Hi John,
Thanks for the clarity. My comments are below:
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
Rich,
RC>> ... so you teach that the "interpretant" (which is
a noun) is actually
>> naming an "interpreter" agent? That
contradicts intuition and seems odd.
JFS>>No. The interpretant of a sign is
always another sign.
Does that make it the "interpretant" property of type Sign,
without saying anything about the other properties of the same sign? Do
you mean for "interpretant" to name a role, or to be a specific
designation. I.e., would you prefer TSign1 or TSign2 below:
type TSign = record
Sign : TDesignated_Thing;
Interpretant : TInterpretation;
Interpreter : TInterpreter;
end;
I'm curious about your mental image of an interpretant in more detail.
JFS>>The process of
interpretation, which Peirce called semiosis, is
always performed by
what Peirce called a mind or a quasi-mind. A
computer, for example,
is not a mind, but it behaves like a quasi-mind by
interpreting signs.
Is that precisely true, i.e. "semiosis" names a "process",
or "action" of "interpretation" in your mental image? Using
any of those three words in place of semiosis would function properly in your
view?
JFS>>Inside a digital computer, all the signs
are bit patterns, which are
interpreted by other bit patterns. But if you
get down to the level
of physical hardware, the interpretants are signs in
variety of media,
ranging from electrical pulses to magnetic spots to
ink droplets to
holes in a card to whatever any inventor might
imagine.
But that is specifically your (JFS’s)
interpretation, that for the context you describe, interpretants are more like
physical manifestations than symbols. A digital computer can be
interpreted at so many, many levels that I don’t think declaring that specific
meaning of “interpretant” as a standard works very well. In
anther context, such as IEEE standards that have been debated, documented and
decreed, it might be proper to skip referring to the interpreter as having a unique
distinct mental image, and think in terms of well-understood, agreed-upon by
many, official mental images.
So I am still confused about where the
boundaries lie for these signs signifying other signs. That can only go
on so long before it gets to be circular. How do you stop the infinite
recursion, either in decreed standards or in specifc mental images?
I plan to add more comments later, but for
now I don’t have time to give your email as much attention as it deserves
– more to come later on the issues below!
-Rich
JFS>>Jon Awbrey's selection from Peirce's
writings is an excellent place
to start:
http://www.mywikibiz.com/Directory:Jon_Awbrey/Papers/Information_%3D_Comprehension_%C3%83%E2%80%94_Extension#Selection_18
JFS>>That is Selection 18 from a long list of
other important comments
from Peirce's early writings (which are usually easier
to understand
than his later writings, which go into much more depth
with many
more comments about side issues).
JFS>>The meaning triangle, which Ogden and
Richards drew, was inspired by
Peirce. While Ogden
was a student at Cambridge,
Lady Victoria Welby
had been his mentor. VW had been carrying out a
lengthy correspondence
with Peirce, and O&R included excerpts from some
of CSP's letters in
the appendix of their book.
JFS>>The meaning triangle is actually a gross
oversimplification of what
CSP was trying to say. When O&R talked about
the "object", they were
thinking of an actual physical object, but Peirce was
thinking of
another sign -- which could be a physical object, but
it was more
likely another sign. (To be completely general,
Peirce made the
point that every physical object is also a sign of
itself.)
JFS>>In fact, all three nodes of a meaning
triangle (or 'triad' as Peirce
called it) are signs, which could themselves be part
of other
triads. Instead of just one triad, Peirce talked
about triads
of triads linked together in all possible ways.
JFS>>For examples of the way meaning triangles can
be linked together,
see Section 2, Signs of Signs, in the following
article:
http://www.jfsowa.com/ontology/ontometa.htm
John