In my opinion, expressed in more detail here:
http://kashori.com/2008/11/i-may-refer-to-mans-hand-using-phrase.html,
meanings result when two or more organisms or mechanisms containing
nearly identical transducers come each to link a shared sign to their
own internal transduction of some same part of the external world. In
this view, "original intentionality", if it exists, would be this
process of transduction of a shared world by populations of organisms
or mechanisms with suitable and nearly identical sensory transducers.
Here the "social construct" aspect of meaning is essentially replaced
by the high fidelity replication of sensory apparatus during ontogony
for organisms and, in the future, perhaps by statistical process
control to the production of mechanisms. Once a population of organisms
shares a nearly identical transduction of some same part of the world,
each member can gain advantage for itself by linking that internal
transduction to a sign shared with other members by some process of
simultaneous _expression_ of the sign with a suitable identification of
the external source of the transduction. This, of course, involves yet
another set of nearly identical transductions by each member of the
population. But it does not require mind, intelligence, social contract
or agreement, concepts, representations or any other like constructions
to function.
Pat Hayes wrote:
Um... I hesitate to open up this triadic can of worms yet
again, but this might be a good place to air an issue that has bothered
me for some time. It is a basic clash, or at least tension, between the
various forms of what I will call 'traditional meaning triangle' and
modern cognitive science.
The basic question is, where do the meanings come from? What
force or principle or social construct (or whatever the hell it is) is
it that gives signs their meanings? Everyone from Aristotle through
Ogden & Richards to John Searle seems to agree that a critical part
of any explanation of this must involve a *mind*: an interpreter or
observer or intentional agent, which either (details vary) provides the
meaning for the sign or perhaps embodies the meaning of the sign in
some way. I don't want to get into the details of the various
interpret- words, or the exegesis of the various alternative theories,
but only to observe that they all seem to have this in common, that the
proper account of the meaningfulness of a sign must involve a mind as
part of the explanation. That is, the theories of meaning appeal to the
notion of a mind as part of the account of meaning. The pithiest phrase
is Searle's "original intentionality", a basic property of human minds
which accounts for meaningfulness but is not itself reducible (except
possibly to biology in some future extension of biological and
psychological science.) Original intentionality plays the same kind of
role in semiotic theory, in this view, that mass or electromagnetism
play in physics: a basic 'force' to which other phenomena can be
reduced but which itself has to be simply accepted as one of the
building blocks of the fundamental theory.
But now turn to modern cognitive science (CS), which is the only
part of science that can claim to have even modest success at
accounting for the cognitive functions which exhibit intentionality. CS
treats the human mind as essentially dynamic information processing in
the brain, viewed (at a suitably high level of abstraction) as a kind
of biological computer. Not a Von Neumann machine, to be sure, but
still an information processor which operates upon internal
representations in some way. Now, on such an account of intentionality,
the mind itself is made up of signs. Where do these signs get their
meaning from? If we turn to the triangular tradition, we need another
mind to provide the meaningfulness of these internal signs, and we are
immediately in a vicious regress involving nested homunculi. Aristotle
through Searle appeal to a mind to explain meaningfulness of signs: CS
uses meaningful signs to explain how the mind works. Their explanatory
arrows go in reverse directions, and if we use them both, they form a
loop. So if CS is even sketchily right - and I repeat, no other account
of mentality comes anywhere close to being adequate - then something
other than the traditional triangular accounts of meaning must be used
to account for how the internal signs - the mental representations
which constitute the mind's inner ontology, the machinery of thought -
get their meaning, if indeed they have meaning. There is no other mind
to appeal to.
I don't know how to resolve this problem. For myself, it amounts
for me to a refutation of the traditional views of meaning, or at any
rate a reduction of them to triviality. So, sorry, but Aristotle and
Pierce and Searle and a whole lot of other very distinguished minds
were all wrong. Searle obviously thought that it was a refutation of
modern cognitive science (I use the past tense as I havn't spoken with
him on this topic for a long time.) Either way, it is a serious
theoretical problem for folk in our profession who are busily using
both the formal techniques and the ideas of CS while relying upon the
traditional triangular view of meaning and intentionality.
Comments? (Peter, if this is off-topic, please say so publicly
and I will take comments off-list.)
Pat Hayes
On Aug 20, 2010, at 9:29 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:
Hi Rick,
Thanks for
the image:
<image002.gif>
Most of
makes sense to me, but why must an object “materialize” a sign? The
object may not be MATERIAL at all – it could be much more abstract,
like the first cold weather is a sign of the coming Fall and Winter in
the northern hemisphere, yet there may be no visible reminder of the
cold day or the coming weather – just a lower temperature than usual,
which seems more abstract than concrete in my experience.
It seems to
me that a better choice of relations is “Object fulfills sign”, as in
expectations of the sign being met by some object, whether abstract,
concrete or a variable in the relation.
I like the
choice “Object validates sign” especially, since that ties in with the
way humans perform the usual discovery process of observing,
classifying, theorizing and experimenting.
The edge
“Interpretant unifies object” seems a little strange, since it
morphologically reminds me of unification, a process of substituting
one set of symbols for another, some of which can be constants and
others variables. So I am a little nonplussed by that one.
The other
three edges (evokes, represents, signifies) seem quite well chosen,
though “signifies” is morphologically related to “sign”, it still
parses well.
Thanks for
the suggestions,
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich Cooper
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
Rich & All:
Folks here might be interested in revisiting this triangle in the
context of the ongoing discussion.
http://www.rickmurphy.org/images/interpretant-triangle.png
Although much of what's in the triangle is well-known, labeling the
sides combined with the counter-clockwise inner and clockwise outer
edges reveals something unique.
In its next revision the triangle will display the term "IT" at the
bottom and "IS" at the top.
--
Rick
On 8/20/2010 6:38 PM, Rich Cooper wrote:
Hi Azamat,
My comments
are below,
-Rich
Sincerely,
Rich
Cooper
Rich
AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9
4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
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
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
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
Rich AT EnglishLogicKernel DOT com
9 4 9 \ 5 2 5 - 5 7 1 2
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