[Inquiry] Re: Attribute, Impute, Represent -- Discussion

[Jon Awbrey]

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AIR.  Discussion Note 20

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JR = Joe Ransdell

Re: AIR-DIS 19.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-April/002590.html
In: AIR-DIS.     http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-April/thread.html#2566

JR: Glad you made that point clear, Jon.  Speaking as a purist, though,
    did you have to clutter up the page with the tabular icon, the bracket
    arrays, etc.?  It seems, well, unseemly somehow in an illustration of
    the purity of the pure symbol.

I see that your message comes by the red-eye xpress,
so better judgment tells me to let it pass, since
we've already discussed the fact that this has
to do with the sheer existence of signs that
do not require the admittedly able assist
of icons and indices to do their assigned
job as signs, and not with the utilities
and virtues of the latter, which I dare
say that I've sufficiently studied and
applied in numerous connections, both
pure and applied, as the phrase goes.

But as your note raises some interesting, albeit incidental issues,
I can pass along some points of information and other reflections
connected with them.  I am not so blithe as to think that you
have time to read all of the papers at your briliant Arisbe
web site, much less remember them if you do, but I have
incidentally already written about this very phenomenon,
and at what a few will no doubt opine is more than
enough length.  To wit, in Subsection 1.3.4.6 of
my "Inquiry Driven Systems" paper, copied here
in a cosmetically revised edition:

| 1.3.4.6.  The "Meta" Question
|
| There is one point of common contention that I finessed from play
| in my handling of the transaction between A and B, even though it
| lies in plain view on both of their sign relational Tables.  This
| is that troubling business, recalcitrant to analysis precisely on
| account of the fact that its dealings race on so heedlessly ahead
| of thought and grind on so routinely beneath its notice, in short,
| it concerns the placement of object languages within the frame of
| a meta-language.
|
| Numerous bars to insight appear to interlock here.  Each one is forged
| with a good aim in mind, if a bit single-minded in its coverage of the
| scene, and the whole gang is set to work innocently enough on behalf of
| the unavoidable circumstances of informal discussion.  But a failure to
| absorb their amalgamated impact on the figurative representations and the
| analytic intentions of sign relations can lead to numerous types of false
| impression, both about the true characters of the Tables that are presented
| here and about the proper utilities of their graphical equivalents that are
| designed to be implemented as data structures in the computer.  The next few
| remarks are put forth in hopes of averting the ordinary brands of misreading.
|
| The general character of this question can be expressed in the schematic terms
| that I used earlier to give a rough sketch of the modeling activity as a whole.
| How do the isolated "systems of interpretation" (SOI's) of the agents A and B
| relate to the "interpretive framework" (IF) that I am using to present them,
| and how does this IF operate, not only to objectify A and B in the guise of
| the coordinated "models of interpretation" (MOI's), but simultaneously to
| embrace the present and the prospective SOI's of the current narrative,
| namely, the implicit systems of interpretation that embody in turn the
| initial conditions and the final intentions of this whole discussion?
|
| One way to see how this issue arises in the discussion of A and B is to
| recognize that each Table of a sign relation is a complex sign in itself,
| each of whose syntactic constituents is assigned a smaller part and plays
| the role of a simpler sign in its makeup.  To put it succinctly, there is
| nothing but text to be seen on the page.  Viewed in comparison to what it
| represents, the Table is like a sign relation that has undergone a step
| of "semantic ascent".  It is as if the entire contents of the original
| sign relation are transposed up a notch on the scale that registers
| levels of indirectness in reference, with each item passing from
| a more objective to a more symbolic mode of presentation.
|
| Sign relations themselves, like any real objects of discussion,
| are either too abstract or too concrete to reside in the medium
| of communication, but can only find themselves represented there.
| The tables and graphs that are used to represent sign relations
| are themselves complex signs, involving a step of denotation to
| reach the sign relation intended.  The intricacies of this step
| require an order of interpretive performers who are able, over
| and above executing all of the rudimentary steps of denotation,
| to orchestrate these steps in concerted coordination with each
| other.  This performance in its turn requires a whole array of
| techniques to match the connotations of complex signs and to
| test their alternative styles of representation for semiotic
| equivalence.  Analogous to the ways that matrices represent
| linear transformations and multiplication tables represent
| group operations, a large part of the usefulness of these
| complex signs comes from the fact that they are not just
| conventional symbols for their objects but fully iconic
| representations of their objective operative structure.
|
| Jon Awbrey, "Inquiry Driven Systems:  Inquiry Into Inquiry"
| IDS 038.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-May/001475.html
| http://members.door.net/arisbe/menu/library/aboutcsp/awbrey/inquiry.htm

Now, in many ways this whole phenomenon is no more surprising
than the circumstance that a Russian anthropologist will most
likely begin by using Russian to talk, think, and write about
the language Hausa, or that I am telling this likely story of
the Russian anthropologist in English.  So what's the big deal?
Well, it does elevate the topic of "higher order sign relations"
into some momentary relief, but as it happens there is not much
of wisdom we can say about HO signs until we've gotten a whole
lot better at comprehending LO signs.

Jon Awbrey

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