *an Argument.  The reason why it can
be all three Sign classes simultaneously is because *every *Argument *involves
*Dicisigns, and *every *Dicisign *involves *Rhemes.

Since the Sheet of Assertion is both an Argument and a perfect Sign, it
obviously cannot be the case that what Peirce means by "perfect Sign" is a
Rhematic Indexical Legisign.  Furthermore, "perfect" in this context does
not necessarily imply the ability to "do everything and anything semiosic,"
although I find it noteworthy that an Argument is the *only *class of Sign
that *involves* all of the others.  Again, I strongly suspect that
"perfect" is instead related to *Entelechy*, especially in light of
Peirce's statement elsewhere that "We may adopt the word to mean the very
fact, that is, the ideal sign which should be quite perfect, and so
identical,--in such identity as a sign may have,--with the very matter
denoted united with the very form signified by it" (EP 2:304; 1904).

2.  I obviously cannot read your mind and do not have your experience, so
the only way for me to see how you justify your position--that CP
5.119 is "mere
metaphoric rhetoric"--is if you provide an explanation.  Since "thought is
not necessarily connected with a brain" (CP 4.551) and "matter is effete
mind" (CP 6.25), "mental association" is *not *confined to *human
conceptual* semiosis; it can (and does) occur in *any *Quasi-mind.  I am
certainly not claiming that a mere "set of molecules" qualifies as a
Quasi-mind; are you?

3.  What we are pursuing here is, like all thought, a dialogic process of
inquiry.  We propose a definition (Retroduction), explicate its
implications (Deduction), test it against experience (Induction), and
revise/repeat as needed.

Regards,

Jon S.

On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 9:01 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Jon -
>
> 1]You are the one who is 'asserting' Peirce's sentence: " Such perfect
> sign is a quasi-mind. It is the sheet of assertion of Existential Graphs"
> (EP 2:545n25).
>
> So- you should be the one explaining how this 'perfect sign' [which still
> hasn't been described as to how it operates'] - is a 'sheet of assertion of
> Existential Graphs'.
>
> I've tried to explain the Rhematic Indexical Legisign as a clear
> tri-relative operation; as a] including laws that adapt and evolve; as b]
> directly connected to its object; and c] as expressing an individual local
> interpretation of that object. Therefore - to me - since it includes the
> utterer and interpreter, so to speak, and all three categorical modes and -
> is that clear tri-relative framework, then,  it's the 'perfect sign' and
> can do everything and anything semiosic. ..The rheme's individual
> local interpretation is related to the legisign's general Thirdness and  -
> and yet- is grounded by that existential indexical connection to the object.
>
> 2] What do you mean - what is my 'warrant' for interpreting Peirce's
> statement in a certain manner? My mind and logic and experience leads me to
> make this interpretation. Do I need anything else?  A higher authority?
>
> As for your statement about the ten classes - you yourself have claimed
> that the symbol is a factor of human conceptualization. [I don't keep
> archives]. Plus - I've provided the definition of the symbol - and it is
> clearly Not iconic which involves a mimetic action and Not indexical which
> involves an existential connection. The symbol is a 'mental association
> 1.372, .."a relation 

Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Edwina Taborsky]

 

 BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px; }
 Jon - 

1]You are the one who is 'asserting' Peirce's sentence: " Such
perfect sign is a quasi-mind. It is the sheet of assertion of
Existential Graphs" (EP 2:545n25).

So- you should be the one explaining how this 'perfect sign' [which
still hasn't been described as to how it operates'] - is a 'sheet of
assertion of Existential Graphs'. 

I've tried to explain the Rhematic Indexical Legisign as a clear
tri-relative operation; as a] including laws that adapt and evolve;
as b] directly connected to its object; and c] as expressing an
individual local interpretation of that object. Therefore - to me -
since it includes the utterer and interpreter, so to speak, and all
three categorical modes and - is that clear tri-relative framework,
then,  it's the 'perfect sign' and can do everything and anything
semiosic. ..The rheme's individual local interpretation is related to
the legisign's general Thirdness and  - and yet- is grounded by that
existential indexical connection to the object.

2] What do you mean - what is my 'warrant' for interpreting Peirce's
statement in a certain manner? My mind and logic and experience leads
me to make this interpretation. Do I need anything else?  A higher
authority?

As for your statement about the ten classes - you yourself have
claimed that the symbol is a factor of human conceptualization. [I
don't keep archives]. Plus - I've provided the definition of the
symbol - and it is clearly Not iconic which involves a mimetic action
and Not indexical which involves an existential connection. The symbol
is a 'mental association 1.372, .."a relation which consists in the
fact that the mind associates the sign with its object; in that case,
the sign is a name or symbol".   It is  a mental act 2.438] . It
requires an interpretant [see 2.304]...

Your quoting of 4.551 has nothing to do with the definition of a
symbol and I don't know why you inserted it. Are you going to claim
that molecules use symbols in their informational interactions?
Because Mind, as law, is involved in chemical composition, does not
mean that this same set of molecules uses its own mental actions to
interpret its own nature. 

3] I don't agree that definitions can exist without a clear idea of
the function of that which is being defined.  

Edwina
 On Tue 20/02/18  9:08 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
 Edwina, List:
 1.  Respectfully, I asked you to make your case for that position,
not simply reassert it.  I honestly do not see how a Rhematic
Indexical Legisign can be "the sheet of assertion of Existential
Graphs"; please explain it to me.
 2.  What is your warrant for taking Peirce's explicit designation of
the universe as a Symbol and an Argument to be  "mere metaphoric
rhetoric"?  Again, please explain it to me, rather than just
asserting it.  Since "thought is not necessarily connected with a
brain" (CP 4.551; 1906), why should we treat any of the ten Sign
classes as confined to human conceptual semiosis?
 3.  I have freely admitted a strong bent for abstract analysis,
rather than the more concrete approach that Gary R. (for example)
ably practices, and I have also acknowledged its limitations.  Such
differences are precisely why  collaboration is such an important
aspect of the List--genuinely seeking to engage in shared inquiry and
learn from each other, rather than dogmatically maintaining our
pre-established views.  I am actually very interested in exploring
the nature and function of perfect Signs and Quasi-minds within
concrete semiosis, but for me, coming up with clear definitions of
those terms is the first step.
 Thanks,
 Jon S.  
 On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 5:34 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
Jon, list

1. I see no reason why a rhematic indexical legisign, with its
qualities that fit all of Peirce's stated description of a 'perfect
sign' cannot fulfill being a 'sheet of assertion of existential
graphs.

2. I really don't see Peirce's use of the word 'symbol'  or
'argument' in this selection as meaning the same as is meant in the
ten classes of signs. I consider his use here as mere metaphoric
rhetoric and not as a semiotic analysis of the Universe. 

If you read his definitions of these two terms as used within
semiosis, you will see that the 'symbol' is an intellectual
construct, it refers to "the Object that it denotes by virtue of a
law, usually an association of general ideas, which operates to cause
the Symbol to be interpreted as referring to that Object" 2.249.

And the same thing with the Argument, which is equally an
intellectual construct.[see 2.251-3]. 

Therefore, these two terms refer to human conceptual semiosis and
not to physic-chemical or biological semiosis. 

3. The problem I have with your approach to these definitions is
that they seem purely abstract and theoretical 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina, List:

1.  Respectfully, I asked you to *make your case* for that position, not
simply *reassert *it.  I honestly do not see how a Rhematic Indexical
Legisign *can *be "the sheet of assertion of Existential Graphs";
please *explain
*it to me.

2.  What is your *warrant *for taking Peirce's explicit designation of the
universe as a Symbol and an Argument to be "mere metaphoric rhetoric"?
Again, please *explain *it to me, rather than just *asserting *it.  Since
"thought is not necessarily connected with a brain" (CP 4.551; 1906), why
should we treat *any *of the ten Sign classes as confined to *human
conceptual* semiosis?

3.  I have freely admitted a strong bent for abstract analysis, rather than
the more concrete approach that Gary R. (for example) ably practices, and I
have also acknowledged its limitations.  Such differences are
precisely why *collaboration
*is such an important aspect of the List--genuinely seeking to engage
in *shared
*inquiry and *learn *from each other, rather than dogmatically maintaining
our pre-established views.  I am actually *very *interested in exploring
the nature and function of perfect Signs and Quasi-minds within concrete
semiosis, but for me, coming up with clear definitions of those terms is
the first step.

Thanks,

Jon S.

On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 5:34 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Jon, list
>
> 1. I see no reason why a rhematic indexical legisign, with its qualities
> that fit all of Peirce's stated description of a 'perfect sign' cannot
> fulfill being a 'sheet of assertion of existential graphs.
>
> 2. I really don't see Peirce's use of the word 'symbol'  or 'argument' in
> this selection as meaning the same as is meant in the ten classes of signs.
> I consider his use here as mere metaphoric rhetoric and not as a semiotic
> analysis of the Universe.
>
> If you read his definitions of these two terms as used within semiosis,
> you will see that the 'symbol' is an intellectual construct, it refers to
> "the Object that it denotes by virtue of a law, usually an association of
> general ideas, which operates to cause the Symbol to be interpreted as
> referring to that Object" 2.249.
>
> And the same thing with the Argument, which is equally an intellectual
> construct.[see 2.251-3].
>
> Therefore, these two terms refer to human conceptual semiosis and not to
> physic-chemical or biological semiosis.
>
> 3. The problem I have with your approach to these definitions is that they
> seem purely abstract and theoretical and confined to words; i.e.,
> substituting one set of words for another set of words.
>
>  I don't know what you see as the function of these terms; you don't seem
> interested in examining 'what is a perfect sign' within the semiosic
> universe and how and why does it even exist and operate.
>
> And- ; what is the function of a 'quasi-mind' within semiosis. Why and how
> does it emerge and function? You don't seem involved in this aspect.
>
> Edwina
>
> On Tue 20/02/18 5:59 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent:
>
> Edwina, List:
>
> Setting aside our different models of semiosis, and simply looking at
> Peirce's own words ...
>
> 1.  "Such perfect sign is a quasi-mind. It is the sheet of assertion of
> Existential Graphs" (EP 2:545n25).  Are you prepared to claim that a
> Rhematic Indexical Legisign is the sheet of assertion of Existential
> Graphs?  If so, then please make your case for that position.  If not, then
> a Rhematic Indexical Legisign cannot be what Peirce meant by "perfect
> sign."
>
> 2.  "... the universe is a vast representamen, a great symbol of God's
> purpose, working out its conclusions in living realities. Now every symbol
> must have, organically attached to it, its Indices of Reactions and its
> Icons of Qualities; and such part as these reactions and these qualities
> play in an argument that, they of course, play in the universe--that
> Universe being precisely an argument" (CP 5.119, EP 2:193-194; 1903).
> Since Peirce calls the entire universe a Symbol and an Argument, he
> obviously did not confine Symbols and Arguments to human conceptual
> semiosis.  Why should we?
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
> On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 2:27 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
> wrote:
>
>> list -
>>
>> I think the terms need to be defined, since, apparently, each of us has
>> different definitions of 'sign'; perfect sign' and 'quasi-mind'.
>>
>> Again, my understanding of the Sign is not confined to its function as
>> the Representamen, but to the semiosic process of DO-[IO-R-II]. The
>> Representamen, after all, doesn't exist 'per se' but only within that
>> semiosic process, where the representamen is "a subject of a triadic
>> relation to a second, called its object, for a third, called its
>> interpretant, this triadic relation being 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jeffrey Brian Downard]

Hello Jon S., List,


Mysuggestion was to try to explain relations of composition, mediation, 
representation, etc. in terms of determination--not to provide a further 
explication of determination than Peirce has already supplied.


Having said that, I believe that Peirce tries to explicate three types of 
determination in a late unpublished set of manuscripts (MS 611-15, and 
especially in MS 612). The detailed analyses he provides are incomplete and 
problematic in several respects despite his several attempts to improve on his 
draft versions--and Peirce duly notes that this is the case.


Without going into the details, let me try to summarize the main idea in the 
general strategy I think is at work:


1. The generic relation of "A determines B", can be understood as a dyadic 
relation involving two correlates, the second of which is indeterminate in some 
respects. Through the relation of determination, the second correlate comes, as 
a patient, to be more determinate due to some kind of action of the agent. The 
relate serving as agent, on the other hand, is largely unaffected by the 
relation.


2. The generic relation of "A determines B in accord with C", is a more complex 
triadic relation, because correlate C has the character of a general that 
determines, in some rule governed way, the changes in the possible characters 
of correlates A and B.


3.  The generic relation of "A determines C to be after B" is an especially 
important kind of relation because it involves either a logical or a temporal 
ordering--and in some cases it may be both.


Looking Peirce's many attempts to define a sign in terms of the relations that 
hold between objects, signs and interpretants, I think there is a kind of 
progression at work that involves a series of steps.


a. First, he explains how the dyadic and triadic relations can be combined so 
that there is a composition of those relations to form yet more complex 
relations. On Peirce's account, combination is a borderline kind of relation 
being almost genuinely triad but not quite.


b.  Second, he explains how the combination of relations can take a genuinely 
triadic form so that the one correlate mediates the relation between the second 
and third, where the mediating correlate has the character of a law and where 
the other correlates have the character of qualities or facts governed by laws.


c. Third, he explains how in thoroughly genuine triadic relations, a 
representamen (i.e., having the character of thought playing the role of a 
first), mediates between the determination of the interpretant by the object .


Jeffrey Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354



From: Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2018 3:03 PM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

Jeff, List:

I agree that Peirce was predominantly discussing "perfect Signs" and 
"Quasi-minds" within the framework of a normative theory of logic as semeiotic; 
that "perfect" is related to Entelechy in this context (as I just posted); and 
that "Quasi-mind" is a generalization of human minds, the kind with which we 
are most familiar.  Again, I think one key difference is that a person (or 
personality) has a center of consciousness, but Peirce clearly stated that this 
is not logically necessary for a Quasi-mind.  I remain strongly interested in 
learning how you think we can explicate "determination" in a more perspicuous 
way than "mediation," "representation," "signification," etc.; could you please 
elaborate on that?

Thanks,

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 Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 3:00 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard 
<jeffrey.down...@nau.edu<mailto:jeffrey.down...@nau.edu>> wrote:

Gary F., Jon S., Jon A., List

The conceptions of a perfect sign and of a quasi-mind appear, on the face of 
things, to be introduced as technical notions for theoretical purposes. Peirce 
points out that there are several different perspectives that one could adopt 
in trying to explain the character of sign or of a mind, including a logical 
perspective, as well as a metaphysical, or a psychological, a physiological, or 
a systems theoretic perspective, etc.

What point of view is Peirce adopting when he develops the conceptions of a 
perfect sign and of a quasi-mind? The answer, I assume, is that he is 
developing these conceptions, first and foremost, within the framework of a 
normative theory of logic and semiotics.

Focusing on the conception of a perfect sign, how might we interpret the 
following passages

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Jeff, List:

I agree that Peirce was predominantly discussing "perfect Signs" and
"Quasi-minds" within the framework of a normative theory of logic as
semeiotic; that "perfect" is related to Entelechy in this context (as I
just posted); and that "Quasi-mind" is a generalization of *human *minds,
the kind with which we are most familiar.  Again, I think one key
difference is that a *person *(or personality) has a center of
consciousness, but Peirce clearly stated that this is not *logically *necessary
for a Quasi-mind.  I remain strongly interested in learning how you think
we can explicate "determination" in a more perspicuous way than
"mediation," "representation," "signification," etc.; could you please
elaborate on that?

Thanks,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 3:00 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <
jeffrey.down...@nau.edu> wrote:

> Gary F., Jon S., Jon A., List
>
> The conceptions of a perfect sign and of a quasi-mind appear, on the face
> of things, to be introduced as technical notions for theoretical purposes.
> Peirce points out that there are several different perspectives that one
> could adopt in trying to explain the character of sign or of a mind,
> including a logical perspective, as well as a metaphysical, or
> a psychological, a physiological, or a systems theoretic perspective, etc.
>
> What point of view is Peirce adopting when he develops the conceptions of
> a perfect sign and of a quasi-mind? The answer, I assume, is that he is
> developing these conceptions, first and foremost, within the framework of a
> normative theory of logic and semiotics.
>
> Focusing on the conception of a perfect sign, how might we interpret the
> following passages in light of the competing readings that Jon S and Gary F
> are offering?
>
> All thinking is dialogic in form. Your self of one instant appeals to your 
> deeper
> self for his assent. Consequently, all thinking is conducted in signs that
> are mainly of the same general structure as words; those which are not
> so, being of the nature of those signs of which we have need now and then
> in our converse with one another to eke out the defects of words, or *symbols.
> *[CP 6.338]
>
> And then, a few paragraphs later, he adds:
>
> The mode of being of the composition of thought, which is always of the nature
> of the attribution of a predicate to a subject, is the living intelligence
> which is the creator of all intelligible reality, as well as of the
> knowledge of such reality. It is the entelechy, or perfection of being.
> [CP 6.341]
> As Peirce says elsewhere, the composition of thought is a species of the
> composition of relations generally. What is more, the potency in the
> composition of thoroughly genuine triadic relations springs from the
> *mediation* of the relation between the object and the interpretant by
> the sign.
>
> For my part, I think Peirce defines signs the way he does because he is
> setting up an explanatory strategy where the fairly generic and relatively
> simple relation of "*A determines B*" is being offered as part of the
> *explanans* of relations having greater potency, including mediation,
> representation, signification, and thought--which are the target
> *explanadum* in these parts of the theories of logic and semiotics. It is
> the potency of being further interpreted and thereby growing--without end,
> as it were--that I take to constitute the perfection (or perfectibility) of
> signs that have the character of, say, symbolic arguments.
>
> The introduction of the conception of a quasi-mind is, I take it, a
> generalization from the sorts of thinking minds with which we are most
> familiar, so that this broader concept might cover the mind-like
> activities that do not manifest the the higher forms of self-controlled
> conduct and thought that are the primary phenomena for a normative
> theory--but where the patterns of thought might evolve and grow in
> relatively instinctive and experientially informed ways.
>
> --Jeff
>

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Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Helmut, List:

I agree with Jeff that "perfect" in this context does not have a Platonic
meaning, but rather--as I have stated previously--is related to the
Aristotelian notion of Entelechy.  In fact, here is another passage that *might
*provide more clues about what Peirce meant by a "perfect Sign."

CSP:  Aristotle gropes for a conception of *perfection*, or *entelechy*,
which he never succeeds in making clear. We may adopt the word to mean the
very fact, that is, *the ideal sign which should be quite perfect*, and so
identical,--in such identity as a sign may have,--with the very matter
denoted united with the very form signified by it" (EP 2:304; 1904,
emphases added).


As for why we "always dive deeply into Peirce's writings"--this is, after
all, a *Peirce *List; and the fact that we (at least some of us) strive
diligently to remain faithful to his basic ideas and careful terminology *does
not* entail that we are not *also *thinking very much for ourselves, as I
believe this thread amply illustrates.

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Tue, Feb 20, 2018 at 2:35 PM, Helmut Raulien  wrote:

> List,
> Quasi and not-quasi, perfect and imperfect, genuine and degenerate: I find
> it boring, and it reminds me of dogmatism and fundamentalism. By saying
> that it reminds me, I dont mean it as an offence. Rather like proposing the
> application of Ockham´s razor: Why don´t you try to find a way to avoid an
> agonistic continuity concept (a competition of quality-related valuing),
> when there is a chance to do (avoid) so? I am trying that all the time,
> sometimes with good and sometimes with faulty results. It would make things
> much easier if successfully achieved. Anyway, what has a sign to do with
> perfection? The idea of perfection is Platonism, as if there were perfect
> ideas already existing, to whom a sign more or less might match. This has
> nothing to do with the Peircean concept of "habit". It are two
> contradicting ideologies. And, why do you always dive deeply into Peirce´s
> writings instead of to think yourselves? Peirce was no all-knowing god, was
> he? And, but that is abstraction from me to others, thinking myself is much
> more fun than hermeneutics.
> Best,
> Helmut
>

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Gary F., List:

Thank you for offering this possible counterexample to my hypothesis that
all Quasi-minds are perfect Signs.  Our exchange, including the off-List
portion, exemplifies what I greatly value about the List--it is not
supposed to be a place where we simply reiterate our preconceived notions
in an effort to have them validated; instead, it best serves as a forum
where any of us can offer our interpretive hypotheses and have them
honestly evaluated, perhaps even refuted, by other participants.

What you quoted from L 463 matches what Gary R. (via the Commens
Dictionary) quoted from SS 195, except that it adds the three sentences
about the "blank-book" at the end.  I do not have a copy of *Signs and
Significs*, but managed to find an excerpt elsewhere that included another
sentence right before what Gary R. quoted that is even more direct--"The
blank leaf itself is the quasi-mind."  Further online searching for this
statement led me, of all places, to your own List post of January 5, 2015,
where you provided a longer excerpt from the same letter.  I was almost
persuaded by your reasoning below, until I read the entire context.

Existential graphs are to be conceived as scribed upon the different leaves
of a whole book. This whole book represents the thought (upon a given
subject) of one mind. Each leaf represents a single stage of that thought.
In the beginning, the successive leaves must represent strictly successive
states of thought--I speak of, logical succession. But afterward when the
minute anatomy of the thinking process has been mastered by the reader one
can successively enlarge the intervals of development between the states of
thought that successive leaves represent.

The blank leaf itself is the quasi-mind.  I almost despair of making clear
what I mean by a “quasi-mind;” But I will try. A thought is not per se in
any mind or quasi-mind. I mean this in the same sense as I might say that
Right or Truth would remain what they are though they were not embodied, &
though nothing were right or true. But a thought, to gain any active mode
of being must be embodied in a Sign. A thought is a special variety of
sign. All thinking is necessarily a sort of dialogue, an appeal from the
momentary self to the better considered self of the immediate and of the
general future. Now as every thinking requires a mind, so every sign even
if external to all minds must be a determination of a quasi-mind. This
quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign. Consider for example a
blank-book. It is meant to be written in. Words written in that in due
order will have quite another force from the same words scattered
accidentally on the ground, even should these happen to have fallen into
collections which would have a meaning if written in the blank-book. The
language employed in discoursing to the reader, and the language employed
to express the thought to which the discourse relates should be kept
distinct and each should be selected for its peculiar fitness for the
purpose it was to serve. For the discoursing language I would use English,
which has special merits for the treatment of logic. For the language
discoursed about, I would use the system of Existential Graphs throughout
which has no equal for this purpose.


It turns out that Peirce is not saying anything different in this letter to
Lady Welby than he did in CP 4.553, where he stated that the Quasi-mind is
the Phemic Sheet, and--more to the point--in EP 2:545n25, where he stated,
"Such perfect sign is a quasi-mind.  It is the sheet of assertion of
Existential Graphs."  Evidently, *whatever* Peirce means by "perfect Sign,"
it *applies *to the Sheet of Assertion--which is *itself *merely a "blank
leaf" in a "blank-book," *until *someone begins scribing Signs on it.  Once
that happens, it is the *aggregate *of all those Signs--*including *"all
that is tacitly taken for granted between the Graphist and Interpreter,
from the outset of their discussion" (CP 4.553)--even as more Signs
continue to be added to it.  Likewise, the "blank-book" is, in fact, a
perfect Sign--evidently by virtue of having words written in it "in due
order," rather than "scattered accidentally on the ground."

GF:  Then we could try postulating that the blank-book *continues to be
that blank-book* during and after the occurrence of writing in it--just as
in Existential Graphs, the Sheet of Assertion continues to be the Sheet of
Assertion when graphs are scribed on it or erased from it--and ignore the
static intervals before, between and after episodes of writing. Or we could
come to the simpler conclusion that a quasi-mind *may not* be a perfect
sign.


According to Peirce, "Such perfect sign is .. the sheet of assertion"; so
evidently the postulate that you suggested was his own position, rather
than "the simpler conclusion."  Hence the "blank-book" is *not *a clear
counterexample to my hypothesis after all.  Since you said that you could
give several, I would sincerely 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jeffrey Brian Downard]

Gary F., Jon S., Jon A., List


The conceptions of a perfect sign and of a quasi-mind appear, on the face of 
things, to be introduced as technical notions for theoretical purposes. Peirce 
points out that there are several different perspectives that one could adopt 
in trying to explain the character of sign or of a mind, including a logical 
perspective, as well as a metaphysical, or a psychological, a physiological, or 
a systems theoretic perspective, etc.


What point of view is Peirce adopting when he develops the conceptions of a 
perfect sign and of a quasi-mind? The answer, I assume, is that he is 
developing these conceptions, first and foremost, within the framework of a 
normative theory of logic and semiotics.


Focusing on the conception of a perfect sign, how might we interpret the 
following passages in light of the competing readings that Jon S and Gary F are 
offering?


All thinking is dialogic in form. Your self of one instant appeals to your 
deeper self for his assent. Consequently, all thinking is conducted in signs 
that are mainly of the same general structure as words; those which are not so, 
being of the nature of those signs of which we have need now and then in our 
converse with one another to eke out the defects of words, or symbols. [CP 
6.338]


And then, a few paragraphs later, he adds:


The mode of being of the composition of thought, which is always of the nature 
of the attribution of a predicate to a subject, is the living intelligence 
which is the creator of all intelligible reality, as well as of the knowledge 
of such reality. It is the entelechy, or perfection of being. [CP 6.341]

As Peirce says elsewhere, the composition of thought is a species of the 
composition of relations generally. What is more, the potency in the 
composition of thoroughly genuine triadic relations springs from the mediation 
of the relation between the object and the interpretant by the sign.

For my part, I think Peirce defines signs the way he does because he is setting 
up an explanatory strategy where the fairly generic and relatively simple 
relation of "A determines B" is being offered as part of the explanans of 
relations having greater potency, including mediation, representation, 
signification, and thought--which are the target explanadum in these parts of 
the theories of logic and semiotics. It is the potency of being further 
interpreted and thereby growing--without end, as it were--that I take to 
constitute the perfection (or perfectibility) of signs that have the character 
of, say, symbolic arguments.

The introduction of the conception of a quasi-mind is, I take it, a 
generalization from the sorts of thinking minds with which we are most 
familiar, so that this broader concept might cover the mind-like activities 
that do not manifest the the higher forms of self-controlled conduct and 
thought that are the primary phenomena for a normative theory--but where the 
patterns of thought might evolve and grow in relatively instinctive and 
experientially informed ways.

--Jeff



From: g...@gnusystems.ca <g...@gnusystems.ca>
Sent: Tuesday, February 20, 2018 11:53 AM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind


Jon A.S., list,

In this thread (and an offline exchange) Jon has been proposing the hypothesis 
that every quasi-mind (as Peirce uses the term) is a “perfect sign” as Peirce 
defines that term. He has challenged me to refute this hypothesis by giving an 
example of a quasi-mind that is not a perfect sign. There are several I could 
give, but I’ve chosen one that Peirce gives in a draft letter to Lady Welby, 
dated March 9, 1906, from L 463. Here is the context:

[[ A thought is a special variety of sign. All thinking is necessarily a sort 
of dialogue, an appeal from the momentary self to the better considered self of 
the immediate and of the general future. Now as every thinking requires a mind, 
so every sign even if external to all minds must be a determination of a 
quasi-mind. This quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign. Consider for 
example a blank-book. It is meant to be written in. Words written in that in 
due order will have quite another force from the same words scattered 
accidentally on the ground, even should these happen to have fallen into 
collections which would have a meaning if written in the blank-book. ]]

This blank-book is an example of a quasi-mind. Let us test the hypothesis that 
it is a perfect sign as defined by Peirce (EP2:545).

Is the blank-book “the aggregate formed by a sign and all the signs which its 
occurrence carries with it”? Well, its occurrence carries no signs other than 
its blankness, its determinability, the fact that it is meant to be written in. 
This could be called an “aggregate” in the sense that the aggregate of x and 
nothing is x. But this does not contribute much to the plausibility of the 
hypothesis.

Is the blank-book “a perfect sign, in the sense 

Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Helmut Raulien]

List,

Quasi and not-quasi, perfect and imperfect, genuine and degenerate: I find it boring, and it reminds me of dogmatism and fundamentalism. By saying that it reminds me, I dont mean it as an offence. Rather like proposing the application of Ockham´s razor: Why don´t you try to find a way to avoid an agonistic continuity concept (a competition of quality-related valuing), when there is a chance to do (avoid) so? I am trying that all the time, sometimes with good and sometimes with faulty results. It would make things much easier if successfully achieved. Anyway, what has a sign to do with perfection? The idea of perfection is Platonism, as if there were perfect ideas already existing, to whom a sign more or less might match. This has nothing to do with the Peircean concept of "habit". It are two contradicting ideologies. And, why do you always dive deeply into Peirce´s writings instead of to think yourselves? Peirce was no all-knowing god, was he? And, but that is abstraction from me to others, thinking myself is much more fun than hermeneutics.

Best,

Helmut

 

Gesendet: Dienstag, 20. Februar 2018 um 19:53 Uhr
Von: g...@gnusystems.ca
 




Jon A.S., list,

In this thread (and an offline exchange) Jon has been proposing the hypothesis that every quasi-mind (as Peirce uses the term) is a “perfect sign” as Peirce defines that term. He has challenged me to refute this hypothesis by giving an example of a quasi-mind that is not a perfect sign. There are several I could give, but I’ve chosen one that Peirce gives in a draft letter to Lady Welby, dated March 9, 1906, from L 463. Here is the context:

[[ A thought is a special variety of sign. All thinking is necessarily a sort of dialogue, an appeal from the momentary self to the better considered self of the immediate and of the general future. Now as every thinking requires a mind, so every sign even if external to all minds must be a determination of a quasi-mind. This quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign. Consider for example a blank-book. It is meant to be written in. Words written in that in due order will have quite another force from the same words scattered accidentally on the ground, even should these happen to have fallen into collections which would have a meaning if written in the blank-book. ]]

This blank-book is an example of a quasi-mind. Let us test the hypothesis that it is a perfect sign as defined by Peirce (EP2:545).

Is the blank-book “the aggregate formed by a sign and all the signs which its occurrence carries with it”? Well, its occurrence carries no signs other than its blankness, its determinability, the fact that it is meant to be written in. This could be called an “aggregate” in the sense that the aggregate of x and nothing is x. But this does not contribute much to the plausibility of the hypothesis.

Is the blank-book “a perfect sign, in the sense that it involves the present existence of no other sign except such as are ingredients of itself”? If not, it must be an imperfect sign, one that involves the present existence of other signs which are not ingredients of itself. So which is it? That depends on whether we consider its blankness as a sign which is an ingredient of the book; but this, like the question of whether it involves the present existence of other signs, is difficult to decide, since the book is blank. Again, this test does little to affect the plausibility of the hypothesis.

Is the blank-book “in a statical condition”? It is, as long as it remains blank; which would refute the hypothesis, because “no perfect sign is in a statical condition.” We could try to avoid this by saying that it must be physically embodied, and must therefore be changing all the time at the atomic or subatomic level; but that would certainly be cheating, as this level of physical embodiment is irrelevant to its functioning as a sign. Then we could try postulating that the blank-book continues to be that blank-book during and after the occurrence of writing in it —just as in Existential Graphs, the Sheet of Assertion continues to be the Sheet of Assertion when graphs are scribed on it or erased from it — and ignore the static intervals before, between and after episodes of writing. Or we could come to the simpler conclusion that a quasi-mind may not be a perfect sign. The hypothesis that it must be a perfect sign is looking less plausible.

“Every real ingredient of the perfect sign is aging, its energy of action upon the interpretant is running low, its sharp edges are wearing down, its outlines becoming more indefinite.” Is this true of the blank-book? Even if we assume (charitably) that we are talking about the blank-book in its dynamic, ever-changing state of actuality, it’s difficult to see how this could be a true description of it, let alone why it must be true of it. The hypothesis becomes that much less plausible.

“On the other hand, the perfect sign is perpetually being acted upon by its object, from which it 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[gnox]

Jon A.S., list,

In this thread (and an offline exchange) Jon has been proposing the
hypothesis that every quasi-mind (as Peirce uses the term) is a “perfect
sign” as Peirce defines that term. He has challenged me to refute this
hypothesis by giving an example of a quasi-mind that is not a perfect sign.
There are several I could give, but I’ve chosen one that Peirce gives in a
draft letter to Lady Welby, dated March 9, 1906, from L 463. Here is the
context:

[[ A thought is a special variety of sign. All thinking is necessarily a
sort of dialogue, an appeal from the momentary self to the better considered
self of the immediate and of the general future. Now as every thinking
requires a mind, so every sign even if external to all minds must be a
determination of a quasi-mind. This quasi-mind is itself a sign, a
determinable sign. Consider for example a blank-book. It is meant to be
written in. Words written in that in due order will have quite another force
from the same words scattered accidentally on the ground, even should these
happen to have fallen into collections which would have a meaning if written
in the blank-book. ]]

This blank-book is an example of a quasi-mind. Let us test the hypothesis
that it is a perfect sign as defined by Peirce (EP2:545).

Is the blank-book “the aggregate formed by a sign and all the signs which
its occurrence carries with it”? Well, its occurrence carries no signs other
than its blankness, its determinability, the fact that it is meant to be
written in. This could be called an “aggregate” in the sense that the
aggregate of x and nothing is x. But this does not contribute much to the
plausibility of the hypothesis.

Is the blank-book “a perfect sign, in the sense that it involves the present
existence of no other sign except such as are ingredients of itself”? If
not, it must be an imperfect sign, one that involves the present existence
of other signs which are not ingredients of itself. So which is it? That
depends on whether we consider its blankness as a sign which is an
ingredient of the book; but this, like the question of whether it involves
the present existence of other signs, is difficult to decide, since the book
is blank. Again, this test does little to affect the plausibility of the
hypothesis.

Is the blank-book “in a statical condition”? It is, as long as it remains
blank; which would refute the hypothesis, because “no perfect sign is in a
statical condition.” We could try to avoid this by saying that it must be
physically embodied, and must therefore be changing all the time at the
atomic or subatomic level; but that would certainly be cheating, as this
level of physical embodiment is irrelevant to its functioning as a sign.
Then we could try postulating that the blank-book continues to be that
blank-book during and after the occurrence of writing in it —just as in
Existential Graphs, the Sheet of Assertion continues to be the Sheet of
Assertion when graphs are scribed on it or erased from it — and ignore the
static intervals before, between and after episodes of writing. Or we could
come to the simpler conclusion that a quasi-mind may not be a perfect sign.
The hypothesis that it must be a perfect sign is looking less plausible.

“Every real ingredient of the perfect sign is aging, its energy of action
upon the interpretant is running low, its sharp edges are wearing down, its
outlines becoming more indefinite.” Is this true of the blank-book? Even if
we assume (charitably) that we are talking about the blank-book in its
dynamic, ever-changing state of actuality, it’s difficult to see how this
could be a true description of it, let alone why it must be true of it. The
hypothesis becomes that much less plausible.

“On the other hand, the perfect sign is perpetually being acted upon by its
object, from which it is perpetually receiving the accretions of new signs,
which bring it fresh energy, and also kindle energy that it already had, but
which had lain dormant.” What kind of object could a blank-book have, that
would act upon it in this way, without any other signs being involved in
this actuality except such as are ingredients of itself? What kind of
“energy” does a blank-book have? Could we not have a quasi-mind which lacks
that “energy”?

“In addition, the perfect sign never ceases to undergo changes of the kind
we rather drolly call spontaneous, that is, they happen sua sponte but not
by its will. They are phenomena of growth.” Does a blank-book grow
spontaneously, and unceasingly? Must every quasi-mind do that?

“Such perfect sign is a quasi-mind.” Since this text (EP2:545) is Peirce’s
one and only definition of a “perfect sign,” we take this sentence as a fact
about perfect signs: they belong to the class of quasi-minds. Does this give
us any reason for believing, or even hypothesizing, that All quasi-minds are
perfect signs? I don’t think so. But I do think we would need very good
reasons for limiting the signification of “quasi-mind” in that 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jerry Rhee]

Dear Gary, list,



*As a question of intellectual lineage, the link may be of minor
importance, but it becomes significant as soon as one recognizes the degree
to which certain crucial passages and themes in Schiller and in Peirce,
which have resisted comprehension, are mutually illuminating when seen
together.. *



For example,



*“**Moreover, signs require at least two Quasi-minds; a Quasi-utterer and
a Quasi-interpreter; and although these two are at one (i.e., are one mind)
in the sign itself, they must nevertheless be distinct.  In the Sign they
are, so to say, welded.”*



*To articulate the problem of cosmology means to answer the question of
what philosophy is or what a philosopher is..*



*But even that stranger from Elea did not discuss explicitly what a
philosopher is.  *

*He discussed explicitly two kinds of men which are easily mistaken for the
philosopher, the sophist and the statesman.  *



*The divisions of the **Sophist and the Statesman are caricatures..*



*By understanding both sophistry (in its highest as well as in its lower
meanings) and statesmanship, one will understand what philosophy is.  *



*Philosophy strives for knowledge of the whole.  The whole is the totality
of the parts.  The whole eludes us, but we know parts:  we possess partial
knowledge of parts…*



Beyond this, I will stay silent, for I believe there is life in staying mum.



Hth,
Jerry R


On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 5:17 PM, Gary Richmond 
wrote:

> Jerry, list,
>
> Would you please explain why you posted this to the list, especially in
> this thread. I cannot see what pertinence it has to the discussion of
> quasi-minds?
>
> Best,
>
> Gary R
>
>
> [image: Gary Richmond]
>
> *Gary Richmond*
> *Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
> *Communication Studies*
> *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
> *718 482-5690 <(718)%20482-5690>*
>
> On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 6:07 PM, Jerry Rhee  wrote:
>
>> Dear list,
>>
>>
>>
>> I wish to share this article, which I take to be topical given our
>> incomplete understanding of Quasi-minds:
>>
>>
>>
>> *We worked in a group of three where one played the part of a scoundrel,
>> the other one was a hero, and the third one kept a neutral position..*
>>
>>
>>
>> *He said he hated the work..*
>>
>> *The world in those comments was divided into black and white.. *
>>
>> *praised.. criticized..  That was the principle of the work..*
>>
>>
>>
>> *The posts and comments are made to form the opinion of Russian citizens
>> regarding certain issues, and as we see it works for other countries, too..*
>>
>>
>>
>> *The most important principle of the work is to have an account like a
>> real person..*
>>
>>
>>
>> *These technologies are unbelievably effective..*
>>
>>
>>
>> *She added that she learned how effective the troll farm's work was when
>> she saw regular people sharing opinions and information that she knew were
>> planted by trolls.*
>>
>> *"They believed it was their own thoughts, but I saw that those thoughts
>> were formed by the propagandists," she said.*
>>
>> http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-russian-troll-
>> factory-20180219-story.html
>>
>>
>>
>> *He begins in Letter 13 by affirming that “a third basic drive which
>> could mediate the other two is an absolutely unthinkable concept”; *
>>
>>
>>
>> *Or, finally, there must exist a power which comes between mind and
>> matter and unites the two… Is such a thing conceivable?  Certainly not!  *
>>
>>
>>
>> *~* "Aesthetic" for Schiller and Peirce: A Neglected Origin of Pragmatism
>>
>> Jeffrey Barnou,  *Journal of the History of Ideas*
>>
>>
>>
>> Hth,
>> Jerry R
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 2:10 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <
>> jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> List:
>>>
>>> I found three more potentially relevant quotes in an alternate draft of
>>> "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism" (R 193, NEM 4:313-330; 1906).
>>> It was a bit of a challenge to ascertain how much of the context I should
>>> include in each case, so please let me know off-List if you would like to
>>> see anything that comes right before or after any of these excerpts.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Jon S.
>>>
>>>
>>> 8.  Now let us see how the Diagram entrains its consequence. The Diagram
>>> sufficiently partakes of the percussivity of a Percept to determine, as its
>>> Dynamic, or Middle, Interpretant, a state [of] activity in the Interpreter,
>>> mingled with curiosity. As usual, this mixture leads to Experimentation. It
>>> is the normal Logical effect; that is to say, it not only happens in the
>>> cortex of the human brain, but must plainly happen in every Quasi-mind in
>>> which Signs of all kinds have a vitality of their own. (NEM 4:318).
>>>
>>>
>>> 9.  The System of Existential Graphs the development of which has only
>>> been begun by a solitary student, furnishes already the best diagram of the
>>> contents of the logical Quasi-mind that has ever yet been found and
>>> 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Gary Richmond]

Jerry, list,

Would you please explain why you posted this to the list, especially in
this thread. I cannot see what pertinence it has to the discussion of
quasi-minds?

Best,

Gary R


[image: Gary Richmond]

*Gary Richmond*
*Philosophy and Critical Thinking*
*Communication Studies*
*LaGuardia College of the City University of New York*
*718 482-5690*

On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 6:07 PM, Jerry Rhee  wrote:

> Dear list,
>
>
>
> I wish to share this article, which I take to be topical given our
> incomplete understanding of Quasi-minds:
>
>
>
> *We worked in a group of three where one played the part of a scoundrel,
> the other one was a hero, and the third one kept a neutral position..*
>
>
>
> *He said he hated the work..*
>
> *The world in those comments was divided into black and white.. *
>
> *praised.. criticized..  That was the principle of the work..*
>
>
>
> *The posts and comments are made to form the opinion of Russian citizens
> regarding certain issues, and as we see it works for other countries, too..*
>
>
>
> *The most important principle of the work is to have an account like a
> real person..*
>
>
>
> *These technologies are unbelievably effective..*
>
>
>
> *She added that she learned how effective the troll farm's work was when
> she saw regular people sharing opinions and information that she knew were
> planted by trolls.*
>
> *"They believed it was their own thoughts, but I saw that those thoughts
> were formed by the propagandists," she said.*
>
> http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-russian-
> troll-factory-20180219-story.html
>
>
>
> *He begins in Letter 13 by affirming that “a third basic drive which could
> mediate the other two is an absolutely unthinkable concept”; *
>
>
>
> *Or, finally, there must exist a power which comes between mind and matter
> and unites the two… Is such a thing conceivable?  Certainly not!  *
>
>
>
> *~* "Aesthetic" for Schiller and Peirce: A Neglected Origin of Pragmatism
>
> Jeffrey Barnou,  *Journal of the History of Ideas*
>
>
>
> Hth,
> Jerry R
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 2:10 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <
> jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> List:
>>
>> I found three more potentially relevant quotes in an alternate draft of
>> "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism" (R 193, NEM 4:313-330; 1906).
>> It was a bit of a challenge to ascertain how much of the context I should
>> include in each case, so please let me know off-List if you would like to
>> see anything that comes right before or after any of these excerpts.
>>
>> Regards,
>>
>> Jon S.
>>
>>
>> 8.  Now let us see how the Diagram entrains its consequence. The Diagram
>> sufficiently partakes of the percussivity of a Percept to determine, as its
>> Dynamic, or Middle, Interpretant, a state [of] activity in the Interpreter,
>> mingled with curiosity. As usual, this mixture leads to Experimentation. It
>> is the normal Logical effect; that is to say, it not only happens in the
>> cortex of the human brain, but must plainly happen in every Quasi-mind in
>> which Signs of all kinds have a vitality of their own. (NEM 4:318).
>>
>>
>> 9.  The System of Existential Graphs the development of which has only
>> been begun by a solitary student, furnishes already the best diagram of the
>> contents of the logical Quasi-mind that has ever yet been found and
>> promises much future perfectionment. Let us call the collective whole of
>> all that could ever be present to the mind in any way or in any sense, the
>> *Phaneron*. Then the substance of every Thought (and of much beside
>> Thought proper) will be a Consistituent of the Phaneron. The Phaneron being
>> itself far too elusive for direct observation, there can be no better
>> method of studying it than through the Diagram of it which the System of
>> Existential Graphs puts at our disposition. (NEM 4:320)
>>
>>
>> 10.  Logic requires great subtlety of thought, throughout; and especially
>> in distinguishing those characters which belong to the diagram with which
>> one works, but which are not significant features of it considered as the
>> Diagram it is taken for, from those that testify as to the Form
>> represented. For not only may a Diagram have features that are not
>> significant at all, such as its being drawn upon ''laid'' or upon ''wove"
>> paper; not only may it have features that are significant but are not
>> diagrammatically so; but one and the same construction may be, when
>> regarded in two different ways, two altogether different diagrams; and that
>> to which it testifies in the one capacity, it must not be considered as
>> testifying to in the other capacity. For example, the Entire Existential
>> Graph of a Phemic Sheet, in any state of it, is a Diagram of the logical
>> Universe, as it is also a Diagram of a Quasi-mind; but it must not, on *that
>> *account, be considered as testifying to the identity of those two. It
>> is like a telescope eye piece which at one focus exhibits a star at which
>> the 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jerry Rhee]

Dear list,



I wish to share this article, which I take to be topical given our
incomplete understanding of Quasi-minds:



*We worked in a group of three where one played the part of a scoundrel,
the other one was a hero, and the third one kept a neutral position..*



*He said he hated the work..*

*The world in those comments was divided into black and white.. *

*praised.. criticized..  That was the principle of the work..*



*The posts and comments are made to form the opinion of Russian citizens
regarding certain issues, and as we see it works for other countries, too..*



*The most important principle of the work is to have an account like a real
person..*



*These technologies are unbelievably effective..*



*She added that she learned how effective the troll farm's work was when
she saw regular people sharing opinions and information that she knew were
planted by trolls.*

*"They believed it was their own thoughts, but I saw that those thoughts
were formed by the propagandists," she said.*

http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-russian-troll-factory-20180219-story.html



*He begins in Letter 13 by affirming that “a third basic drive which could
mediate the other two is an absolutely unthinkable concept”; *



*Or, finally, there must exist a power which comes between mind and matter
and unites the two… Is such a thing conceivable?  Certainly not!  *



*~* "Aesthetic" for Schiller and Peirce: A Neglected Origin of Pragmatism

Jeffrey Barnou,  *Journal of the History of Ideas*



Hth,
Jerry R


On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 2:10 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
wrote:

> List:
>
> I found three more potentially relevant quotes in an alternate draft of
> "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism" (R 193, NEM 4:313-330; 1906).
> It was a bit of a challenge to ascertain how much of the context I should
> include in each case, so please let me know off-List if you would like to
> see anything that comes right before or after any of these excerpts.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon S.
>
>
> 8.  Now let us see how the Diagram entrains its consequence. The Diagram
> sufficiently partakes of the percussivity of a Percept to determine, as its
> Dynamic, or Middle, Interpretant, a state [of] activity in the Interpreter,
> mingled with curiosity. As usual, this mixture leads to Experimentation. It
> is the normal Logical effect; that is to say, it not only happens in the
> cortex of the human brain, but must plainly happen in every Quasi-mind in
> which Signs of all kinds have a vitality of their own. (NEM 4:318).
>
>
> 9.  The System of Existential Graphs the development of which has only
> been begun by a solitary student, furnishes already the best diagram of the
> contents of the logical Quasi-mind that has ever yet been found and
> promises much future perfectionment. Let us call the collective whole of
> all that could ever be present to the mind in any way or in any sense, the
> *Phaneron*. Then the substance of every Thought (and of much beside
> Thought proper) will be a Consistituent of the Phaneron. The Phaneron being
> itself far too elusive for direct observation, there can be no better
> method of studying it than through the Diagram of it which the System of
> Existential Graphs puts at our disposition. (NEM 4:320)
>
>
> 10.  Logic requires great subtlety of thought, throughout; and especially
> in distinguishing those characters which belong to the diagram with which
> one works, but which are not significant features of it considered as the
> Diagram it is taken for, from those that testify as to the Form
> represented. For not only may a Diagram have features that are not
> significant at all, such as its being drawn upon ''laid'' or upon ''wove"
> paper; not only may it have features that are significant but are not
> diagrammatically so; but one and the same construction may be, when
> regarded in two different ways, two altogether different diagrams; and that
> to which it testifies in the one capacity, it must not be considered as
> testifying to in the other capacity. For example, the Entire Existential
> Graph of a Phemic Sheet, in any state of it, is a Diagram of the logical
> Universe, as it is also a Diagram of a Quasi-mind; but it must not, on *that
> *account, be considered as testifying to the identity of those two. It is
> like a telescope eye piece which at one focus exhibits a star at which the
> instrument is pointed, and at another exhibits all the faults of the
> objective lens. (NEM 4:324)
>
>
> On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 9:52 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <
> jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> List:
>>
>> Following Gary R.'s example, before offering any further remarks of my
>> own, I would like to add a few more Peirce quotes about Quasi-minds to the
>> mix.  The first three are from "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism"
>> (1906); #2 directly precedes Gary's first selection, and #3 comes shortly
>> after it.  The other four are from "The Basis of Pragmaticism in 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

List:

I found three more potentially relevant quotes in an alternate draft of
"Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism" (R 193, NEM 4:313-330; 1906).
It was a bit of a challenge to ascertain how much of the context I should
include in each case, so please let me know off-List if you would like to
see anything that comes right before or after any of these excerpts.

Regards,

Jon S.


8.  Now let us see how the Diagram entrains its consequence. The Diagram
sufficiently partakes of the percussivity of a Percept to determine, as its
Dynamic, or Middle, Interpretant, a state [of] activity in the Interpreter,
mingled with curiosity. As usual, this mixture leads to Experimentation. It
is the normal Logical effect; that is to say, it not only happens in the
cortex of the human brain, but must plainly happen in every Quasi-mind in
which Signs of all kinds have a vitality of their own. (NEM 4:318).


9.  The System of Existential Graphs the development of which has only been
begun by a solitary student, furnishes already the best diagram of the
contents of the logical Quasi-mind that has ever yet been found and
promises much future perfectionment. Let us call the collective whole of
all that could ever be present to the mind in any way or in any sense, the
*Phaneron*. Then the substance of every Thought (and of much beside Thought
proper) will be a Consistituent of the Phaneron. The Phaneron being itself
far too elusive for direct observation, there can be no better method of
studying it than through the Diagram of it which the System of Existential
Graphs puts at our disposition. (NEM 4:320)


10.  Logic requires great subtlety of thought, throughout; and especially
in distinguishing those characters which belong to the diagram with which
one works, but which are not significant features of it considered as the
Diagram it is taken for, from those that testify as to the Form
represented. For not only may a Diagram have features that are not
significant at all, such as its being drawn upon ''laid'' or upon ''wove"
paper; not only may it have features that are significant but are not
diagrammatically so; but one and the same construction may be, when
regarded in two different ways, two altogether different diagrams; and that
to which it testifies in the one capacity, it must not be considered as
testifying to in the other capacity. For example, the Entire Existential
Graph of a Phemic Sheet, in any state of it, is a Diagram of the logical
Universe, as it is also a Diagram of a Quasi-mind; but it must not, on *that
*account, be considered as testifying to the identity of those two. It is
like a telescope eye piece which at one focus exhibits a star at which the
instrument is pointed, and at another exhibits all the faults of the
objective lens. (NEM 4:324)


On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 9:52 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 
wrote:

> List:
>
> Following Gary R.'s example, before offering any further remarks of my
> own, I would like to add a few more Peirce quotes about Quasi-minds to the
> mix.  The first three are from "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism"
> (1906); #2 directly precedes Gary's first selection, and #3 comes shortly
> after it.  The other four are from "The Basis of Pragmaticism in the
> Normative Sciences" (1906) and related manuscript drafts; #7 includes, and
> provides the context for, Gary's second selection.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
>  - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
>
> 1.  I have already noted that a Sign has an Object and an Interpretant,
> the latter being that which the Sign produces in the Quasi-mind that is the
> Interpreter by determining the latter to a feeling, to an exertion, or to a
> Sign, which determination is the Interpretant. (CP 4.536)
>
>
> 2.  All the various meanings of the word "Mind," Logical, Metaphysical,
> and Psychological, are apt to be confounded more or less, partly because
> considerable logical acumen is required to distinguish some of them, and
> because of the lack of any machinery to support the thought in doing so,
> partly because they are so many, and partly because (owing to these
> causes), they are all called by one word, "Mind." In one of the narrowest
> and most concrete of its logical meanings, a Mind is that Seme of The
> Truth, whose determinations become Immediate Interpretants of all other
> Signs whose Dynamical Interpretants are dynamically connected. In our
> Diagram the same thing which represents The Truth must be regarded as in
> another way representing the Mind, and indeed, as being the Quasi-mind of
> all the Signs represented on the Diagram. For any set of Signs which are so
> connected that a complex of two of them can have one interpretant, must be
> Determinations of one Sign which is a *Quasi-mind*. (CP 4.550)
>
>
> 3.  The matter which the 

Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina, List:

The only obvious contradiction that I see in your summary is between these
two claims.

ET:  the Quasi-Mind is a bundle of habits capable of habit change by
experience [Note: this rules out Firstness in this situation]
ET:  Form = 1stness


Why would my concept of Quasi-mind "rule out 1ns in this situation"?
Frankly, I am not even sure what that means.  On the contrary, Peirce
explicitly stated that "the perfect Sign never ceases to undergo changes of
the kind we rather drolly call *spontaneous*, that is, they happen *sua
sponte* but not by its will. They are phenomena of growth."  This sounds
like 1ns to me.  Furthermore, since a Quasi-mind is an Argument and
therefore a Symbol, it necessarily *involves *all degenerate Sign types,
including Rhemes and Icons, which are also manifestations of 1ns.
Remember, I only associate Form with 1ns where it corresponds to Matter as
2ns and Entelechy as 3ns; i.e., signified qualities (predicates), denoted
objects (subjects), and Signs that bring them together, respectively.  In
fact, I suspect that Peirce used the term "perfect Sign" with this very
notion of Entelechy (perfection) in mind, since he defined it as "the
aggregate formed by a sign and all the signs which its occurrence carries
with it," encompassing Signs from all ten (or even 66) classes.

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 12:16 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
wrote:

> Jon - just a few of my concerns about your definitions - but - I'm not
> going to get into another endless debate. I'm sure you'll respond - but -
> we'll have to leave it with that.
>
> You have informed us, in this thread that:
>
> .Perfect Sign = a Quasi-mind
>
> - the Quasi-Mind is a bundle of habits capable of habit change by
> experience [Note: this rules out Firstness in this situation]
>
> - Mind=Quasi-mind
>
> - Agent= Quasi-mind
>
> - Utterer and Interpreter are individual Quasi-minds that become welded in
> the sign
>
> - the Sign = a medium of communication of a Form between them
>
> - Form = 1stness.
>
> I don't know if you can see the contradictions and problems in these
> definitions.
>
> Edwina
>

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jerry LR Chandler]

List:

Thanks to Jon for his meaningful scholarship on this term. 

Whose problem (definition of quasi-mind”) is this?

Edwinia’s?
Jon’s?

or is merely another example of the qualities of CSP’s mental states?

Cheers
jerry


> On Feb 19, 2018, at 12:16 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
> 
> 
> Jon - just a few of my concerns about your definitions - but - I'm not going 
> to get into another endless debate. I'm sure you'll respond - but - we'll 
> have to leave it with that. 
> 
> You have informed us, in this thread that:
> 
> .Perfect Sign = a Quasi-mind
> 
> - the Quasi-Mind is a bundle of habits capable of habit change by experience 
> [Note: this rules out Firstness in this situation]
> 
> - Mind=Quasi-mind
> 
> - Agent= Quasi-mind
> 
> - Utterer and Interpreter are individual Quasi-minds that become welded in 
> the sign
> 
> - the Sign = a medium of communication of a Form between them
> 
> - Form = 1stness.
> 
> I don't know if you can see the contradictions and problems in these 
> definitions.
> 
> Edwina
> 
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -
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Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Edwina Taborsky]

 

 BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px; }
 Jon - just a few of my concerns about your definitions - but - I'm
not going to get into another endless debate. I'm sure you'll respond
- but - we'll have to leave it with that. 

You have informed us, in this thread that:

.Perfect Sign = a Quasi-mind

- the Quasi-Mind is a bundle of habits capable of habit change by
experience [Note: this rules out Firstness in this situation]

- Mind=Quasi-mind

- Agent= Quasi-mind

- Utterer and Interpreter are individual Quasi-minds that become
welded in the sign

- the Sign = a medium of communication of a Form between them

- Form = 1stness.

I don't know if you can see the contradictions and problems in these
definitions.

Edwina

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Stephen C. Rose]

Jon -- Our interpretations are a frail reed to expect others to embrace.
If we have something to add to what we take Peirce to mean, that makes
sense. But why argue over taking something he said is quasi aka vague and
saying it is meant to be specific. Peirce is not here to demur. Agreeing is
a stretch. What else is there to say?

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Gary F., List:

I am obviously attempting to make the term "Quasi-mind" less vague and more
definite.  My understanding is that *every *perfect Sign is determinable by
other Signs; in this context, "perfect" does not mean "complete" or
"finished."  Where do you see Peirce saying otherwise?  On the contrary ...

CSP:  Now no perfect sign is in a statical condition ... the perfect sign
is perpetually being acted upon by its object, from which it is perpetually
receiving the accretions of new signs, which bring it fresh energy, and
also kindle energy that it already had, but which had lain dormant. In
addition, the perfect sign never ceases to undergo changes of the kind we
rather drolly call *spontaneous*, that is, they happen *sua sponte* but not
by its will. They are phenomena of growth. *Such perfect sign is a
quasi-mind* ... This quasi-mind is an object which from whatever standpoint
it be examined, must evidently have, like anything else, its special
qualities of susceptibility to determination. (EP 2:545n25; 1906, emphasis
added).


I read "such" as "every" in the bold sentence, since Peirce does not say
anything else about perfect Signs in the passage to suggest that there are,
or even could be, other kinds that are *not *Quasi-minds.  I even checked
the manuscript, thanks again to Jeff Downard and the SPIN Project, and
found the following where EP 2:545n25 has ellipses or, in the last case, as
an alternative draft.

... whatsoever acts changes.  Perhaps the reader may demur to this, saying
that the earth acts to press him against the floor, but does not thereby
undergo any change.  But the floor is elastic, and [page partially cut off]
never lasts.  He vibrates up and down; and action and reaction being equal,
the centre of gravity of the earth reciprocally vibrates up and down.  It
is abstractly conceivable that a particle should remain at rest; but in
fact, it never does so. (R 283:259-260[115-116])


... Existential Graphs.  This description must remain, inadequate though it
is, or we should throw open the doors at once to a jam of considerations,
which must be taken into account. (R 283:261[117])


... others invariable.  But we may ask, What is the nature of the action of
the sign upon the quasi-mind when it determines the interpretant?  The
answer will be better understood if it is made disjunctive rather than
general. (R 283:262-263[118-119])


Looking upon the quasi-mind from another side, we see that it must have, in
the first place, special qualities of susceptibility, or possibility of
determination.  It must in the next place be subject to reactions, each of
which is an actual event, happening once and never again.  It has, in the
third place, dispositions and habits.  But it will be convenient to call
them all habits, whether they are original or acquired.  These are modified
by ... (R 283:265[118])


So far, I see no reason here to change my interpretation; in fact, that
last quote seems to confirm my concept of a Quasi-mind as a bundle of
habits (i.e., reacting substance) that is capable of Habit-change (i.e.,
learning by experience).  What would you consider to be an example of a
perfect Sign that is not *also *a Quasi-mind, or a Quasi-mind that is not
*also *a perfect Sign?  On my reading, what would you consider to be an
example of a Mind that is not *also* a Quasi-mind, such that the former
term is more general than the latter, rather than the other way around?  I
have already proposed a *person *as an example of a Mind that is a specific
kind of Quasi-mind--one that has a center of consciousness (i.e., unity of
feeling).

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 9:30 AM,  wrote:

> Jon,
>
> Yes, that’s what I see as a problem, that you regard “perfect Sign” and
> “Quasi-mind” as synonyms. “Quasi-mind” is an intentionally *vague* term,
> meaning “something of the general nature of a mind” (MS 283). “Perfect
> Sign,” on the other hand, is a very definite and distinctive kind of sign,
> one that “involves the present existence of no other sign except such as
> are ingredients of itself.” Surely there must be signs, and quasi-minds,
> which are *not* perfect in this respect, but are determinable by other
> signs. Where does Peirce say, or imply, that a quasi-mind necessarily
> “involves the present existence of no other sign except such as are
> ingredients of itself”?
>
> Regarding “perfect sign” and “quasi-mind” as synonyms prompts you to
> assign the attributes of perfect signs to all quasi-minds. I don’t see
> Peirce doing this, and that is where I see you suggesting that “quasi-mind”
> is a more specific term than “mind.”
>
>
>
> Gary f.
>

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Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina, List:

I understand your hesitancy, and appreciate your willingness to offer some
comments.

1.  Not surprisingly, your analysis makes sense within your model of
semiosis, in which a "Sign" is an (inter)action; but not within mine, in
which a "Sign" is one of three Correlates in a triadic relation that
corresponds to a "Sign-action."  Again, what you call "agents" are what I
call "Quasi-minds" based on my reading of Peirce in which the utterer and
interpreter are individual Quasi-minds that become "welded" in the Sign,
which serves as a medium for communication of a Form between them.

2.  I do not see how a "perfect Sign" as defined by Peirce can be a mere
Rheme, since it is "the aggregate formed by a sign and all the signs which
its occurrence carries with it" (EP 2:545n25).  It instead must be an
Argument, which necessarily *involves* Dicisigns, which necessarily *involve
*Rhemes; and its Conclusion is the one Interpretant that this complex of
connected Signs produces (cf. CP 250-253, EP 2:292-294; 1903).  In
Existential Graphs, where the Quasi-mind is the sheet of assertion or
Phemic Sheet, "We are to imagine that two parties collaborate in composing
a Pheme [Dicisign], and in operating upon this so as to develop a Delome
[Argument] ... The two collaborating parties shall be called the *Graphist *and
the *Interpreter* ... the *Quasi-mind* in which the Graphist and
Interpreter are at one, being ... a Pheme [Dicisign] of all that is tacitly
taken for granted between the Graphist and Interpreter" (CP 4.552-553;
1906).  I understand its "capacity for adaptive growth of knowledge" to be
its "susceptibility of determination" (EP 2:545n25); i.e., its capability
for Habit-changes as Final Interpretants upon further determination by
additional Signs (learning by experience).

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 9:07 AM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> list - I have hesitated to get into this thread because I don't want to
> get into yet another interminable debate over terms - but - I do have a few
> concerns about the definition of a quasi-mind and of a perfect sign.
>
> 1] I understand a quasi-mind as emerging within a local semiosic
> interaction  between at least two if nor more agents - and it can most
> certainly be found in non-human and indeed, material agents.  As Peirce
> said, "Let a community of quasi-minds consist of the liquid in a number of
> bottle which are in intricate connexion by tubes filled with the liquid.
> this liquid is of complex and somewhat unstable mixed chemical composition.
> It also has to strong a cohesion and consequent surface-tension that the
> contents of each bottle take on a self-determined form'...EP; 392.
>
> That is - a quasi-mind, in my view, is the specific local mental action
> that emerges within the semiosic interaction- and since Mind functions in
> all material spheres, from the physic-chemical to the biological to the
> human conceptual - then, the quasi-mind must emerge in all these realms.
>
> So, I see the quasi-mind as the existential, local operation of Mind.
>
> 2] As for the 'perfect sign' - I see it as  one particular class of
> signs: a Rhematic Indexical Legisign - an individual interpretation of
> local stimuli as referenced to a general rule.
>
> This is, as Peirce points out in EP 545#25, a semiosic action that is rule
> based but NOT-static; i.e., has the capacity for adaptive growth of
> knowledge as a Legisign; it is 'perpetually being acted upon by its
> object' [that's the indexicality]; it brings 'fresh energy [that is its
> rhematic nature]
>
> Edwina
>

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RE: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[gnox]

Jon,

Yes, that’s what I see as a problem, that you regard “perfect Sign” and 
“Quasi-mind” as synonyms. “Quasi-mind” is an intentionally vague term, meaning 
“something of the general nature of a mind” (MS 283). “Perfect Sign,” on the 
other hand, is a very definite and distinctive kind of sign, one that “involves 
the present existence of no other sign except such as are ingredients of 
itself.” Surely there must be signs, and quasi-minds, which are not perfect in 
this respect, but are determinable by other signs. Where does Peirce say, or 
imply, that a quasi-mind necessarily “involves the present existence of no 
other sign except such as are ingredients of itself”?

Regarding “perfect sign” and “quasi-mind” as synonyms prompts you to assign the 
attributes of perfect signs to all quasi-minds. I don’t see Peirce doing this, 
and that is where I see you suggesting that “quasi-mind” is a more specific 
term than “mind.”

 

Gary f. 

 

From: Jon Alan Schmidt [mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com] 
Sent: 19-Feb-18 09:04



Gary F., List:

I agree that "'quasi-mind' is a broader, more general term than 'mind,'" and 
that "a human mind is one kind of quasi-mind, not the other way round."  Where 
do you see me suggesting otherwise?

My reading of EP 2:545n25, taken as a whole, is that "perfect Sign" and 
"Quasi-mind" are synonyms.

 


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Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Edwina Taborsky]

 

 BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}list - I have hesitated to get into this thread because I don't want
to get into yet another interminable debate over terms - but - I do
have a few concerns about the definition of a quasi-mind and of a
perfect sign.

1] I understand a quasi-mind as emerging within a local semiosic
interaction  between at least two if nor more agents - and it can
most certainly be found in non-human and indeed, material agents.  As
Peirce said, "Let a community of quasi-minds consist of the liquid in
a number of bottle which are in intricate connexion by tubes filled
with the liquid. this liquid is of complex and somewhat unstable
mixed chemical composition. It also has to strong a cohesion and
consequent surface-tension that the contents of each bottle take on a
self-determined form'...EP; 392. 

That is - a quasi-mind, in my view, is the specific local mental
action that emerges within the semiosic interaction- and since Mind
functions in all material spheres, from the physic-chemical to the
biological to the human conceptual - then, the quasi-mind must emerge
in all these realms.

So, I see the quasi-mind as the existential, local operation of
Mind.

2] As for the 'perfect sign' - I see it as  one particular class of
signs: a Rhematic Indexical Legisign - an individual interpretation
of local stimuli as referenced to a general rule.

This is, as Peirce points out in EP 545#25, a semiosic action that
is rule based but NOT-static; i.e., has the capacity for adaptive
growth of knowledge as a Legisign; it is 'perpetually being acted
upon by its object' [that's the indexicality]; it brings 'fresh
energy [that is its rhematic nature] 
Edwina
 On Mon 19/02/18  9:04 AM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
 Gary F., List:
 I agree that "'quasi-mind' is a broader, more general term than
'mind,'" and that "a human mind is one kind of quasi-mind, not the
other way round."  Where do you see me suggesting otherwise?
 My reading of EP 2:545n25, taken as a whole, is that "perfect Sign"
and "Quasi-mind" are synonyms.
 Regards,
 Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [1] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [2] 
 On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 6:47 AM,   wrote:
 Jon,

Your collection of Peirce quotes deploying the term “quasi-mind”
(if each is taken in context) seemed to me quite enough to clarify
what the term signifies — so I haven’t followed your additional
explanation very closely, as it seemed to me redundant. But I think
it may also be misleading in a couple of ways.  

First, you seem to be developing a concept of “quasi-mind” which
makes it more specific than “mind,” as if it has some special
qualities that other kinds of “mind” don’t have. I think this
is a mistake, because in Peirce’s usage, “quasi-mind” is a
broader, more general term than “mind.” He was directing
attention to something that has mindlike qualities but not
necessarily  all those qualities or functions which we habitually
associate with “mind,” and not necessarily only those qualities
or functions. For instance, a human mind is one kind of quasi-mind,
not the other way round.

Second, Peirce says (EP2:545) that “ Such perfect sign is a
quasi-mind,” but you seem to be interpreting this as if it said
that every quasi-mind is a perfect sign. I don’t see any warrant
for that.

Pardon me if I’ve misread you, but if so, at least you know that
such misreadings are possible!

 Gary f. 


Links:
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[2] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[3]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'g...@gnusystems.ca\',\'\',\'\',\'\')

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Gary F., List:

I agree that "'quasi-mind' is a broader, *more general* term than 'mind,'"
and that "a human mind is one kind of quasi-mind, not the other way
round."  Where do you see me suggesting otherwise?

My reading of EP 2:545n25, taken as a whole, is that "perfect Sign" and
"Quasi-mind" are synonyms.

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Mon, Feb 19, 2018 at 6:47 AM,  wrote:

> Jon,
>
> Your collection of Peirce quotes deploying the term “quasi-mind” (if each
> is taken in context) seemed to me quite enough to clarify what the term
> signifies — so I haven’t followed your additional explanation very closely,
> as it seemed to me redundant. But I think it may also be misleading in a
> couple of ways.
>
> First, you seem to be developing a concept of “quasi-mind” which makes it 
> *more
> specific* than “mind,” as if it has some special qualities that other
> kinds of “mind” don’t have. I think this is a mistake, because in Peirce’s
> usage, “quasi-mind” is a broader, *more general* term than “mind.” He was
> directing attention to something that has mindlike qualities but not
> necessarily *all* those qualities or functions which we habitually
> associate with “mind,” and not necessarily *only* those qualities or
> functions. For instance, a human mind is one kind of quasi-mind, not the
> other way round.
>
> Second, Peirce says (EP2:545) that “Such perfect sign is a quasi-mind,”
> but you seem to be interpreting this as if it said that *every quasi-mind
> is a perfect sign*. I don’t see any warrant for that.
>
> Pardon me if I’ve misread you, but if so, at least you know that such
> misreadings are possible!
>
> Gary f.
>

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RE: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[gnox]

Jon,

Your collection of Peirce quotes deploying the term “quasi-mind” (if each is 
taken in context) seemed to me quite enough to clarify what the term signifies 
— so I haven’t followed your additional explanation very closely, as it seemed 
to me redundant. But I think it may also be misleading in a couple of ways. 

First, you seem to be developing a concept of “quasi-mind” which makes it more 
specific than “mind,” as if it has some special qualities that other kinds of 
“mind” don’t have. I think this is a mistake, because in Peirce’s usage, 
“quasi-mind” is a broader, more general term than “mind.” He was directing 
attention to something that has mindlike qualities but not necessarily all 
those qualities or functions which we habitually associate with “mind,” and not 
necessarily only those qualities or functions. For instance, a human mind is 
one kind of quasi-mind, not the other way round.

Second, Peirce says (EP2:545) that “Such perfect sign is a quasi-mind,” but you 
seem to be interpreting this as if it said that every quasi-mind is a perfect 
sign. I don’t see any warrant for that.

Pardon me if I’ve misread you, but if so, at least you know that such 
misreadings are possible!

Gary f.

 

From: Jon Alan Schmidt [mailto:jonalanschm...@gmail.com] 
Sent: 18-Feb-18 20:41
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

 

List:

 

Having received no corrections or objections to my summary of the relevant 
Peirce quotes, I would like to offer some further comments.

 

In these contexts, at least, Quasi-minds are clearly indispensable to 
Sign-action.  In fact, there must be at least two Quasi-minds (#4-5) involved, 
such that the Sign serves as a medium for communication of a Form between them 
(#6), "welding" them such that they are at one in the Sign itself.  Hence the 
term "Sign" here evidently refers to what Peirce elsewhere called a genuine 
Sign--one that requires Quasi-minds serving as both utterer and interpreter, 
which may be past and future versions of the same Quasi-mind.  By contrast, a 
natural (or degenerate) Sign does not require a Quasi-mind to utter it, just a 
Dynamic Object to determine it.

 

The Dynamic Object does this only in the particular respect that enables the 
(genuine or natural) Sign to act upon the second Quasi-mind as if the Dynamic 
Object itself were acting upon it (#7).  I take this "respect" to be the 
Immediate Object, the partial combination of attributes of the Dynamic Object 
by which the Sign denotes it.  Thus "deputized" by its Object, the Sign 
determines the second Quasi-mind to produce a feeling, exertion (action), or 
other Sign (thought) as its Dynamic Interpretant (#8), which is a singular 
event (#3).  The Sign is best regarded as this very determination of the 
interpreting Quasi-mind, rather than as an Object that addresses itself to that 
Quasi-mind (#9).

So what is a Quasi-mind?  My last tentative definition called it a bundle of 
Collateral Experience and Habits of Interpretation (i.e., 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.  I still think that this is close to the 
mark, but can now clarify that a Quasi-mind is a Sign that constitutes an 
aggregate or complex of all previous Signs that have determined it, which are 
so connected together as to produce one Interpretant (#1).  As such, a 
Quasi-mind includes the Immediate Objects of all those previous Signs, which 
serve as its Collateral Experience, as well as their Final Interpretants, which 
serve as its Habits of Interpretation.

I also still believe that the capacity for Habit-change is what distinguishes a 
Quasi-mind from a brute Thing--a strictly material reacting substance whose 
Habits of Interpretation have become inveterate ("matter as effete mind," CP 
6.25; 1891).  I was previously leaning toward also requiring a Quasi-mind to be 
a center of consciousness (i.e., unity of feeling), based primarily on the 
following passage, as expounded in a recent book chapter by Vincent Colapietro 
("Habits, Awareness, and Autonomy," in Donna E. West and Myrdene Anderson, 
Eds., Consensus on Peirce's Concept of Habit, pp. 297-313).

CSP:  Of course, each personality is based upon a "bundle of habits," as the 
saying is that a man is a bundle of habits. But a bundle of habits would not 
have the unity of self-consciousness. That unity must be given as a centre for 
the habits. The brain shows no central cell. The unity of consciousness is 
therefore not of physiological origin. It can only be metaphysical. So far as 
feelings have any continuity, it is the metaphysical nature of feeling to have 
a unity. (CP 6.228-229; 1898)

However, I now realize--since Peirce explicitly stated that consciousness is 
not logically nec

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

List:

Having received no corrections or objections to my summary of the relevant
Peirce quotes, I would like to offer some further comments.

In these contexts, at least, Quasi-minds are clearly indispensable to
Sign-action.  In fact, there must be at least *two *Quasi-minds (#4-5)
involved, such that the Sign serves as a medium for communication of a
Form *between
*them (#6), "welding" them such that they are at one in the Sign itself.
Hence the term "Sign" here evidently refers to what Peirce elsewhere called
a *genuine *Sign--one that requires Quasi-minds serving as *both *utterer *and
*interpreter, which may be past and future versions of the *same *Quasi-mind.
By contrast, a *natural *(or degenerate) Sign does not require a Quasi-mind
to *utter *it, just a Dynamic Object to *determine *it.

The Dynamic Object does this *only *in the particular respect that enables
the (genuine or natural) Sign to act upon the second Quasi-mind *as if *the
Dynamic Object itself were acting upon it (#7).  I take this "respect" to
be the Immediate Object, the *partial *combination of attributes of the
Dynamic Object by which the Sign *denotes *it.  Thus "deputized" by its
Object, the Sign *determines *the second Quasi-mind to produce a feeling,
exertion (action), or other Sign (thought) as its Dynamic Interpretant
(#8), which is a *singular *event (#3).  The Sign is best regarded as this
very determination of the interpreting Quasi-mind, rather than as an
Object that
addresses itself to that Quasi-mind (#9).

So what is a Quasi-mind?  My last tentative definition called it a bundle
of Collateral Experience and Habits of Interpretation (i.e., *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.  I
still think that this is close to the mark, but can now clarify that a
Quasi-mind is a *Sign *that constitutes an aggregate or complex of all
*previous
*Signs that have determined it, which are so connected together as to
produce *one *Interpretant (#1).  As such, a Quasi-mind *includes *the
Immediate Objects of all those previous Signs, which serve as its
Collateral Experience, as well as their Final Interpretants, which serve as
its Habits of Interpretation.

I also still believe that the capacity for Habit-change is what
distinguishes a Quasi-mind from a brute Thing--a strictly *material *reacting
substance whose Habits of Interpretation have become inveterate ("matter as
effete mind," CP 6.25; 1891).  I was previously leaning toward also
requiring a Quasi-mind to be a center of consciousness (i.e., *unity of
feeling*), based primarily on the following passage, as expounded in a
recent book chapter by Vincent Colapietro ("Habits, Awareness, and
Autonomy," in Donna E. West and Myrdene Anderson, Eds., *Consensus on
Peirce's Concept of Habit*, pp. 297-313).

CSP:  Of course, each personality is based upon a "bundle of habits," as
the saying is that a man is a bundle of habits. But a bundle of habits
would not have the unity of self-consciousness. That unity must be given as
a centre for the habits. The brain shows no central cell. The unity of
consciousness is therefore not of physiological origin. It can only be
metaphysical. So far as feelings have any continuity, it is the
metaphysical nature of feeling to have a *unity*. (CP 6.228-229; 1898)


However, I now realize--since Peirce explicitly stated that consciousness
is *not *logically necessary for a Quasi-mind (#2)--that this is instead
what distinguishes a *person *(or personality, or *human *Mind) from a
"mere" Quasi-mind.  Furthermore, it is what makes *self-control* possible,
as opposed to the "uncontrolled inferences" of non-human animals (cf. CP
7.444-446; c. 1893).  In other words, *all *Quasi-minds are capable of
Habit-change when Sign-actions in the *Outer *World produce a *new *Final
Interpretant that supplements or replaces its *previous *Habits of
Interpretation; but *only *persons are capable of *self-controlled*
Habit-change by means of *purposeful *Sign-actions in the *Inner *World
(cf. CP 4.157, c. 1897; EP 2:412-413, 1907; CP 5.493, EP 2:418-419, 1907;
EP 2:431, 1907; EP 2:549-550n49, 1907).  Conveniently, most of these
citations come from "Pragmatism," so I continue to look forward to Gary
R.'s planned List discussion of those manuscripts.

As for the Existential Graphs, I believe that everything above is
consistent with recognizing the sheet of assertion or Phemic Sheet as the
Quasi-mind (aggregate or complex) of all Signs scribed upon it, in
which the Graphist (utterer) and Intepreter are at one (#10), and a
Dicisign of all that is tacitly taken for granted between them (#11)--i.e.,
the overlap of their Collateral Experience and Habits of Interpretation
that makes their communication possible.

Regards,

Jon S.

On Sat, Feb 17, 2018 at 12:00 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt 

Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Helmut Raulien]

 
 
 



Supp-supplement: Corrections:

- Eukaryotes, not Prokaryotes.

- Quasi-utterer, Quasi-interpreter versus utterer, interpreter: I don´t know which would be which, but one would be the individual, and the other the whole classification chain.

- Complete individuation: Not possible. Even Obelix feared the sky to fall on his head (nature).

 

Supplement: In the post below you may replace "sign" with "mind" or "piece of mind", depending on which suits where better. I don´t see a necessity to distinguish "mind" from "quasi-mind", so no necessity to say "quasi" at all. I only said "quasi-symbol" to force to distinguish it from the commonly agreed concept of "symbol" that bases on convention, and to call natural laws conventions would be far fetched. I would like to amplify the "symbol" concept towards convention, habit, law, but I cannot do that just so, right now. I am not competent enough as a term-designer (terminator?)




List,

I think, that every sign is an argument. Everything that happens aka every sign has a reason, thus contains a "because", which makes it an argument. The quasi-utterer and the quasi-interpreter are each not only the respective individual, but the whole classification chain, such as: (nature(organisms(prokaryotes(animals(multicellers(segmented animals(insects(bees(individual bee). The symbolicity can ly in each of the sets. If a bee is slain by a meteor, it is in nature, with force (attraction between masses) as a quasi-symbol. If a bee takes a cheating orchid flower for a mating partner, the symbolicity and the "because" lies somewhere in the DNAs of the co-evolution of orchids and bees.

The symbolicity of human language means, that nature has handed down most genuity aspects of the sign to the individuals, or, that they have conquered it in their biological and cultural evolution. It may be seen both ways.

So, genuinity or degeneracy is not a matter of completeness or incompleteness of a sign, but a matter of more or less complete individualization of the quasi-utterer and the quasi-interpreter.

Best,

Helmut

 

17. Februar 2018 um 04:52 Uhr
 "Jon Alan Schmidt" 
 



List:

 

Following Gary R.'s example, before offering any further remarks of my own, I would like to add a few more Peirce quotes about Quasi-minds to the mix.  The first three are from "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism" (1906); #2 directly precedes Gary's first selection, and #3 comes shortly after it.  The other four are from "The Basis of Pragmaticism in the Normative Sciences" (1906) and related manuscript drafts; #7 includes, and provides the context for, Gary's second selection.

 


Regards,

 





Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA

Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman

www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt








 


1.  I have already noted that a Sign has an Object and an Interpretant, the latter being that which the Sign produces in the Quasi-mind that is the Interpreter by determining the latter to a feeling, to an exertion, or to a Sign, which determination is the Interpretant. (CP 4.536)


 

 

2.  All the various meanings of the word "Mind," Logical, Metaphysical, and Psychological, are apt to be confounded more or less, partly because considerable logical acumen is required to distinguish some of them, and because of the lack of any machinery to support the thought in doing so, partly because they are so many, and partly because (owing to these causes), they are all called by one word, "Mind." In one of the narrowest and most concrete of its logical meanings, a Mind is that Seme of The Truth, whose determinations become Immediate Interpretants of all other Signs whose Dynamical Interpretants are dynamically connected. In our Diagram the same thing which represents The Truth must be regarded as in another way representing the Mind, and indeed, as being the Quasi-mind of all the Signs represented on the Diagram. For any set of Signs which are so connected that a complex of two of them can have one interpretant, must be Determinations of one Sign which is a Quasi-mind. (CP 4.550)

 

 

3.  The matter which the Graph-instances are to determine, and which thereby becomes the Quasi-mind in which the Graphist and Interpreter are at one, being a Seme of The Truth, that is, of the widest Universe of Reality, and at the same time, a Pheme of all that is tacitly taken for granted between the Graphist and Interpreter, from the outset of their discussion, shall be a sheet, called the Phemic Sheet, upon which signs can be scribed and from which any that are already scribed in any manner (even though they be incised) can be erased. (CP 4.553)

 

 
4.  Indeed, two minds in communication are, in so far, "at one," that is, are properly one mind in that part of them. That being understood, the answer to the question will go on to recognize that every sign,--or, at any rate, nearly every one,--is a 

Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Helmut Raulien]

 
 

Supplement: In the post below you may replace "sign" with "mind" or "piece of mind", depending on which suits where better. I don´t see a necessity to distinguish "mind" from "quasi-mind", so no necessity to say "quasi" at all. I only said "quasi-symbol" to force to distinguish it from the commonly agreed concept of "symbol" that bases on convention, and to call natural laws conventions would be far fetched. I would like to amplify the "symbol" concept towards convention, habit, law, but I cannot do that just so, right now. I am not competent enough as a term-designer (terminator?)




List,

I think, that every sign is an argument. Everything that happens aka every sign has a reason, thus contains a "because", which makes it an argument. The quasi-utterer and the quasi-interpreter are each not only the respective individual, but the whole classification chain, such as: (nature(organisms(prokaryotes(animals(multicellers(segmented animals(insects(bees(individual bee). The symbolicity can ly in each of the sets. If a bee is slain by a meteor, it is in nature, with force (attraction between masses) as a quasi-symbol. If a bee takes a cheating orchid flower for a mating partner, the symbolicity and the "because" lies somewhere in the DNAs of the co-evolution of orchids and bees.

The symbolicity of human language means, that nature has handed down most genuity aspects of the sign to the individuals, or, that they have conquered it in their biological and cultural evolution. It may be seen both ways.

So, genuinity or degeneracy is not a matter of completeness or incompleteness of a sign, but a matter of more or less complete individualization of the quasi-utterer and the quasi-interpreter.

Best,

Helmut

 

17. Februar 2018 um 04:52 Uhr
 "Jon Alan Schmidt" 
 



List:

 

Following Gary R.'s example, before offering any further remarks of my own, I would like to add a few more Peirce quotes about Quasi-minds to the mix.  The first three are from "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism" (1906); #2 directly precedes Gary's first selection, and #3 comes shortly after it.  The other four are from "The Basis of Pragmaticism in the Normative Sciences" (1906) and related manuscript drafts; #7 includes, and provides the context for, Gary's second selection.

 


Regards,

 





Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA

Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman

www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt








 


1.  I have already noted that a Sign has an Object and an Interpretant, the latter being that which the Sign produces in the Quasi-mind that is the Interpreter by determining the latter to a feeling, to an exertion, or to a Sign, which determination is the Interpretant. (CP 4.536)


 

 

2.  All the various meanings of the word "Mind," Logical, Metaphysical, and Psychological, are apt to be confounded more or less, partly because considerable logical acumen is required to distinguish some of them, and because of the lack of any machinery to support the thought in doing so, partly because they are so many, and partly because (owing to these causes), they are all called by one word, "Mind." In one of the narrowest and most concrete of its logical meanings, a Mind is that Seme of The Truth, whose determinations become Immediate Interpretants of all other Signs whose Dynamical Interpretants are dynamically connected. In our Diagram the same thing which represents The Truth must be regarded as in another way representing the Mind, and indeed, as being the Quasi-mind of all the Signs represented on the Diagram. For any set of Signs which are so connected that a complex of two of them can have one interpretant, must be Determinations of one Sign which is a Quasi-mind. (CP 4.550)

 

 

3.  The matter which the Graph-instances are to determine, and which thereby becomes the Quasi-mind in which the Graphist and Interpreter are at one, being a Seme of The Truth, that is, of the widest Universe of Reality, and at the same time, a Pheme of all that is tacitly taken for granted between the Graphist and Interpreter, from the outset of their discussion, shall be a sheet, called the Phemic Sheet, upon which signs can be scribed and from which any that are already scribed in any manner (even though they be incised) can be erased. (CP 4.553)

 

 
4.  Indeed, two minds in communication are, in so far, "at one," that is, are properly one mind in that part of them. That being understood, the answer to the question will go on to recognize that every sign,--or, at any rate, nearly every one,--is a determination of something of the general nature of a mind, which we may call the "quasi-mind." (EP 2:389)

 

 

5.  A sign, on the other hand, just in so far as it fulfills the function of a sign, and none other, perfectly conforms to the definition of a medium of communication. It is determined by the object, but in no other respect than goes to 

Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Helmut Raulien]

List,

I think, that every sign is an argument. Everything that happens aka every sign has a reason, thus contains a "because", which makes it an argument. The quasi-utterer and the quasi-interpreter are each not only the respective individual, but the whole classification chain, such as: (nature(organisms(prokaryotes(animals(multicellers(segmented animals(insects(bees(individual bee). The symbolicity can ly in each of the sets. If a bee is slain by a meteor, it is in nature, with force (attraction between masses) as a quasi-symbol. If a bee takes a cheating orchid flower for a mating partner, the symbolicity and the "because" lies somewhere in the DNAs of the co-evolution of orchids and bees.

The symbolicity of human language means, that nature has handed down most genuity aspects of the sign to the individuals, or, that they have conquered it in their biological and cultural evolution. It may be seen both ways.

So, genuinity or degeneracy is not a matter of completeness or incompleteness of a sign, but a matter of more or less complete individualization of the quasi-utterer and the quasi-interpreter.

Best,

Helmut

 

17. Februar 2018 um 04:52 Uhr
 "Jon Alan Schmidt" 
 



List:

 

Following Gary R.'s example, before offering any further remarks of my own, I would like to add a few more Peirce quotes about Quasi-minds to the mix.  The first three are from "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism" (1906); #2 directly precedes Gary's first selection, and #3 comes shortly after it.  The other four are from "The Basis of Pragmaticism in the Normative Sciences" (1906) and related manuscript drafts; #7 includes, and provides the context for, Gary's second selection.

 


Regards,

 





Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA

Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman

www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt








 


1.  I have already noted that a Sign has an Object and an Interpretant, the latter being that which the Sign produces in the Quasi-mind that is the Interpreter by determining the latter to a feeling, to an exertion, or to a Sign, which determination is the Interpretant. (CP 4.536)


 

 

2.  All the various meanings of the word "Mind," Logical, Metaphysical, and Psychological, are apt to be confounded more or less, partly because considerable logical acumen is required to distinguish some of them, and because of the lack of any machinery to support the thought in doing so, partly because they are so many, and partly because (owing to these causes), they are all called by one word, "Mind." In one of the narrowest and most concrete of its logical meanings, a Mind is that Seme of The Truth, whose determinations become Immediate Interpretants of all other Signs whose Dynamical Interpretants are dynamically connected. In our Diagram the same thing which represents The Truth must be regarded as in another way representing the Mind, and indeed, as being the Quasi-mind of all the Signs represented on the Diagram. For any set of Signs which are so connected that a complex of two of them can have one interpretant, must be Determinations of one Sign which is a Quasi-mind. (CP 4.550)

 

 

3.  The matter which the Graph-instances are to determine, and which thereby becomes the Quasi-mind in which the Graphist and Interpreter are at one, being a Seme of The Truth, that is, of the widest Universe of Reality, and at the same time, a Pheme of all that is tacitly taken for granted between the Graphist and Interpreter, from the outset of their discussion, shall be a sheet, called the Phemic Sheet, upon which signs can be scribed and from which any that are already scribed in any manner (even though they be incised) can be erased. (CP 4.553)

 

 
4.  Indeed, two minds in communication are, in so far, "at one," that is, are properly one mind in that part of them. That being understood, the answer to the question will go on to recognize that every sign,--or, at any rate, nearly every one,--is a determination of something of the general nature of a mind, which we may call the "quasi-mind." (EP 2:389)

 

 

5.  A sign, on the other hand, just in so far as it fulfills the function of a sign, and none other, perfectly conforms to the definition of a medium of communication. It is determined by the object, but in no other respect than goes to enable it to act upon the interpreting quasi-mind; and the more perfectly it fulfills its function as a sign, the less effect it has upon that quasi-mind other than that of determining it as if the object itself had acted upon it. Thus, after an ordinary conversation, a wonderfully perfect kind of sign-functioning, one knows what information or suggestion has been conveyed, but will be utterly unable to say in what words it was conveyed, and often will think it was conveyed in words, when in fact it was only conveyed in tones or in facial expressions.

 

It seems best to regard a sign as a 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

List:

Still attempting to avoid any interpretive commentary just yet, here is
what those quotes tell us about Quasi-minds, in their likely order of
composition.

   - EP 2:389 - Every Sign, or nearly every Sign, is a determination of a
   Quasi-mind.
   - EP 2:391 - The Object determines the Sign only in the respect that
   enables the Sign to act upon the interpreting Quasi-mind as if the Object
   itself were acting upon it.
   - EP 2:391 - A Sign is best regarded as a determination of a Quasi-mind,
   rather than as an outward object that addresses itself to a Quasi-mind.
   - EP 2:544n22 - A Sign is a medium for communication of a Form among at
   least two (if not three) Quasi-minds.
   - EP 2:544n22 - Quasi-minds are things capable of varied determination
   as to Forms of the kind communicated, but it is not logically necessary
   that they possess consciousness.
   - EP 2:545n25 - A Quasi-mind is a perfect Sign, the aggregate formed by
   a Sign and all the Signs which its occurrence carries with it.
   - EP 2:545n25 - A Quasi-mind is the sheet of assertion of Existential
   Graphs.
   - EP 2:545n25 - A Quasi-mind is, like anything else, susceptible to
   determination in a certain way; and each such determination is an event
   occurring once for all and never again.
   - SS 195 - Every Sign must be a determination of a Quasi-mind, which is
   itself a determinable Sign, even if that Quasi-mind is one's future self.
   - CP 4.536 - A Sign produces an Interpretant in the Quasi-mind that is
   its interpreter by determining the latter to a feeling, exertion, or Sign.
   - CP 4.550 - Whatever represents The Truth in our Diagram must be
   regarded as the Quasi-mind of all the Signs represented on it.
   - CP 4.550 - Signs so connected that a complex of two of them can have
   one Interpretant are the determinations of one Sign, which is a Quasi-mind.
   - CP 4.551 - Connected Signs must have a Quasi-mind, and there are no
   isolated Signs.
   - CP 4.551 - Every Sign requires at least two distinct Quasi-minds, a
   Quasi-utterer and a Quasi-interpreter, which are at one (welded) in the
   Sign itself.
   - CP 4.553 - The Phemic Sheet is the Quasi-mind, which is determined by
   the Graph-instances scribed on it, and in which the Graphist and
   Interpreter are at one.
   - CP 4.553 - This Quasi-mind is a Seme of The Truth, the widest Universe
   of Reality, and a Pheme of all that is tacitly taken for granted between
   the Graphist and Interpreter.

Peirce wrote all of these passages during the early months of 1906--the EP
manuscripts in January, the SS letter in March, and the CP article in May
(published in October).  Consequently, it is reasonable to assume that they
are mutually consistent, and attempt to ascertain *his *concept of a
Quasi-mind accordingly.  Combining and rearranging the information
above--and thus finally injecting a little bit of interpretation on my
part--yields the following condensed version.

   1. A Quasi-mind is a *perfect *Sign, the aggregate or complex of all
   Signs that have previously determined it, which are so connected that they
   can have *one *Interpretant.
   2. A Quasi-mind is a *determinable *Sign, capable of varied
   determination as to Forms of the kind communicated by a Sign, but not
   necessarily *conscious*.
   3. Every such determination of a Quasi-mind is an *event *that occurs
   once for all and never again.
   4. A Sign cannot be isolated, but is *always *connected to other Signs,
   and thus *must *have a Quasi-mind.
   5. A Sign in fact requires at least* two* distinct Quasi-minds, its
   utterer and its interpreter, which are at one (welded) in the Sign itself.
   6. A Sign is a medium for communication of a Form *between *these
   Quasi-minds, which may be past and future versions of the *same *
   Quasi-mind.
   7. A Sign is determined by its Object *only *in the respect that enables
   it to act upon a Quasi-mind (its interpreter) *as if* the Object itself
   were acting upon that Quasi-mind.
   8. A Sign is the determination of a Quasi-mind (its interpreter) to
   produce a feeling, exertion, or other Sign *as *its Interpretant.
   9. A Sign is best regarded as this *determination *of a Quasi-mind (its
   interpreter), rather than as an outward *Object *that addresses itself
   to that Quasi-mind.
   10. For Existential Graphs, the sheet of assertion or Phemic Sheet that
   represents *The Truth* is the Quasi-mind of all Signs scribed on it, in
   which the Graphist and Interpreter are at one.
   11. This Quasi-mind is a *Seme *[Rheme] of the widest Universe of
   Reality, and a *Pheme *[Dicisign] of all that is tacitly taken for
   granted between the Graphist and Interpreter.

Does anything here seem incongruent with the original quotes, or have I
accurately summarized them?

Thanks,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - 

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

List:

Following Gary R.'s example, before offering any further remarks of my own,
I would like to add a few more Peirce quotes about Quasi-minds to the mix.
The first three are from "Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism"
(1906); #2 directly precedes Gary's first selection, and #3 comes shortly
after it.  The other four are from "The Basis of Pragmaticism in the
Normative Sciences" (1906) and related manuscript drafts; #7 includes, and
provides the context for, Gary's second selection.

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
 - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt


1.  I have already noted that a Sign has an Object and an Interpretant, the
latter being that which the Sign produces in the Quasi-mind that is the
Interpreter by determining the latter to a feeling, to an exertion, or to a
Sign, which determination is the Interpretant. (CP 4.536)


2.  All the various meanings of the word "Mind," Logical, Metaphysical, and
Psychological, are apt to be confounded more or less, partly because
considerable logical acumen is required to distinguish some of them, and
because of the lack of any machinery to support the thought in doing so,
partly because they are so many, and partly because (owing to these
causes), they are all called by one word, "Mind." In one of the narrowest
and most concrete of its logical meanings, a Mind is that Seme of The
Truth, whose determinations become Immediate Interpretants of all other
Signs whose Dynamical Interpretants are dynamically connected. In our
Diagram the same thing which represents The Truth must be regarded as in
another way representing the Mind, and indeed, as being the Quasi-mind of
all the Signs represented on the Diagram. For any set of Signs which are so
connected that a complex of two of them can have one interpretant, must be
Determinations of one Sign which is a *Quasi-mind*. (CP 4.550)


3.  The matter which the Graph-instances are to determine, and which
thereby becomes the *Quasi-mind* in which the Graphist and Interpreter are
at one, being a Seme of *The Truth*, that is, of the widest Universe of
Reality, and at the same time, a Pheme of all that is tacitly taken for
granted between the Graphist and Interpreter, from the outset of their
discussion, shall be a sheet, called the *Phemic Sheet*, upon which signs
can be scribed and from which any that are already scribed in any manner
(even though they be incised) *can *be erased. (CP 4.553)


4.  Indeed, two minds in communication are, in so far, "at one," that is,
are properly one mind in that part of them. That being understood, the
answer to the question will go on to recognize that every sign,--or, at any
rate, nearly every one,--is a determination of something of the general
nature of a mind, which we may call the "quasi-mind." (EP 2:389)


5.  A sign, on the other hand, just in so far as it fulfills the function
of a sign, and none other, perfectly conforms to the definition of a medium
of communication. It is determined by the object, but in no other respect
than goes to enable it to act upon the interpreting quasi-mind; and the
more perfectly it fulfills its function as a sign, the less effect it has
upon that quasi-mind other than that of determining it as if the object
itself had acted upon it. Thus, after an ordinary conversation, a
wonderfully perfect kind of sign-functioning, one knows what information or
suggestion has been conveyed, but will be utterly unable to say in what
words it was conveyed, and often will think it was conveyed in words, when
in fact it was only conveyed in tones or in facial expressions.

It seems best to regard a sign as a determination of a quasi-mind; for if
we regard it as an outward object, and as addressing itself to a human
mind, that mind must first apprehend it as an object in itself, and only
after that consider it in its significance; and the like must happen if the
sign addresses itself to any quasi-mind. It must begin by forming a
determination of that quasi-mind, and nothing will be lost by regarding
that determination as the sign. So, then, it is a determination that really
acts upon that of which it is a determination, although *genuine* action is
of one thing on another. This perplexes us, and an example of an analogous
phenomenon will do good service here. Metaphysics has been said
contemptuously to be a fabric of metaphors. But not only metaphysics, but
logical and phaneroscopical concepts need to be clothed in such garments.
For a pure idea without metaphor or other significant clothing is an onion
without a peel.

Let a community of quasi-minds consist of the liquid in a number of bottles
which are in intricate connexion by tubes filled with the liquid. This
liquid is of complex and somewhat unstable mixed chemical composition. It
also has so strong a cohesion and consequent surface-tension that the
contents of 

Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Stephen C. Rose]

I have never in any forum seen more quibbling over terms which either
cannot be clarified or need not be clarified. I think this is not great for
this forum. I see little here that convinces me that what is truly
revolutionary in Peirce -- his convincing attacks on nominalism and
dualism,  the things he clearly identifies as general or universal, his
insistence on an ultimate union of what was called metaphysical with what
is called empirical or simply science, etc, etc. will ever get a hearing if
this is a conduit to a wider world.

I personally feel that Peirce by standing for the triadic as against the
binary is more than significant. But I see little effort to apply that to
practical matters. Maybe we do not want to acknowledge what that might mean
in terms of what we most deeply believe. Peirce didn't go there either in
any prescriptive sense.

Reading here I must confess I feel less drawn to Peirce. Maybe we should
blame Peirce for leaving things in a jumble. But we should not perpetuate
it.

I am not complaining because things cannot be said elsewhere. They can and
will be. I am just tired of reading the first parts of posts whose
remaining parts can be easily inferred and appear to repeat mainly
bilateral conversations. I am sure inclusion is among the dominant values
here. Maybe I am just harping away. Forgive me.

-
PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L 
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Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina, List:

Despite the considerable progress that we have made in recent weeks at
understanding each other better, we obviously still have some very
fundamental differences in our readings of Peirce, models of semiosis, and
uses of terminology.

What you call a Sign is what I call a Sign-action.  What you call a
Representamen is (more or less) what I call a Quasi-mind.  What you now
call a Quasi-mind is what I would call a communication or dialogue.  When
one person speaks a word to another, you call that word the first person's
Dynamic Interpretant and the second person's Dynamic Object, while I call
it an external Sign or Representamen that the first person utters and the
second person interprets.

There is no point in arguing about any of this.  When I eventually discuss
Gary R.'s quotes and provide my current working definition of a Quasi-mind,
it is a given that you will disagree.

Regards,

Jon S.

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 5:33 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Jon - read my first post: I've underlined a key component..
>
>  If one considers that Mind is an essential and universal component of all
> existence and dialogue is equally essential to semiosis, then, I am
> understanding the Quasi-Mind as appearing within the dialogic interaction.
> So, even if the individual himself has ONE mind, in the dialogic
> semiosic interaction, a Quasi-mind develops within the interaction. Two
> Quasi-minds, the utterer's and the interpreter's - even if the dialogue is
> with oneself. And then, I presume, the Quasi-mind 'dissolves' and another
> emerges within the next semiosic interaction.
>
> I've said that a Quasi-mind develops within 'connected Signs';i.e.,
>  within a dialogic interaction. This Quasi-mind must BE within the two
> Agents; there are two; that of the the utterer and the interpreter'. It
> doesn't float in the air. It's a Mind-Aspect of the semiosic connection
> between them.
>
> Edwina
>
> On Fri 16/02/18 6:17 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent:
>
> Edwina, List:
>
> I was not trying to start another argument, just clarify the topic of
> discussion.
>
> My reading of those quotes is that what you are calling "utterer,"
> "interpreter," "oneself," "subjects," "Agent," and "community" all
> correspond to what Peirce meant by "Quasi-mind," rather than the
> interaction between them.  It is certainly what I will mean by "Quasi-mind"
> as this discussion moves forward.  If you still disagree, once again please
> do not feel obligated to respond.
>
> Regards,
>
> Jon S.
>
> On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 4:46 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
> wrote:
>
>> Jon, list
>>
>> I'm not going to get into an extensive argument with you, yet again, over
>> terms.
>>
>> I've stated my interpretation - and you aren't dealing with it but are
>> using your own definitions.
>>
>> I consider that the Sign is: DO-[IO-R-II} and as such, IS an interaction.
>> Again, as Peirce noted, the Quasi-mind ]and the Sign]  functions within a
>> dialogue between the 'utterer' and the 'interpreter' - even if this is a
>> dialogue with oneself - and most certainly can be between two and
>> more subjects. After all, one can hardly deny that thinking is an action
>> and as such, is carried out not only within one Agent but within several
>> and indeed, a community of Agents.
>>
>> Edwina
>>
>> On Fri 16/02/18 5:35 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent:
>>
>> Edwina:  I suppose it depends on how you define "symbol," but for now we
>> can leave that aside.  The third quote that Gary R. posted states, "The
>> quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign"; and a Sign is not itself
>> an interaction, it is one of three Correlates in a triadic relation.
>> Furthermore, the same quote states earlier that "All thinking is ... an
>> appeal from the momentary self to the better considered self of the
>> immediate and of the general future"; so whatever else a Quasi-mind might
>> be, it is clearly a "self," not an interaction between two (or more)
>> "selves."
>>
>> Dan:  Did you perhaps mean to say, "there are several other species that
>> have learned signs, but only species of the genus Homo ... have had
>> symbols"?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Jon S.
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 4:19 PM, Everett, Daniel 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Edwina,
>>>
>>> What you say about symbolic users is exactly my point in How Language
>>> Began.
>>>
>>> In my forthcoming Aeon article on Homo erectus, I note that there are
>>> several other species that have learned symbols, but on species of the
>>> genus Homo (erectus, Neanderthal, sapiens) have had symbols.
>>>
>>> Dan
>>>
>>> On Feb 16, 2018, at 4:14 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
>>>
>>> Jon, list:
>>>
>>> A non-symbolic user, to me, is a non-human. I consider that all realms,
>>> the physic-chemical, biologic and human conceptual realms, engage in
>>> semiosis, but only the human realm uses symbols in this interaction. You
>>> 

Re: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Edwina Taborsky]

 

 BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Jon - read my first post: I've underlined a key component..

 If one considers that Mind is an essential and universal component
of all existence and dialogue is equally essential to semiosis, then,
I am understanding the Quasi-Mind as appearing within the dialogic
interaction. So, even if the individual himself has ONE mind, in the
dialogic semiosic interaction, a Quasi-mind develops within the
interaction. Two Quasi-minds, the utterer's and the interpreter's -
even if the dialogue is with oneself. And then, I presume, the
Quasi-mind 'dissolves' and another emerges within the next semiosic
interaction.

I've said that a Quasi-mind develops within 'connected Signs';i.e., 
within a dialogic interaction. This Quasi-mind must BE within the two
Agents; there are two; that of the the utterer and the interpreter'.
It doesn't float in the air. It's a Mind-Aspect of the semiosic
connection between them.

Edwina
 On Fri 16/02/18  6:17 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
 Edwina, List:
 I was not trying to start another argument, just clarify the topic
of discussion.
 My reading of those quotes is that what you are calling "utterer,"
"interpreter," "oneself," "subjects," "Agent," and "community" all
correspond to what Peirce meant by "Quasi-mind," rather than the
interaction between them.  It is certainly what I will mean by
"Quasi-mind" as this discussion moves forward.  If you still
disagree, once again please do not feel obligated to respond. 
 Regards,
 Jon S. 
 On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 4:46 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
Jon, list

I'm not going to get into an extensive argument with you, yet again,
over terms.

I've stated my interpretation - and you aren't dealing with it but
are using your own definitions.

I consider that the Sign is: DO-[IO-R-II} and as such, IS an
interaction. Again, as Peirce noted, the Quasi-mind ]and the Sign] 
functions within a dialogue between the 'utterer' and the
'interpreter' - even if this is a dialogue with oneself - and most
certainly can be between two and more subjects. After all, one can
hardly deny that thinking is an action and as such, is carried out
not only within one Agent but within several and indeed, a community
of Agents. 

Edwina

On Fri 16/02/18  5:35 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
[2] sent:
 Edwina:  I suppose it depends on how you define "symbol," but for
now we can leave that aside.  The third quote that Gary R. posted
states, "The quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign"; and a
Sign is not itself an interaction, it is one of three Correlates in a
triadic relation.  Furthermore, the same quote states earlier that
"All thinking is ... an appeal from the momentary self to the better
considered self of the immediate and of the general future"; so
whatever else a Quasi-mind might be, it is clearly a "self," not an
interaction between two (or more) "selves." 
 Dan:  Did you perhaps mean to say, "there are several other species
that have learned signs, but only species of the genus Homo ... have
had symbols"?
 Thanks,
 Jon S.
 On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 4:19 PM, Everett, Daniel  wrote:
   Edwina, 
  What you say about symbolic users is exactly my point in How
Language Began. 
  In my forthcoming Aeon article on Homo erectus, I note that there
are several other species that have learned symbols, but on species
of the genus Homo (erectus, Neanderthal, sapiens) have had symbols. 
  Dan  On Feb 16, 2018, at 4:14 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:  

 Jon, list: 

 A non-symbolic user, to me, is a non-human. I consider that all
realms, the physic-chemical, biologic and human conceptual realms,
engage in semiosis, but only the human realm uses symbols in this
interaction. You will probably disagree. 

 Yes, I am suggesting that the term Quasi-mind, which applies to
dialogic interaction, is a momentary event within the interactions of
the utterer and interpreter. 

 Edwina
 On Fri 16/02/18 4:46 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
   Edwina, List: 
  I will review and comment on the quotes that Gary R. posted at a
later time, and also offer my current working definition of
"Quasi-mind."  For now, I am just seeking clarification of your brief
remarks below. 
  1.  What do you mean by "a non-symbolic user"? 2.  Are you
suggesting that the term "Quasi-mind" applies to "dialogic
interaction" as a momentary event, rather than each of the individual
participant(s) therein? 
  Thanks,
  Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer,
Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [3] - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[4]  
 On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 3:26 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
Gary R, List: 

Again, my reading of these sections is that the Quasi-Mind appears
in the semiosic action of interaction. 

Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina, List:

I was not trying to start another argument, just clarify the topic of
discussion.

My reading of those quotes is that what you are calling "utterer,"
"interpreter," "oneself," "subjects," "Agent," and "community" all
correspond to what Peirce meant by "Quasi-mind," rather than the
interaction between them.  It is certainly what I will mean by "Quasi-mind"
as this discussion moves forward.  If you still disagree, once again please
do not feel obligated to respond.

Regards,

Jon S.

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 4:46 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Jon, list
>
> I'm not going to get into an extensive argument with you, yet again, over
> terms.
>
> I've stated my interpretation - and you aren't dealing with it but are
> using your own definitions.
>
> I consider that the Sign is: DO-[IO-R-II} and as such, IS an interaction.
> Again, as Peirce noted, the Quasi-mind ]and the Sign]  functions within a
> dialogue between the 'utterer' and the 'interpreter' - even if this is a
> dialogue with oneself - and most certainly can be between two and
> more subjects. After all, one can hardly deny that thinking is an action
> and as such, is carried out not only within one Agent but within several
> and indeed, a community of Agents.
>
> Edwina
>
> On Fri 16/02/18 5:35 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent:
>
> Edwina:  I suppose it depends on how you define "symbol," but for now we
> can leave that aside.  The third quote that Gary R. posted states, "The
> quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign"; and a Sign is not itself
> an interaction, it is one of three Correlates in a triadic relation.
> Furthermore, the same quote states earlier that "All thinking is ... an
> appeal from the momentary self to the better considered self of the
> immediate and of the general future"; so whatever else a Quasi-mind might
> be, it is clearly a "self," not an interaction between two (or more)
> "selves."
>
> Dan:  Did you perhaps mean to say, "there are several other species that
> have learned signs, but only species of the genus Homo ... have had
> symbols"?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jon S.
>
> On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 4:19 PM, Everett, Daniel 
> wrote:
>
>> Edwina,
>>
>> What you say about symbolic users is exactly my point in How Language
>> Began.
>>
>> In my forthcoming Aeon article on Homo erectus, I note that there are
>> several other species that have learned symbols, but on species of the
>> genus Homo (erectus, Neanderthal, sapiens) have had symbols.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>> On Feb 16, 2018, at 4:14 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
>>
>> Jon, list:
>>
>> A non-symbolic user, to me, is a non-human. I consider that all realms,
>> the physic-chemical, biologic and human conceptual realms, engage in
>> semiosis, but only the human realm uses symbols in this interaction. You
>> will probably disagree.
>>
>> Yes, I am suggesting that the term Quasi-mind, which applies to dialogic
>> interaction, is a momentary event within the interactions of the utterer
>> and interpreter.
>>
>> Edwina
>>
>> On Fri 16/02/18 4:46 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent:
>>
>> Edwina, List:
>>
>> I will review and comment on the quotes that Gary R. posted at a later
>> time, and also offer my current working definition of "Quasi-mind."  For
>> now, I am just seeking clarification of your brief remarks below.
>>
>> 1.  What do you mean by "a non-symbolic user"?
>> 2.  Are you suggesting that the term "Quasi-mind" applies to "dialogic
>> interaction" as a momentary event, rather than each of the individual
>> participant(s) therein?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
>> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
>> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
>>  - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>>
>> On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 3:26 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Gary R, List:
>>>
>>> Again, my reading of these sections is that the Quasi-Mind appears in
>>> the semiosic action of interaction.
>>>
>>>  If one considers that Mind is an essential and universal component of
>>> all existence and dialogue is equally essential to semiosis, then, I am
>>> understanding the Quasi-Mind as appearing within the dialogic interaction.
>>> So, even if the individual himself has ONE mind, in the dialogic
>>> semiosic interaction, a Quasi-mind develops within the interaction. Two
>>> Quasi-minds, the utterer's and the interpreter's - even if the dialogue is
>>> with oneself. And then, I presume, the Quasi-mind 'dissolves' and another
>>> emerges within the next semiosic interaction.
>>>
>>> That's my reading of it at the moment. And, as with all semiosis, I
>>> consider that this involves the physic-chemical and biological realms as
>>> well as the human conceptual realms of semiosis.
>>>
>>> Edwina
>>>
>> On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 2:36 PM, Edwina Taborsky  < tabor...@primus.ca>
>>  wrote:
>>

Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jerry Rhee]

Dear list,



I wish to bring attention back to a critical assertion (largely willfully
neglected) in which Peirce states “man is a sign”, and in a different
place, “this is man”.



*It was at this point, for example, that Ladd-Franklin began to lose
confidence in him.  As Brent points out, “Man’s Glassy Essence,” the fourth
of the five essays in the series, “seemed to Peirce’s former student
Christine Ladd-Franklin to be clear evidence that he was losing his mind”.*



So then, is the meaning of Peirce’s assertion clear?



Is man a human being or an angry ape, in fact?

For to say that man is a human being at times and beastly at times doesn’t
appear to get at what it is we wish to say.

For was not Caesar the angry ape more human than man?

I mean, what is it to “reflect the struggle of humanity as we try to
overcome our faults and achieve our true potential for good.”



What then is man, Mind or Quasi-mind?



Do you see the thought that is in us from the Thought in which we are?



With best wishes,
Jerry R



PS.  So as not to repeat other scholars’ arguments and to get ahead of the
constant itching and scratching, here is a link that represents one example
by one person for an arrangement of what has already been said (I hope you
will note that it recapitulates recent conversations that has already
happened in this list), but I will understand if the ideas are most
abstruse, in which I case, I fear he may already have left me, and that
what I am now writing is for the compositor and proof-reader exclusively.  For
example, somewhere is recognition deliberation and purpose.



http://www.philosophy.uncc.edu/mleldrid/SAAP/MSU/P23.html


On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 4:46 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Jon, list
>
> I'm not going to get into an extensive argument with you, yet again, over
> terms.
>
> I've stated my interpretation - and you aren't dealing with it but are
> using your own definitions.
>
> I consider that the Sign is: DO-[IO-R-II} and as such, IS an interaction.
> Again, as Peirce noted, the Quasi-mind ]and the Sign]  functions within a
> dialogue between the 'utterer' and the 'interpreter' - even if this is a
> dialogue with oneself - and most certainly can be between two and
> more subjects. After all, one can hardly deny that thinking is an action
> and as such, is carried out not only within one Agent but within several
> and indeed, a community of Agents.
>
> Edwina
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri 16/02/18 5:35 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent:
>
> Edwina:  I suppose it depends on how you define "symbol," but for now we
> can leave that aside.  The third quote that Gary R. posted states, "The
> quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign"; and a Sign is not itself
> an interaction, it is one of three Correlates in a triadic relation.
> Furthermore, the same quote states earlier that "All thinking is ... an
> appeal from the momentary self to the better considered self of the
> immediate and of the general future"; so whatever else a Quasi-mind might
> be, it is clearly a "self," not an interaction between two (or more)
> "selves."
>
> Dan:  Did you perhaps mean to say, "there are several other species that
> have learned signs, but only species of the genus Homo ... have had
> symbols"?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jon S.
>
> On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 4:19 PM, Everett, Daniel 
> wrote:
>
>> Edwina,
>>
>> What you say about symbolic users is exactly my point in How Language
>> Began.
>>
>> In my forthcoming Aeon article on Homo erectus, I note that there are
>> several other species that have learned symbols, but on species of the
>> genus Homo (erectus, Neanderthal, sapiens) have had symbols.
>>
>> Dan
>>
>> On Feb 16, 2018, at 4:14 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
>>
>> Jon, list:
>>
>> A non-symbolic user, to me, is a non-human. I consider that all realms,
>> the physic-chemical, biologic and human conceptual realms, engage in
>> semiosis, but only the human realm uses symbols in this interaction. You
>> will probably disagree.
>>
>> Yes, I am suggesting that the term Quasi-mind, which applies to dialogic
>> interaction, is a momentary event within the interactions of the utterer
>> and interpreter.
>>
>> Edwina
>>
>> On Fri 16/02/18 4:46 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent:
>>
>> Edwina, List:
>>
>> I will review and comment on the quotes that Gary R. posted at a later
>> time, and also offer my current working definition of "Quasi-mind."  For
>> now, I am just seeking clarification of your brief remarks below.
>>
>> 1.  What do you mean by "a non-symbolic user"?
>> 2.  Are you suggesting that the term "Quasi-mind" applies to "dialogic
>> interaction" as a momentary event, rather than each of the individual
>> participant(s) therein?
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
>> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
>> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
>> 

Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Edwina Taborsky]

 

 BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Jon, list

I'm not going to get into an extensive argument with you, yet again,
over terms.

I've stated my interpretation - and you aren't dealing with it but
are using your own definitions.

I consider that the Sign is: DO-[IO-R-II} and as such, IS an
interaction. Again, as Peirce noted, the Quasi-mind ]and the Sign] 
functions within a dialogue between the 'utterer' and the
'interpreter' - even if this is a dialogue with oneself - and most
certainly can be between two and more subjects. After all, one can
hardly deny that thinking is an action and as such, is carried out
not only within one Agent but within several and indeed, a community
of Agents.

Edwina
 On Fri 16/02/18  5:35 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
 Edwina:  I suppose it depends on how you define "symbol," but for
now we can leave that aside.  The third quote that Gary R. posted
states, "The quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign"; and a
Sign is not itself an interaction, it is one of three Correlates in a
triadic relation.  Furthermore, the same quote states earlier that
"All thinking is ... an appeal from the momentary self to the better
considered self of the immediate and of the general future"; so
whatever else a Quasi-mind might be, it is clearly a "self," not an
interaction between two (or more) "selves." 
 Dan:  Did you perhaps mean to say, "there are several other species
that have learned signs, but only species of the genus Homo ... have
had symbols"?
 Thanks,
 Jon S.
 On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 4:19 PM, Everett, Daniel  wrote:
   Edwina, 
  What you say about symbolic users is exactly my point in How
Language Began. 
  In my forthcoming Aeon article on Homo erectus, I note that there
are several other species that have learned symbols, but on species
of the genus Homo (erectus, Neanderthal, sapiens) have had symbols. 
  Dan  On Feb 16, 2018, at 4:14 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:  

 Jon, list: 

 A non-symbolic user, to me, is a non-human. I consider that all
realms, the physic-chemical, biologic and human conceptual realms,
engage in semiosis, but only the human realm uses symbols in this
interaction. You will probably disagree. 

 Yes, I am suggesting that the term Quasi-mind, which applies to
dialogic interaction, is a momentary event within the interactions of
the utterer and interpreter. 

 Edwina
 On Fri 16/02/18 4:46 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
[3] sent:
   Edwina, List: 
  I will review and comment on the quotes that Gary R. posted at a
later time, and also offer my current working definition of
"Quasi-mind."  For now, I am just seeking clarification of your brief
remarks below. 
  1.  What do you mean by "a non-symbolic user"? 2.  Are you
suggesting that the term "Quasi-mind" applies to "dialogic
interaction" as a momentary event, rather than each of the individual
participant(s) therein? 
  Thanks,
  Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer,
Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [4] - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[5]  
 On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 3:26 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
Gary R, List: 

Again, my reading of these sections is that the Quasi-Mind appears
in the semiosic action of interaction. 

 If one considers that Mind is an essential and universal component
of all existence and dialogue is equally essential to semiosis, then,
I am understanding the Quasi-Mind as appearing within the dialogic
interaction. So, even if the individual  himself has ONE mind, in the
dialogic semiosic interaction, a Quasi-mind develops within the
interaction. Two Quasi-minds, the utterer's and the interpreter's -
even if the dialogue is with oneself. And then, I presume, the
Quasi-mind 'dissolves' and another  emerges within the next semiosic
interaction. 

That's my reading of it at the moment. And, as with all semiosis, I
consider that this involves the physic-chemical and biological realms
as well as the human conceptual realms of semiosis. 

Edwina  On  Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 2:36 PM, Edwina Taborskywrote:
Gary R, list 

I'd also like some clarification and discussion of the 'quasi-mind'.
I have a very different interpretation than that of JAS, who seems, to
me at least, to assign the term of a 'quasi-mind' to a non-symbolic
user - whereas, in the 4.551 selection,  the term seems to me, at
least to refer to an act of connection of two Minds, such that they
are in an almost closed dialogic interaction. 

However, I'll leave it to others to start up this thread. 

Edwina 


Links:
--
[1]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'dever...@bentley.edu\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[2]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'tabor...@primus.ca\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[3]

Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina:  I suppose it depends on how you define "symbol," but for now we
can leave that aside.  The third quote that Gary R. posted states, "The
quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign"; and a Sign is not itself
an interaction, it is one of three Correlates in a triadic relation.
Furthermore, the same quote states earlier that "All thinking is ... an
appeal from the momentary self to the better considered self of the
immediate and of the general future"; so whatever else a Quasi-mind might
be, it is clearly a "self," not an interaction between two (or more)
"selves."

Dan:  Did you perhaps mean to say, "there are several other species that
have learned signs, but only species of the genus Homo ... have had
symbols"?

Thanks,

Jon S.

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 4:19 PM, Everett, Daniel 
wrote:

> Edwina,
>
> What you say about symbolic users is exactly my point in How Language
> Began.
>
> In my forthcoming Aeon article on Homo erectus, I note that there are
> several other species that have learned symbols, but on species of the
> genus Homo (erectus, Neanderthal, sapiens) have had symbols.
>
> Dan
>
> On Feb 16, 2018, at 4:14 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
>
> Jon, list:
>
> A non-symbolic user, to me, is a non-human. I consider that all realms,
> the physic-chemical, biologic and human conceptual realms, engage in
> semiosis, but only the human realm uses symbols in this interaction. You
> will probably disagree.
>
> Yes, I am suggesting that the term Quasi-mind, which applies to dialogic
> interaction, is a momentary event within the interactions of the utterer
> and interpreter.
>
> Edwina
>
> On Fri 16/02/18 4:46 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent:
>
> Edwina, List:
>
> I will review and comment on the quotes that Gary R. posted at a later
> time, and also offer my current working definition of "Quasi-mind."  For
> now, I am just seeking clarification of your brief remarks below.
>
> 1.  What do you mean by "a non-symbolic user"?
> 2.  Are you suggesting that the term "Quasi-mind" applies to "dialogic
> interaction" as a momentary event, rather than each of the individual
> participant(s) therein?
>
> Thanks,
>
> Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
> Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
> www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
>  - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
>
> On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 3:26 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
> wrote:
>
>> Gary R, List:
>>
>> Again, my reading of these sections is that the Quasi-Mind appears in the
>> semiosic action of interaction.
>>
>>  If one considers that Mind is an essential and universal component of
>> all existence and dialogue is equally essential to semiosis, then, I am
>> understanding the Quasi-Mind as appearing within the dialogic interaction.
>> So, even if the individual himself has ONE mind, in the dialogic
>> semiosic interaction, a Quasi-mind develops within the interaction. Two
>> Quasi-minds, the utterer's and the interpreter's - even if the dialogue is
>> with oneself. And then, I presume, the Quasi-mind 'dissolves' and another
>> emerges within the next semiosic interaction.
>>
>> That's my reading of it at the moment. And, as with all semiosis, I
>> consider that this involves the physic-chemical and biological realms as
>> well as the human conceptual realms of semiosis.
>>
>> Edwina
>>
> On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 2:36 PM, Edwina Taborsky  
>  wrote:
>
>> Gary R, list
>>
>> I'd also like some clarification and discussion of the 'quasi-mind'. I
>> have a very different interpretation than that of JAS, who seems, to me at
>> least, to assign the term of a 'quasi-mind' to a non-symbolic user -
>> whereas, in the 4.551 selection, the term seems to me, at least to refer to
>> an act of connection of two Minds, such that they are in an almost
>> closed dialogic interaction.
>>
>> However, I'll leave it to others to start up this thread.
>>
>> Edwina
>>
>

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Everett, Daniel]

Edwina,

What you say about symbolic users is exactly my point in How Language Began.

In my forthcoming Aeon article on Homo erectus, I note that there are several 
other species that have learned symbols, but on species of the genus Homo 
(erectus, Neanderthal, sapiens) have had symbols.

Dan

On Feb 16, 2018, at 4:14 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
> wrote:


Jon, list:

A non-symbolic user, to me, is a non-human. I consider that all realms, the 
physic-chemical, biologic and human conceptual realms, engage in semiosis, but 
only the human realm uses symbols in this interaction. You will probably 
disagree.

Yes, I am suggesting that the term Quasi-mind, which applies to dialogic 
interaction, is a momentary event within the interactions of the utterer and 
interpreter.

Edwina



On Fri 16/02/18 4:46 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt 
jonalanschm...@gmail.com sent:

Edwina, List:

I will review and comment on the quotes that Gary R. posted at a later time, 
and also offer my current working definition of "Quasi-mind."  For now, I am 
just seeking clarification of your brief remarks below.

1.  What do you mean by "a non-symbolic user"?
2.  Are you suggesting that the term "Quasi-mind" applies to "dialogic 
interaction" as a momentary event, rather than each of the individual 
participant(s) therein?

Thanks,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - 
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 3:26 PM, Edwina Taborsky 
> wrote:

Gary R, List:

Again, my reading of these sections is that the Quasi-Mind appears in the 
semiosic action of interaction.

 If one considers that Mind is an essential and universal component of all 
existence and dialogue is equally essential to semiosis, then, I am 
understanding the Quasi-Mind as appearing within the dialogic interaction. So, 
even if the individual himself has ONE mind, in the dialogic semiosic 
interaction, a Quasi-mind develops within the interaction. Two Quasi-minds, the 
utterer's and the interpreter's - even if the dialogue is with oneself. And 
then, I presume, the Quasi-mind 'dissolves' and another emerges within the next 
semiosic interaction.

That's my reading of it at the moment. And, as with all semiosis, I consider 
that this involves the physic-chemical and biological realms as well as the 
human conceptual realms of semiosis.

Edwina

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 2:36 PM, Edwina Taborsky  
>  wrote:

Gary R, list

I'd also like some clarification and discussion of the 'quasi-mind'. I have a 
very different interpretation than that of JAS, who seems, to me at least, to 
assign the term of a 'quasi-mind' to a non-symbolic user - whereas, in the 
4.551 selection, the term seems to me, at least to refer to an act of 
connection of two Minds, such that they are in an almost closed dialogic 
interaction.

However, I'll leave it to others to start up this thread.

Edwina


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Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Edwina Taborsky]

 

 BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Jon, list:

A non-symbolic user, to me, is a non-human. I consider that all
realms, the physic-chemical, biologic and human conceptual realms,
engage in semiosis, but only the human realm uses symbols in this
interaction. You will probably disagree.

Yes, I am suggesting that the term Quasi-mind, which applies to
dialogic interaction, is a momentary event within the interactions of
the utterer and interpreter.

Edwina
 On Fri 16/02/18  4:46 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
 Edwina, List:
 I will review and comment on the quotes that Gary R. posted at a
later time, and also offer my current working definition of
"Quasi-mind."  For now, I am just seeking clarification of your brief
remarks below.
 1.  What do you mean by "a non-symbolic user"?2.  Are you suggesting
that the term "Quasi-mind" applies to "dialogic interaction" as a
momentary event, rather than each of the individual participant(s)
therein? 
 Thanks,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [1] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [2]  
 On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 3:26 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:
Gary R, List:

Again, my reading of these sections is that the Quasi-Mind appears
in the semiosic action of interaction.

 If one considers that Mind is an essential and universal component
of all existence and dialogue is equally essential to semiosis, then,
I am understanding the Quasi-Mind as appearing within the dialogic
interaction. So, even if the individual himself has ONE mind, in the
dialogic semiosic interaction, a Quasi-mind develops within the
interaction. Two Quasi-minds, the utterer's and the interpreter's -
even if the dialogue is with oneself. And then, I presume, the
Quasi-mind 'dissolves' and another emerges within the next semiosic
interaction. 

That's my reading of it at the moment. And, as with all semiosis, I
consider that this involves the physic-chemical and biological realms
as well as the human conceptual realms of semiosis.

Edwina On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 2:36 PM, Edwina Taborskywrote:
Gary R, list

I'd also like some clarification and discussion of the 'quasi-mind'.
I have a very different interpretation than that of JAS, who seems, to
me at least, to assign the term of a 'quasi-mind' to a non-symbolic
user - whereas, in the 4.551 selection, the term seems to me, at
least to refer to an act of connection of two Minds, such that they
are in an almost closed dialogic interaction.

However, I'll leave it to others to start up this thread. 

Edwina 


Links:
--
[1] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[2] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[3]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'tabor...@primus.ca\',\'\',\'\',\'\')

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Jon Alan Schmidt]

Edwina, List:

I will review and comment on the quotes that Gary R. posted at a later
time, and also offer my current working definition of "Quasi-mind."  For
now, I am just seeking clarification of your brief remarks below.

1.  What do you mean by "a non-symbolic user"?
2.  Are you suggesting that the term "Quasi-mind" applies to "dialogic
interaction" as a momentary event, rather than each of the individual
participant(s) therein?

Thanks,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt

On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 3:26 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Gary R, List:
>
> Again, my reading of these sections is that the Quasi-Mind appears in the
> semiosic action of interaction.
>
>  If one considers that Mind is an essential and universal component of all
> existence and dialogue is equally essential to semiosis, then, I am
> understanding the Quasi-Mind as appearing within the dialogic interaction.
> So, even if the individual himself has ONE mind, in the dialogic
> semiosic interaction, a Quasi-mind develops within the interaction. Two
> Quasi-minds, the utterer's and the interpreter's - even if the dialogue is
> with oneself. And then, I presume, the Quasi-mind 'dissolves' and another
> emerges within the next semiosic interaction.
>
> That's my reading of it at the moment. And, as with all semiosis, I
> consider that this involves the physic-chemical and biological realms as
> well as the human conceptual realms of semiosis.
>
> Edwina
>
On Fri, Feb 16, 2018 at 2:36 PM, Edwina Taborsky  wrote:

> Gary R, list
>
> I'd also like some clarification and discussion of the 'quasi-mind'. I
> have a very different interpretation than that of JAS, who seems, to me at
> least, to assign the term of a 'quasi-mind' to a non-symbolic user -
> whereas, in the 4.551 selection, the term seems to me, at least to refer to
> an act of connection of two Minds, such that they are in an almost
> closed dialogic interaction.
>
> However, I'll leave it to others to start up this thread.
>
> Edwina
>

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Re: [PEIRCE-L] Quasi-mind

[Edwina Taborsky]

 

 BODY { font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:12px;
}Gary R, List:

Again, my reading of these sections is that the Quasi-Mind appears
in the semiosic action of interaction.

 If one considers that Mind is an essential and universal component
of all existence and dialogue is equally essential to semiosis, then,
I am understanding the Quasi-Mind as appearing within the dialogic
interaction. So, even if the individual himself has ONE mind, in the
dialogic semiosic interaction, a Quasi-mind develops within the
interaction. Two Quasi-minds, the utterer's and the interpreter's -
even if the dialogue is with oneself. And then, I presume, the
Quasi-mind 'dissolves' and another emerges within the next semiosic
interaction.

That's my reading of it at the moment. And, as with all semiosis, I
consider that this involves the physic-chemical and biological realms
as well as the human conceptual realms of semiosis.

Edwina
 On Fri 16/02/18  3:59 PM , Gary Richmond gary.richm...@gmail.com
sent:
 Edwina, Jon S., list,
 OK, I'll start the thread by offering the few quotes in Commens on
Quasi-mind. Again, I won't be able to join in the discussion until
sometime next week.
 Best,
  Gary R
   1906 | Prolegomena to an Apology for Pragmaticism | CP 4.551 

Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in the
work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world;
and one can no more deny that it is really there, than that the
colors, the shapes, etc., of objects are really there. Consistently
adhere to that unwarrantable denial, and you will be driven to some
form of idealistic nominalism akin to Fichte’s. Not only is thought
in the organic world, but it develops there. But as there cannot be a
General without Instances embodying it, so there cannot be thought
without Signs. We must here give “Sign” a very wide sense, no
doubt, but not too wide a sense to come within our definition.
Admitting that connected Signs must have a Quasi-mind, it may further
be declared that there can be no isolated sign. Moreover, signs
require at least two Quasi-minds; a  Quasi-utterer and a
Quasi-interpreter; and although these two are at one (i.e., are one
mind) in the sign itself, they must nevertheless be distinct. In the
Sign they are, so to say, welded. Accordingly, it is not merely a
fact of human Psychology, but a necessity of Logic, that every
logical evolution of thought should be dialogic. You may say that all
this is loose talk; and I admit that, as it stands, it has a large
infusion of arbitrariness. It might be filled out with argument so as
to remove the greater part of this fault; but in the first place, such
an expansion would require a volume - and an uninviting one; and in
the second place, what I have been saying is only to be applied to a
slight determination of our system of diagrammatization, which it
will only slightly affect; so that, should it be incorrect, the
utmost  certain effect will be a danger that our system may not
represent every variety of non-human thought. 1906 | The Basis of
Pragmaticism | MS [R] 283:118 [variant]

… quasi-mind is an object which from whatever standpoint it be
examined, must evidently have, like anything else, its special
qualities of susceptibility to determination.  1906 | Letters to Lady
Welby | SS 195

I almost despair of making clear what I mean by a “quasi-mind;”
But I will try. A  thought is not per se in any mind or quasi-mind. I
mean this in the same sense as I might say that Right and Truth would
remain what they are though they were not embodied, & though nothing
were right or true. But a thought, to gain any active mode of being
must be embodied in a Sign. A thought is a special variety of sign.
All thinking is necessarily a sort of dialogue, an appeal from the
momentary self to the better considered self of the immediate and of
the general future. Now as every thinking requires a mind, so every
sign even if external to all minds must be a determination of a
quasi-mind.  The quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign.
 Gary RichmondPhilosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication
StudiesLaGuardia College of the City University of New York718
482-5690

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