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

[Jon Awbrey]

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AIR.  Discussion Note 32

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BU = Ben Udell

Re: AIR-DIS 31.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-May/002642.html
In: AIR-DIS.     http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2005-May/thread.html#2637

BU: Another confusing conversation.

BU: Are Gary and Jon working with the same definitions of "symbol" and "thing"?

Ben,

I tend to operate under the physical symbol system thesis, so what
I call a "sign" is always, at least, implicitly, a modification of
a physical medium or a state of a natural system that is currently
being regarded in the light of some abstract general form, law, or
principle that can be said, with forgivable metaphor, to embody or
instantiate it.  This means that I think of Symbol the Law-Giver
and Symbol the Law-Abider as a package deal, only making what
contextual sense they do in relationship to one another.

Other than that, people including Peirce will sometimes use
"thing" to mean "physical thing" and not just any ol' thing.
This may work rhetorically in this or that context, but it
comes at the price of general confusion when taken out of
context and turned into metaphysical hay.

BU: Does Jon think that a think composed of discrete
    parts is not really a thing but a general form?

Again, all the thinks that we thing about are thunk about
in the light of concepts that unify a manifold and so we
never really have the quantity of information that it'd
take to pin down a unique individual in any literal way.
What we do have is individuals by convention, in context.
So I am merely staying true to the general insights that
Peirce expressed in the following way:

| Whatever has comprehension must be general.
| Whatever has extension must be composite.
|
| ICE 14.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-November/001928.html
| ICE 15.  http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/2004-November/001929.html

BU: Peirce himself has me confused too.  If symbols are combined through
    the combinations of their replicas in a sentence, then what sort of
    symbol is the proposition?  Does the proposition depend on replicas
    for its (how do I say this) "constitutional unity"?  Is a proposition
    somehow not able to be a full-fledged legisign?  Is a replica an
    iconic representation of a symbol-type?  Jon seems to think so.
    Or is a symbol-type essentially the symbol's usual meaning,
    its acceptation, as Joe seems to think?

I took Peirce's use of the term "replica" as an allusion to Plato,
as it is often used to discuss the relation between eternal forms
and their earthly copies.  Within the frame of that metaphor, the
replica is then an icon, but I don't think it helps much to take
the metaphor too literally.

As for the relation between abstract and concrete parts breakdowns,
here's a suggestion of an easier case to cut our teeth on.  People
are somewhat familiar with of the distinction between numbers (the
abstract objects) and numerals (symbols in a given representation).
When we say "12 factors into 4 times 3", or if we say it in binary,
"1100 factors into 100 times 11", are we talking about the factors
of the number or the factors of the numeral?

Jon Awbrey

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inquiry e-lab: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/
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