RC: "Being a non
ontologist (though student of ontology), it seems to me that ?relating the
symbols with the context, comprehension, intension, or meaning per se?
isn?t a well formed formula ? a symbol can be RELATED to anything, but the
MEANING of that relationship is not the same thing as the relationship itself.
Perhaps you can educate me about what I missed by reaching that
conclusion, because it sure seems intuitively correct at first
blush."
AA: I strongly believe:
we educate each other while fruitfully interacting.
Re the issue.
Symbols
symbolize nothing by themselves.
A symbol designates
(constructs) or signifies (things), while constructs mean. Now constructs
represent (the properties of things), but refers to (things).
The nature of meaning
(significance or signification) is in the relationships of
symbols and constructs and things in the real world. So any meaning (or
significance) is a relationship, a meaning relation,
ideally a one-to-one mapping between symbols and concepts or symbols and things
or constructs and things.
The fact that the
meaning is derived from the relationships between conventional symbols (as
words), mental signs (as constructs, ideas and images) and natural signs
(as real world entities) might be the cause of almost all difficulties
here.
During its long history
meaning has been placed in:
thought and
understanding, usage, operation as computation and measurement, truth condition,
information, extension as reference, or intension as content and sense or
representation.
This advantage is
mostly explained by the fact its real meaning consists in the composite
relationships of designation, sense (connotation), reference (denotation), and
representation.
Please note that
semantics is among the most critical sciences and technologies; for it plays a
decisive role in the perception of the physical world as well as in
the construction of techno-social realities.
Azamat
Abdoullaev
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Saturday, August 21, 2010 1:38
AM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] Triadic Sign
Relations
Hi
Azamat,
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
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of AzamatAbdoullaev
Sent: Tuesday, August 17, 2010 12:29
PM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum]
Triadic Sign Relations
AA]
? Broadly, there are
two types of semantic models:
Extensional models
dealing with classes
Intensional models
dealing with properties.
The
first one ? assigns to every ? sign (concept or predicate) its extension or
reference or denotation, like a binary relation is interpreted as the set of
ordered pairs.
RGC] Shouldn?t
extensional models also deal with instances, as well as with classes?
Perhaps I have misinterpreted what you are trying to say here. It
seems to me that extensional models deal with specific cases, which would be
the instances. If we get enough instances together that are similar, we
can call it a class, but the extensional model deals with ALL the instances in
the class, so the use of the grouping we call ?class? is simply a plurality of
instances, IMHO.
The
second one is about relating the symbols with the context, comprehension,
intension, or meaning per se. The whole ontological issue is here
whether classes could be reduced to properties, or if intensional and
extensional models of meanings are equivalent (or at least interoperable as
applications).
Azamat
Abdoullaev
Being a non
ontologist (though student of ontology), it seems to me that ?relating the
symbols with the context, comprehension, intension, or meaning per se?
isn?t a well formed formula ? a symbol can be RELATED to anything, but the
MEANING of that relationship is not the same thing as the relationship itself.
Perhaps you can educate me about what I missed by reaching that
conclusion, because it sure seems intuitively correct at first blush.
HTH,
-Rich
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Monday,
August 16, 2010 10:56 PM
Subject: Re:
[ontolog-forum] Triadic Sign Relations
Azamat,
Thanks
for your continuing efforts to help me understand the subtleties of this
Peircean representation. Below, I have interspersed my comments among
your answers to my last email to form a chain.
Thanks!
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich
Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT
EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5
- 5 7 1 2
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of
AzamatAbdoullaev
Sent: Monday, August 16, 2010 11:36
AM
To: [ontolog-forum]
Subject: Re:
[ontolog-forum] Triadic Sign Relations
RC
wrote: "So a familiar sign S represents another sign S2 in one agent?s mind,
yet can represent only S itself in another agent?s mind, while
simultaneously representing S3 (money, a document ?) to still another
agent?"
ASHA:
A sign points out to something else, while a symbol takes place and stands
for something else.The nature of meaning relationship (or signification)
lies in the sorts of things acting as signs (or symbols) and the sorts of
things to be referred (signified).
RC] I
like the simplicity of that concept, but CSP, JFS and JA all claim that a
sign can stand for ITSELF, i.e., the ?interpretant? of a sign CAN be ITSELF,
or it CAN be another sign, or it can be nothing, nada, zip, null, or nil.
I GUESS that means the interpretant of a sign with nil interpretant must
actually be MISINTERPRETED to be itself.
I think a sign with ITSELF as its own interpretant would necessarily
be an infinitely recurring circle unless controlled in depth by the
interpretER.
ASHA:
The power of words, used by human minds, is in the double capacity to
point out and stand for another thing. Again, there are verbal symbols and
nonverbal symbols, as vocal signs and nonvocal signs. Among the nonverbal
symbols are money, ceremonies, seals, titles,
etc.
RC] Money can have a lot of different TYPEs of interpretants, I
suppose? Seals, titles, and various other forms are less flexible than
money, so let me first explore the way in which money can have
interpretants.
The
many interpretants of money must be selected by each InterpretER based on
the associated markets and the instantaneous value system of the
InterpretER. With an exchange as flexible as today?s various money
based trading system, money indexes a lot of desireable things. Does
that mean money has many, many interpretants over the set of all
interpretER?s dreams of
acquisition?
Or do
you contend that the interpretANT of money is money ITSELF? That
position leaves any concept of ?fungability? completely up to the
InterpretER, but generally all InterpretERs agree that more
money is better than less money, therefore leaving the interpretant of money
unrepresented in any objective sense, but known to be ordered by value.
RC] Likewise, documents can have interpretANTs to themselves, which I
certainly DON?T UNDERSTAND as desireable, or to the things they describe,
but that description is based on the mind of the interpretER who read the
document. It makes me think of a book which, when read, states
?this book is a book? in a circularity that is doomed to eternal recursion
by an obsessive-compulsive interpretER. As a representation of true meaning, that is a lot hard
to swallow.
RC] objectivity has not been introduced yet in
the sequence of definitions of this Peircean exploration. Which is
another point: do Peirceans even believe in objectivity? All
InterpretERs would
have to file the same InterpretANT for any objective Sign to qualify, but
what if they erred, and the Sign doesn?t mean what they think it means ?
consider the physicists who preached ?ether? in the 19th century
as what light travels through before AE proved that there was no need even
for ether?
RC:
"Another interesting aspect of your answer is that you use the word ?thing?
as the most general of all thingish words like object, plurality, stuff,
material ?; is that your mental image of the word ?thing?, as the most
abstract of all objects?
ASHA:
Yes, Thing refers to the Universal Class ofall sorts of entities, implying
the universal property of all entities, whereas Nothing refers to the Null
Class .
RC] That sounds very reasonable
and well reasoned.
RC:
Can a ?thing? include an action, method, plan, history of the
foregoing?"
ASHA:
In the broad sense, it is a substance, state, change, process as far as "
every sign is also a thing, for what is not a thing is nothing at all".
RC]
Then either we have to enumerate all possible things (which is feasible only
in small universes for most applications) or we have to enumerate groups
which together, enumerate all things in some form of closure. In
either case we ultimately have to enumerate all Things (and perhaps many or
all groups in the lattice above those Things) if we want to represent them.
The enumeration of all Thing instances is therefore potentially a
management issue of major considerations. Yet I never hear of any
enumeration, ordering, comparison, or identification methods from the
Peirceans. I wonder what methods they use to deal with large universes
of Things, such as the seven billion humans on the planet. I suppose a
sparse representation is the easiest.
In NL,
words are the signs of ideas and images, thoughts and feelings, while the
mental signs are the similitudes of things.
RC]
agreed.
The
beauty of machines consists in that they don't require the mental signs
(ideas and images) as the medium whereby symbols (physical signals)
could signify the real things.
RC] Yes, and
that is very well stated, thank you for the effort you must have put into
that email!
-Rich
Azamat
Abdoullaev
----- Original
Message -----
Sent:
Monday, August 16, 2010 12:20 AM
Subject: Re:
[ontolog-forum] Triadic Sign Relations
Hi
Azamat,
You
wrote:
"That confuses me no end if Peirceans
can?t tie the theory to some commonly understood reality for me. Is
there a more fruitful description that explains the language used and
chosen for that representation?"
Rich,
The nature of signs and symbols and
significations, their definition, elements, and types, was mainly
established by Aristotle, Augustine, and
Aquinas.
According to these classic sources,
significance is a relationship between two sorts of things: signs and the
kinds of things they signify (intend, express or mean), where one term
necessarily causes something else to come to the mind. Distinguishing
natural signs and conventional signs, the traditional theory of signs sets
the following threefold partition of things:
- There are things
that are just things, not any sign at all;
- There are things
that are also signs of other things (as natural signs of the physical
world and mental signs of the mind);
- There are things
that are always signs, as languages (natural and artificial) and other
cultural nonverbal symbols, as documents, money, ceremonies, and rites.
see a brief but comprehensive account, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sign
Azamat
Abdoullaev
Thanks for your
view on this; it helps me compare and contrast my own theoretical
understanding with yours.
So a
familiar sign S represents another sign S2 in one agent?s mind, yet can
represent only S itself in another agent?s mind, while simultaneously
representing S3 (money, a document ?) to still another
agent?
Another
interesting aspect of your answer is that you use the word ?thing? as the
most general of all thingish words like object, plurality, stuff, material
?; is that your mental image of the word ?thing?, as the most abstract of
all objects?
Can
a ?thing? include an action, method, plan, history of the
foregoing?
Thanks for the
stimulating viewpoint,
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich
Cooper
EnglishLogicKernel.com
Rich AT
EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2
5 - 5 7 1 2
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