Semiotics: The Key

The Key

by

Ralph Moore

Copyright © 2009 by Ralph Moore

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part, in any form, through any medium.

CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 SEMIOTICS, A SCIENCE

Science - Subject matter - Self-existence - Thought – Science and Reality - Mind and Knowledge - Semiotic Science.

CHAPTER 2 KNOWLEDGE AND SEMIOSIS

Mind and Reality - Mind and Matter - Mind and Body – Knowledge and Sensation - Organs and Sensation - Concepts - Mind and Life - Conception - Perception - Seeing and Seeing - Entities - Perceiving - Perception and Reality - Explicit Knowledge - Reflection and Reason – Knowledge - Ignorance.

CHAPTER 3 SIGNS

Sign Nature - Sign Dimensions - Levels of Semiotic Knowledge - Reality - Images - Symbols - Symbol Degradations, Magic, Oneirica - Symbol Elevation - Signals.

CHAPTER 4 SIGN SYSTEMS

The Physical Sign - Media - Differentiation – Instantiation - Reception - Interpretation - System Structure - Performance - Comprehension - Primary Systems - Secondary Systems - Machine Semiotics.

CHAPTER 5 COMMUNICATION

Structure - Practics - Pragmatics.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

CHAPTER1

SEMIOTICS, A SCIENCE

The purpose of this book is to be support an examination of semiotics, the science of signs—but what is science, and what are signs?

Science is from a Latin word meaning knowledge. What is knowledge? Knowledge is something I know, something I know about some thing. If I know it, I am not the subject of that knowledge. The thing I know about is something other than I. So my knowledge is always of something else, something other than my self. All of that other I call real. Science is the knowledge of real things: reality.

There are many kinds of knowledge, and there is knowledge of many things. We might say all knowledge is of reality, but we do not generally say all such knowledge is scientific knowledge. We reserve the term scientific knowledge for demonstrative knowledge, knowledge that can be proven by demonstration of logical integrity and correspondence with reality.

There are a number of classifications of kinds of knowledge, and in one of them the kinds of knowledge are: (1) sensory—that gathered by our sense organs; (2) intuitive—what the mind knows directly; (3) rational or reflective (sometimes called demonstrative)—from reason; and (4) opinion—not real knowledge but a best guess (statistics). Another classification gives us: tacit—subconscious, what we know but do not think of (breathing, walking, etc.); and explicit—what we voice or express through sign systems (language, mathematics, drawings, and other such systems). Another gives: sensory, tacit, conceptual, and aesthetic. And another divides knowledge into science (of what something is) and art (of how to make or do something).

In the field of scientific study the fields of knowledge are formed according to the subject matter of study. Subject matter is allied with method to give us the various academic disciplines: physics, chemistry, botany, history, etc. And the arts in turn have their fields: literature, poetry, drama, music, painting, dance, sculpture, architecture, etc.

Now, what actually is the subject matter of the sciences—this reality? For that, let us go back to the early days of academic science, to the ancient Greeks. Among them was one Heracleitus (ca. 535-475), who:

is supposed to say that all things are in motion and nothing at rest; he compares them to the stream of a river, and says that you cannot go into the same water twice. (Plato, Cratylus 433, Vol. I, p. 191).

Then came Democritus (ca. 460-356 B.C.), who ascribed the action of the senses to an alteration [in the body] (Theophrastus 49, p. 109). He said we don't really know any thing itself through the senses, but only changes in the body relative to that thing.

And Plato (427-347 B.C.) wrote, All is motion . . . there is nothing but motion (Plato, Theaetetus 156, Vol. II, p. 158) and there is no self-existent thing, but everything is becoming and in relation (Plato, Theaetetus 156-157, Vol. II, pp. 158-159).

So, in trying to discover what reality is we enter into the field of metaphysics—into ontology, the study of existence itself. The question is, what is a real thing? But we all know what are real things. A chair is real, solid. A sound is real, physical.

Physics—the study of the ultimate particulars of reality—has progressed a lot in the more than two thousand years since Heracleitus. Physics, physiology, and psychology have discovered much about solid reality and how we know it. But they haven't succeeded in providing us with knowledge of a really real, solid world.

Sound, which we normally think of as real and physical, turns out to be only an idea. Semiotics will teach about words and signs, and that words are sounds. They have tone or pitch, volume or amplitude, beginning and end. Our sensing of these very special signs is through an organ which detects these properties of sound. The different words and their different sounds give us the signs which go to make up language. But the sounds and their properties are only ideas in our minds—ideas of the properties of the motion of air: the magnitude of pressure; the frequency of peak pressures; beginning, duration, and cessation of pressure magnitudes. And all of this from what we call air, or atmospheric gases; which are collections of molecules; which in turn are atoms or groupings of atoms; which are structures of electrons, protons, etc.; which are charges having powers and locations. These charges or powers are known only in their relations with one another or with other things. Are they themselves real things? Are the ultimate particulars of reality real? Is anything real?

Were the ancient Greeks right: There is no self-existent thing? All things are in motion? Nothing at rest? Nothing but motion? No thing known? Only relations?

* * *

In a more modern time Charles Sanders Peirce (a great American philosopher, 1839-1914) put forward some new ideas of reality. He postulated three categories or modes of being: Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness.

Firstness is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, positively and without reference to anything else.

Secondness is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, with respect to a second but regardless of any third.

Thirdness is the mode of being of that which is such as it is, in bringing a second and third into relation to each other. (Hardwick, p. 24).

Firstness is defined as a possibility. Secondness is a real existence. Thirdness is a sign (or a thought or an idea).

Anything whose mode of being is Firstness has its being as a possibility. It does not exist in fact, but is a general idea which could exist, has the character of being able to exist. An example given by Peirce for a First is redness. Considered in relation to a real object, it is a quality, a property of a physical thing. Considered in relation to a perceiving mind, as a quality exemplified in consciousness, it is a feeling, such as one gets when one sees redness. But until redness is actually perceived, it remains only a possibility.

Anything whose mode of being is Secondness is really existent. A Second is a particular, where Firsts and Thirds are generals. Only Seconds really exist, though Firsts and Thirds are real. To Peirce, "existence means reaction with the environment" (Peirce, 5.503).

[This and similar references are, in accordance with established custom, to volume and paragraph of the Collected Papers of Charles Sanders Peirce, edited by Charles Hartshorne and Paul Weiss (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1931-35).]

Existence is that mode of being which lies in opposition to another (Peirce, 1.457). It is a brute form of existence where one existent thing comes into contact with another, affects or is affected by another, proves its being by the similar being of another. These existing things affect one another without regard to any third thing, but cannot do so without each other.

Secondness is proven by a fact, the coming together of two things. But a fact, though real, is not a thing. It is an event. It occurs in time: the coming together of two real objects and each affecting the other and being affected by the other. The two things coming together prove or affirm the real existence of each.

Anything whose mode of being is Thirdness is such as it is by virtue of three things. Peirce says in Thirdness one thing brings a second into association with a third by mediating between the two. A sign is Peirce's great example of Thirdness.

The sign stands for something to someone, thereby acting in mediation between the object it represents and the idea in the perceiving mind of the one who interprets it. A word, a sign, as a First, symbolizes an object, a Second, and creates an interpretation of itself in the mind of a perceiver, a Third.

The idea in the mind is the Third. It has intellectual existence. It is an idea of the relation between the sign and its object, and it has a relation between it and the sign and between it and the object. The mind creates the triadic relation. Neither the sign nor the object can do that. The sign means nothing in itself, but has the possibility of meaning something within a semiotic system, of meaning something within such a system to someone—a mind. The object has no intrinsic relation to the sign. It is a thing which is the meaning of the sign solely because a semiotic system has so chosen to make the particular sign mean that particular object. The mind, using a particular semiotic system, has learned that a particular sign means a particular object, and it sees in the sign both the sign itself and what is meant by the sign. Many minds were involved in the creation of the semiotic system, and only a mind can, using the system, perceive the meanings of the system's signs and can generate within it an understanding of the triadic relation of its thought, a sign, and the sign's object.

This relation is triadic: comprised of three components. Each part is necessary to the triadic relation.

There can be no being in its dyadic relations only. The sign cannot represent its object without its being interpreted, nor can one interpret a sign which does not represent some object, nor can some object be represented except by something serving as a sign. This triadic relation is called semiosis.

Another such triadic relation, and equal to semiosis, is a thought or an idea. An example of this is a mental perception from sensation. The body of a person receives an impact from its environment. This impact impinges on a sensory organ. The organ is affected: a fact. The mind becomes aware of this affection, noting that a change in the organ's state exists and what kind of change it is. From past experiences it knows that this change in the organ is from an impact from the environment. It knows that a particular thing or act is normally the cause of such an impact, and comprehends that a particular event has occurred, and that that fact has a particular meaning or importance to its behavior. This is an inference made by the mind, and from it and countless others like it the mind has created an entire mental structure of a real world out there and how to behave in it. And the basic structure of the thought is the mind's knowing the relation between a change in its body and what that implies—knowing the relation between a sign and its object, between an idea and its meaning.

Every thought has the structure of triadic relation. Every thought or idea, a Third, is of an idea of something, serving as a First, related to and meaning an idea of its object, a Second. Such a thought or idea is what is thought or entertained by a thinking mind.

A thought, an idea, may be tacit or explicit (symbolized). If it is explicit, it may be actually voiced, or it may be entertained in the mind only. It may be of a real thing or of an attribute or property of a real thing, or it may be of something only imagined (fictional or hypothetical). Whether it is of a real thing or of something only imagined, it may be of a general or of a particular—though sometimes of a non-real particular.

A thought or an idea may be of a fictional character, like Fulano's dragon. This is a dragon standing two stories high and breathing out fire and having all other attributes of a dragon—even personality. But it is all unreal. It may be of a dog instead of a dragon, a dog being a more plausible possibility, or of a horse, a car, a ship, a city, a valley. It may be a fiction for entertainment, or it may be just a lie.

Now, what does all this have to do with science? Well, science is a description of reality. One supposes it is a true and correct description. But with all the fictitious and hypothetical ideas floating about, science is faced with a real problem in examining explicit knowledge. The problem is to sort out from all of this the good from the bad, the true from the false, the real from the unreal. We will find that all that is not good, not true, not real would include not only what is bad, false, or unreal, but also lies, mistakes, errors, misunderstandings, beliefs, and statistics. Finding what is true is one of the major tasks of science.

But, back to the Greeks! Can there be a self-existent thing? The answer is yes if it is a First, a possibility, without relation to anything else. If it had a relation to something else, it would be a Second and would exist, but not as a self-existing thing. If two things exist, each must affect the other and be affected by the other, and neither can be regarded as self-existent.

Now, what if a self-existent thing were to exist? If only one thing did exist as a self-existent thing, it could not be known by any other, or be affected by any other, or affect any other, because there would be no other. It would be the only thing. It would be like what those in India have called the One.

But we exist, as Seconds. So, if the One were to exist, as a self-existent thing, the only way we could also exist would be as it. We, all of us, and everything, would be the One. We would be, in a way, a part of it. But each of us would also be it.

And so appears a modern idea of physical reality: a continuum of forces, of which each of us is a part; a strong force, a weak force, an electromagnetic force, and a gravitational force—maybe all just aspects of one force.

And each existent thing a focal point of one or more of these forces, existing in space and time, though in constantly changing relations with other things, other positions in the fields of these forces.

All of this idea of such a self-existent thing may be only a possibility. But the idea postulates that all existent things may be physically connected and in that way affect one another.

For a total view of reality one must add another component: the mind, or whatever one wishes to call it. This is the key to Thirdness, for only living things appear to have minds, and only minds can think or use signs. It is what the mind knows that constitutes knowledge; and what the mind knows is only relations—relations of the body to an inferred reality of things, and to inferred relations of those things to one another.

Knowledge of reality, then, is really only a knowledge of relations of things: our sensations and the experiences they mean, the events or happenings captured in memory; our sensations and objects inferred as causes of such sensations; our sensations and experiences related to our idea of the real world; our ideas of objects and qualities and properties; our ideas of possibilities.

Though real objects may exist, what we think we know of them is really only knowledge of our relations with them. All of these objects, properties, relations, are in motion, constantly changing. And of their changing relations we know most simply and most directly their changes, their motions. Nothing really stands still. That, our experiences plainly tell us. So, maybe there is nothing really solidly real, after all. Nothing other than our knowledge of changes. And even that knowledge is a thought, a mental act, a motion.

Here we see a fundamental element for science and for semiotics. The living being and its mind indicate a differentiation between matter and spirit, between body and soul. It is the mind that knows, not the body. And the mind is necessary for knowledge of reality and for knowing the meaning of signs and utilizing a sign system (language or mathematics).

The knowledge in the mind is not material, but it has structure. This structure is of triadic relations. The ideas related and the relations themselves all have intellectual existence. And intellectual existence is as real as physical existence (perhaps more real). Both physical and intellectual existences are kinds of reality and are legitimate subject matter for scientific study. Semiotics is a science of signs and sign systems, and these have both physical and intellectual properties available for such scientific study.

Now, what can be said about an existent thing—self-existent or not? Nothing! It simply is! We cannot say anything about a real thing itself, nor can we know a real thing itself. What we know are relations. And relations are the only things really worth knowing. It is the blue of the sky and the yellow of gold that is beautiful. The smell of the rose and the taste of pineapple are worth the experience.

It is a living being that knows, and what it knows is a relation. Relations are brought into being as events, happenings, facts. Facts are