Pieter Wisse
From a conversation by electronic mail, conducted with numerous messages from December 2005 to January 2006, I’ve selected passages to inform a wider audience, too. Here, they (re)appear in the order I’ve written them.
13.1
I agree with an emphasis on the theme of sameness and difference. For that
is precisely what I developed metapattern for to deal with (as a method for
information modeling). However, metapattern is oriented at practitioners.
Therefore I left out foundations, where instead I try to offer (more)
practically oriented explanation. Elsewhere, though, I did present foundations.
13.2
What I designed as the semiotic ennead, I apply as an engineer. An
engineer's attitude toward thesis, anti-thesis and synthesis is always somewhat
more like Popper explained. The engineer tries to come up with a design, as up
front as (s)he possibly can. For there's constructive work to do, and the
design is just a means to that end. In my case, this is the semiotic ennead.
Look at it as a hypothesis, too. Next, an engineer will try to break it
(falsification). Her/his experiments should of course be sufficiently
representative. Again, in my case I hold my design up against — a few —
previous theories. I remain confident about my design when I can show that
another theory may be included in mine as 'a special case.' In a mathematical
sense, at least what I make of it, a special case applies when one or more of
the design's variables can be put at a constant value.
13.3
You might consider approaching it with an engineer's attitude (as I see it).
So, there is a design problem (which in my case was the need for unambiguously
modeling identity and difference at every scale imaginable; I strongly
recommend it as the central theme for synthesis). Next, there is a design as
the prescription of a possible solution. Then, the possible solution is tested
(with some due diligence as the reasonable limit to your efforts).
13.4
My own experience is that the academic establishment in majority still
doesn't have a clue; it lacks the sensitivity for a new paradigm. What I
already find 'logical,' habitually meets there with the response "That's
just not logic!"
13.5
My inclination is to consider multiplicity. I am myself quite comfortable
with such open-ended variety, for that is the engineer's way of optimizing
reuse. What if ...? It is where abstraction meets being highly practical.
Through recursion, unambiguous control of — navigating between — levels is
established.
13.6
That is where I've brought in semiotics. Why? Because, as far as I know,
semiotics represents the highest level of emergence. It, i.e. a semiotic
framework, therefore is theoretically all-encompassing (given current limits to
human knowledge). It allows us to deal with all relevant phenomena. This is where
my extension of Peirce's triad comes in. I wanted to secure a mechanism for
recursion. One level 'down' from full-blown semiotics is cybernetics (reducible
by keeping some variables constant), and another level down is raw physics
(reducible by keeping yet more variables constant). Precisely, these levels
correspond to a classification of cause types (which, by the way, Schopenhauer —
also — favored).
13.7
I recognize a(nother) strong argument in favor of multiplicity in, say,
self-reflexivity. I'm not sure whether I myself actually understand what I'm
writing here. I like to indulge in playful (de)sign, i.e. see what comes out.
Anyway, the concept of level as you, or I, or ... uses it, is also ... an
artifact. It therefore is also subject to ... design. This raises the problem
that an assumption for a theory of design is only available ... on the basis of
such a theory. This implies, not that we cannot have theory, but that
newton-like, strictly linear reasoning doesn't help anymore. We cannot escape
circularity. We therefore have to face it. Indeed, multiplicity is the
beginning of our admissi onofhumanlimitations.Isn'tthisjustrephrasing
Kant?
13.8
The metamodel of enneadic semiosis could very well be instrumental to
bringing additional order to currently divergent theories.
13.9
Referring to different attitudes, Deleuze and so on did not see themselves
as involved in engineering. So, yes, I seem to recognize strains of relevant
ideas all over philosophical writings. But those ideas are always far removed
from supplying specifications in an engineering sense. For example,
Wittgenstein talks about language games. But how do we develop and maintain a
single infrastructure (now read: the Internet etc.) for all language games? I
made up metapattern precisely for answering this infrastructural need, a need
that Wittgenstein wasn't of course aware of yet. By the way, Wittgenstein is an
especially interesting example as he was — partly — trained as an engineer. I
venture the hypothesis that that's why he already recognized differences in
language use as relevant.
13.10
So, I find rhizome an apt metaphor for metapattern. But how Deleuze applies
the metaphor of the rhizome is actually detracting from an engineering
perspective. He uses it to suggest a sense of pervasive ambiguity, whereas an
engineer needs a conceptual framework that helps her/him to disambiguate.
13.11
I am content with pragmatism.
13.12
An engineer's 'professional' speculation, I believe, stops when 'it' works.
So, I believe that I went as deeply as required (which turned out a lot deeper
than conceptual modeling was previously 'grounded').
13.13
Of one thing I am confident: there's always a next step.
13.14
My inclination is to push synthesis. That is, models could be merged through
additional variables. As a simple example, with y and z non-overlapping, a
x,y-space and a x,z-space can be integrated into a single x,y,z-space.
13.15
In my short paper Dia-enneadic
framework for information concepts I have changed some of the labels for
the elements of the ennead. The ennead is now more directly in line with
Schopenhauer, too, as what was formerly called background interpretant is now
'motive' (also read: interest, or will).
13.16
I myself find a serious critique extremely useful. It 'forces' me to become
acquainted with a particular text. But I do tend to set my own critical texts
somewhat apart, as with separate chapters in Semiosis & Sign
Exchange.
13.17
What I propose is all about behavioral ecology, i.e. situated behavior.
13.18
Yes, reaching yet another level of ground occurs through shifting. Something
is both gained and lost by every shift. Gain/loss are always relative to a
point of view, i.e. a node in a model. A loss may be regained by a shift, and
so can a gain be lost.
13.19
What you may take as a personal communication by the author of Metapattern
is that context and time are treated as separate concepts because the book (see
also the paper The
pattern of metapattern) is primarily oriented at practitioners. More
generally, time may be included in context, too. This amounts to the notion of
spacetime.
13.20
Inclusion of context facilitates precision in differentiation. It turns out
that for example Foucault's concept of episteme is too coarse. Or
Wittgenstein's concept of language game, for that matter. A particular episteme
can now be recognized as internally structured. When compared to — the
structure of — another episteme, some contexts will be seen to be similar,
others to differ. It only goes to show that contextual differentiation plays at
that level, too. Etcetera.
13.21
A practical demonstration of such structural variation is included in our
working prototype software for metapattern. Not just information values may
vary over time, but also how information is structured. Many long-standing
problems in information management simply dissolve.
13.22
I was fully aware of coming up with an open-ended mechanism for shifting
levels.
13.23
Metapattern considered as method for decomposition, from any node there are
two directions for decomposition: upwards and downwards (see figures 2 and 3 in
Metapattern for
converging knowledge management with artificial intelligence). The nil
element 'only' sets the practical limit to upward decomposition. I would
therefore identify my concept of the nil element with what lies beyond the
model. So, all levels considered higher at some moment implicitly lie beyond.
As yet another hierarchical level is 'included' by way of contextual
specification, the what-lies-beyond gets 'thinner,' but it can never be completely
resolved. Of course I am aware that I am once again 'relativizing' a concept,
but that's precisely why metapattern-as-method is open-ended in both
hierarchical directions (not to mention its lateral potential).
13.24
In Semiosis
& Sign Exchange, I was just trying to be consistent, and challenging,
by introducing the label 'sign engineer.' I wanted to express how the concept
of engineering should be taken as behaviorally fundamental. So, engineering is
not 'just' about bridges, railroads, etcetera. It is already part and parcel of
semiotic behavior, i.e. behavior where the sign dimension is irreducible.
At the time, I toyed with the idea of using the label 'sign designer,' but
found that too much. And design is an aspect of engineering, that is, sign
engineer implies sign designer, anyway.
13.25
Should I feel that you are falsifying my hypothesis, then of course as a
designer I have to go back and attempt improvements. However, so far I have not
noticed any contradiction.
13.26
I would emphasize that what I supply is a powerful tool. Yes, I am fully
aware that every tool implies an ontology, and so on. But it is the very nature
of 'my' tool — see more about multicontextualism, below — that it should escape
being nailed down by any too specific an ontology. By referring to
metaontology, I merely argue that it supplies room for juxtaposing different
traditional, i.e. more specific ontologies. As I wrote in the opening sentences
of chapter 3 in
Semiosis & Sign Exchange:
Attention to grounds is necessary because the metapattern is not built upon a particular established, already familiar, ontology. Communicating it is far more problematic as the metapattern itself incorporates a different ontological configuration of concepts. The foundation that largely is the metapattern is a metaontology, even. It follows when being and behaving are taken to only sensibly occur in particular situations.
13.27
I refrain from extended articulation, because I stick to my tooling
business. Of course I cannot help be aware of innovative applications outside
my original field of application.
13.28
From my perspective, it is only normal to wonder about more general
application of a method etc. that was derived for a particular task.
13.29
The potential for inversion is even fundamental to metapattern. Shifts are
bi-directional. Hierarchical movement in both directions can be balanced with
lateral movements. That is, contexts may be juxtaposed, too. I believe it is
this combination that makes the 'tool' so powerful.
13.30
Controlled shifts are possible both vertically (hierarchy) en horizontally
(lateral). As I don't see any limit to such shifts, I find it apt to call it a
general method/tool. There's really nothing else 'behind' it.
13.31
So, there's this general tool and it is up to whoever is interested to apply
it for whatever particular shifts.
13.32
Of course, I also have more philosophical interests.
13.33
My own foothold is to consider the tool as expressing a metaontology
(in the sense of a higher level of abstraction).
13.34
What lies beyond context, for me, that is, is the model where context has
become both variable and multiple. So, from the perspective of all sorts of
previously isolated patterns, i.e. each pattern with a single context implicit:
metapattern.
13.35
Now I should add that the very concept of context implies its multiplicity.
If only a single context would be relevant, it would be ... singularity!
13.36
With the potential for shifting in all directions, I now believe to have set
the — new — limit for sign engineering. For I believe the same 'method' or tool
can be applied to model the metapattern for metapattern, that is the
metametapattern, and so on. Agreed, I didn't properly 'test' that hypothesis.
It is more that I cannot imagine how any shift can take a ‘scientific
intellect’ beyond semiosis; it is where man meets the limit already indicated
by Kant.
13.37
Of course, man desires to include ultimate determination in semiosis. As far
as engineering is concerned, I favor a down-to-earth attitude: forget it.
Accept wonder, but don't seek to manipulate it. That's hubris. It simply
doesn't work.
13.38
The idea of including multiple, especially juxtaposed contexts in a single
model is to engineer for their dynamics. So, a powerful feature is
metapattern's support for contextual multiplicity in a lateral sense.
13.39
I don't care what anyone chooses to call a domain. It probably is what (s)he
takes as a relevant selection of contexts (here, I would rather say:
situations). So, I consider domain as variable, extending from a single
situation to ... world.
13.40
Please note that on the basis of my concepts, widening domain 'only'
involves — primarily — lateral extension of the model. Again, this is possible
because supporting multiple contexts is basic to metapattern.
13.41
I believe that metapattern/semiotic (dia-)ennead offers a framework for
helping to explain principles applied more implicitly elsewhere. And, now given
such an explicit method/tool, order may be established in an even more rigorous
fashion. For you can rely on an experience-relevant formalism.
13.42
For example, previously separate levels may converge. See above, for how the
level of multiple contexts equals domain, and even world.
13.43
Every 'binding' is variable. It can be changed. So, the upward 'binding,' too,
can be 'opened' and specifications added. That might be necessary when we
choose to widen the domain for engineering. It may then happen that how we've
modeled situations so far, becomes ambiguous within the widened horizon.
Maintaining precision may require more elaboration for contexts, adding
contexts, and the like.
13.44
In my experience a practical example will help. I suggest taking an
information problem with which you are intimately familiar. In your work, are
you involved with system integration? If so, what are the originally separate
information systems? How do you plan their actual synthesis?
13.45
What I can understand only too well, is how metapattern/semiotic ennead
somehow unsettles more traditional frameworks.
13.46
I deal with fragments. My concept of situationism limits itself to fragments
of beings, i.e. ‘being’ without a capital B. Whereas ‘entity’ seems to suggest
unification, only, I right away from basic assumptions include dynamics of
identity and differentiation. So, whatever ‘entity’ is assumed, it may exhibit
different behaviors. What counts as the 'logical atom' therefore shifts down to
an entity's situated behavior. (See my paper The
ontological atom of behavior)
13.47
Please note that 'situated behavior' implies juxtaposing such
behaviors (perspective of difference) for one and the same ´entity’
(perspective of identity). So, it is not only contexts that are explicitly
expressed inside the model, but as a consequence a reconciliation
between difference and identity also finds expression inside (!) the model.
13.48
Explicit expression of situatedness offers a full degree of extra freedom in
modeling. As I argued earlier, it essentially unburdens hierarchical
relationships. With an additional dimension/degree of freedom, order can be
expressed so much, much more efficiently.
13.49
I find reference to Bateson (and Alexander, for that matter) relevant. What
I remember myself about Bateson’s ordering is that he keeps it open-ended. What
I also do, like Bateson, I believe, is suggest recursion. If you propose a
particular hierarchy, that's fine. However, what I believe I share with Bateson
is that the mechanisms for behavior at each conceptual level of order all
operate at a single material level. As an engineer, I have to
assume it. For empirically, we are bound to it. You can assume what
you like otherwise, but until you've made a testable case for it, no engineer
should bet his work on it, period. My reading of, among others, Bateson (Schopenhauer
and Peirce, too, for example) is that he respects the fundamentally material
'conduct' for behavior (including learning, etc.).
13.50
I prefer the call the point a boundary concept. As I stated in the prelude
to my review of Schopenhauer (chapter 6 in Semiosis & Sign Exchange):
As any designer has learned from experience, it is often an
assumption that is at first counterintuitive which proves especially
productive. For example, why is the number zero such a powerful
invention? Because it is not a number, too. Schopenhauer performs a
similarly contradictory design step where it counts most. Cutting through the
paradox of what he calls the Weltknoten, he radically turns priorities
around. His concept of the will is not intermediary, i.e., it is not what
results from an intellect. With Schopenhauer, will is the ultimate
ground. Then, a particular body is a unique objectification of the will. And a
unique intellect is an irreducible part of a unique body. As such, the
intellect is an instrument of the will.
It follows that the Schopenhauerean intellect is not in exhaustive, leave aside
rational, control of the body. By definition, the will is in control.
And the will is preintellectual. Anyway, it is from the relative and
necessarily limited perspective of the intellect (which, at the same time, is all
it can develop as perspective).
13.51
So, what I mean is that it is really pointless — pun intended — to argue
whether or not 'the point' exists. I am not a naive realist, but what you might
call a semiotic realist, which is very different. As a concept, 'the
point' is an artifact. And as such, it must be included in a
semiotic framework, respecting the irreducibility of triadic/enneadic
elements.
13.52
What I believe follows from recognizing irreducibility is that
hierarchies previously taken as separate are essentially interconnected.
It just depends from what 'rung' on which 'ladder' you choose to orient
yourself. When you start from a realistic perspective (object), you'll
necessarily find a particular rung on the sign ladder corresponding to
it, vice versa. I would say that such correspondence is a far stronger
relationship even than what is often called ‘orthogonal.’ Of course, irreducibility
includes the interpretant dimension.
13.53
For engineering we should stick to a single temporality, i.e. the one that
we can now empirically consense to.
13.54
In addition, I have a strong hunch that any additional temporal categories
will actually dissolve when separate hierarchies are consolidated in an
enneadic fashion, that is, truly 'following' irreducibility. Then, particular
temporal behaviors previously indicated through a specific temporal category
might reflect emergence as a result of dynamics of the more spatially perceived
elements (plus the single remaining temporal category, of course).
13.55
Whenever I run into trouble theorizing, I've noticed that it invariably
occurs on account of violating Peirce's semiotic principle of irreducibility. I
cannot overemphasize how important I find it for remaining consistent.
13.56
Now I consider it a pragmatic principle. The impression I get from the work
of some modelers is that they are trying to move to a framework beyond. But is
that humanly possible? One of the elements in 'my' irreducible ennead is focus.
Taking it seriously means that man cannot move beyond limited attention,
however broadly experienced. We have of course learned the trick of extrapolating
by theory and thus hypothesize infinity, which in my terms should be explained
as the dissolution of focus (and all that irreducibly goes with it!).
13.57
In a mood of extrapolation, I would say that where those modelers — believe
they — are starting from, there is no rule of semiotic irreducibility. For
semiotics only appears along their process of reduction. (I refrain from
writing 'emerges' for that constitutes, anyway as I see it, a process in the
opposite direction.) Then, what I suppose that they should be especially
looking for is an even wider, stronger principle of irreducibility. I myself
have actually no idea.
13.58
I am the first to understand — well, I hope that I am — that the ennead is
not at all a statement of Truth, or of Absolute, Definitive, or whatever. That
would even be a contradiction in terms (as terms/signs are all we have,
enneadically 'speaking').
13.59
However, upon designing the ennead I did right away realize — if only
'sensing' it — that it has far-reaching potential as a tool. As such, i.e. a
tool, it can always be improved upon, though. Again, I am the first to
acknowledge room for improvement, as I myself already moved from, say, version
0.5 (the hexad in chapter
2 of Semiosis & Sign Exchange) to version
1.0 (the first full-blown ennead, in chapter 4 of Semiosis & Sign Exchange) to version 2.0 (as
documented in my paper Dia-enneadic framework
for information concepts, renaming an element into 'motive' and thereby
more directly referring to Schopenhauer's Will).
13.60
What the ennead does, is also provide threesomes/triads as windows. Will
flows into cognition through the boundary window of the threesome
motive-situation-context. And it flows out again through the 'window' of the
threesome of concept-behavior-intext. It essentially makes the ennead a model
of a funnel, or conduct.
13.61
In the 'middle,' identity and difference — is negation essentially
difference, i.e. putting it positively? — are reconciled/reduced by the
threesome of focus-identity-signature.
13.62
However finely grained, multitudinous etc. we engineer our artifacts to accommodate
for situations. We can never match the requisite variety of the world, if only
because variety is already a lower-level concept, of course.
13.63
I admit I never made a comprehensive study for parallels. But I do already
realize that the ennead articulates what must be age-old patterns.
13.64
There is a down-to-earth remark I'd like to make amidst philosophical
excitement. What I believe that I most practically succeeded in
solving is the problem of unambiguous information management at whatever scale.
Right now, it is of course the Internet posing precisely that problem. So, in
principle there is a multi-billion dollar market waiting to be served. However,
so far nobody recognizes the elegant, practical solution I've come up with. As
with any paradigm shift, it takes time. Talk about the human condition!
13.65
Let me elaborate on the difference between subject and object. Yes, on the
surface the ennead takes it as an assumption. But then it counteracts/mitigates
precisely that particular difference somewhat, at least that's what I find, by
claiming for behavior as essentially situated. So, it is not at all
the subject acting against the object. In terms of behavior we have to
acknowledge that it is impossible to separate the what that is
behaving. It certainly is not the subject per se. Neither is it the object per
se. That is, let's at least assume an interdependence.
13.66
What I set out to create with my dia-enneadic framework is a generalized
framework. It supplies the vantage point from which to determine/locate
previous concepts of information annex communication. For example, the
information concept of Shannon/Weaver should be recognizable as a particular
subset of the dia-enneadic set. The most varied information concept, then,
corresponds to the complete framework.
13.67
Then, is the semiotic ennead the most generalized framework? Clever
as the ennead is, the answer is clearly no. I believe it is wise to always
leave room for further development.
13.68
Perhaps I'm reading something into your work that you have not intended (but
that's subjective situationism for you).
13.69
With the 'plane' of focus-identity-signature I actually ploughed metapattern
back into its ground. For neither Schopenhauer, nor Peirce, suggested this
addition, at least I didn't see them do it.
13.70
From the original metapattern perspective, what I 'needed' for practical
information modeling at 'open' scale was a way to loosely couple what became
called context and intext. The engineer's solution is to add a third element,
acting as their hinge. My innovation regarding information modeling is to move
in the direction that is considered counterintuitive for the modeling tradition
so far. Rather than filling up the 'hinge,' that is, stuffing it with
attributes, I kept it as empty as possible. As with a physical entrance, a
hinge does not at all pretend to be door-like and/or wall-like. Precisely by
its intervention, it allows the door ... to remain door, and the wall to remain
wall.
13.71
In this sense, at least in my view, for example focus is both where
the tension between figure (concept) and ground (motive) occurs and
where their tension is resolved.
13.72
What I needed was especially such a mechanism for resolution (reconciling
identity and difference).
13.73
The plane of focus-identity-signature is critical for semiosis-as-dynamics,
i.e. movement of/in the cognitive mass. I would say that semiotic life entails
that any 'node' may become focus etc. and that from any node any other node can
be reached. Now, that's the principle. For a sound theory of cognition, it
'only' remains to work out the constraints. :-)
13.74
It can be extremely productive to postulate mathematically inspired
regularities and then try and make sense only after. For that's precisely how I
got from the hexad plus the 'middle' element along the sign dimension (as the
metapattern already had the relative hierarchy of three elements) to
postulating such middle elements for the other two dimensions (object and
interpretant). When the extra two elements were there, too, completing the
ennead, of course I also had to label those.
13.75
I just seem to feel more comfortable when there are three, rather than two
elements.
13.76
I also feel drawn to adding a third element because of the three so-called
cause types that I've taken from Schopenhauer. I mentioned those in chapter 7, section 1,
of Semiosis & Sign Exchange, but afterwards
applied them in the paper Multiple
axiomatization in information management.
13.77
My immediate impression is not to make too much of his dialogue as an explanation of
the world, despite the incredible insight displayed by Plato. As any sign, it
is essentially metaphorical.
13.78
As I 'only' see three cause types, I don't see any reason for additional
elements/dimensions. If another cause type would be recognized, then I believe
I would prefer jumping 4 and move directly to 5, i.e. the next prime. And so on
...
13.79
I took my degree at a university of technology (Delft). There, mathematics
is not at all the queen of science, but always a practical tool. Design is
about realistic imagination.
13.80
The engineer focuses on the experience of a practical problem. I've come to
believe that it really is about attitude. Given a problem that I recognize as
such, whatever theory is considered useful immediately becomes interesting.
Otherwise, I actually find it impossible to bring up motivation. Symbolic
logic, for example, I find extremely dull. I just don't get it, because I don't
see its relevance for the problems that I have to solve. Those problems require
a tool variety that traditional symbolic logic just doesn't support.
13.81
I tried to illustrate the engineer's attitude. Well, my own, anyway. Now,
probably in traditional philosophy a ‘test’ should be conducted against
writings by Plato etc. An engineer wouldn't be impressed, though. Rather, take
construction materials from wherever you can. If that's with Plato, fine. But
your engineering has to stand the 'real' test of current and future life. What
does it bring there?
13.82
Of course, who are we to say that studying Plato is irrelevant. Of course it
is not. But what does spending a disproportionate amount of time on his works
add to the 'solution'?
13.83
There is much to discover from careful study of original sources, as I
believe I myself have demonstrated by (re)reading part of Peirce's work — just
a single sentence by him, really; well, that's not right, but close enough — with
metapattern in mind.
13.84
At the first opportunity, most modelers, logicians, etcetera, seem to move
away from grounds and subsequently proceed with what they feel they're good at
which apparently is good-old and 'respected' symbolic logic (a logic which, in
turn, I just cannot understand). What's the use of rigor for something that's
irrelevant?
13.85
Well, that’s how difficult, if not impossible, at least during your own
lifetime, it is to get a novel idea accepted, especially by the academic
establishment.
13.86
From Popper we should take the idea that any serious attempt at
falsification must always be welcomed. I find that is the only (!?) responsible
attitude for the professional engineer. For when a piece of engineering breaks
sooner than it should, it's simply worthless, if not outright dangerous. And
should it break during an experiment, it's a vital lesson learned still at the
right time.
13.87
Dependent on how you look at it, you 'see' emergence, respectively reduction.
Anyway, that's why I consider the three elements 'relative' along a particular
dimension of the ennead.
13.88
What Peirce's constraint of irreducibility for semiosis suggests, at least
it does to me, is that it says more about interpretation than about reality as
such (whatever that may be).
13.89
The concept of language that I developed in Semiosis & Sign
Exchange implies the hypothesis 'Every sign is a request for compliance.'
Yes, "Trust me!" is a request and its very utterance should already
install a healthy mistrust.
13.90
What engineering attitude I might have is, as I myself believe, that I never
lose sight of the real problem. And I have the capacity to recognize that
abstraction can make solutions simpler by qualitative orders, so not at all
more complex. And that's where pragmatism is indistinguishable from philosophy.
So, I usually end up with a solution for a host of other problems, too. Yes,
that creates another problem, which is that nobody 'buys' it, yet.
13.91
I believe this attitude also explains why I'm sometimes harsh with
criticism. When you look at Semiosis & Sign
Exchange, you'll find that I'm harsh on Eco, for example. I find that he is
dealing irresponsibly with Peirce's legacy, from some splendid isolation.
Likewise, Austin, Searle and — to a lesser extent — Habermas are too smug
without sufficient ground. On the other hand, and though I disagree with him on
intersubjectivity, I find Mead sympathetic for he is making a sincere effort to
connect to the world.
13.92
We're at the point — space? — where of course it doesn't matter anymore
where we start from. It's all connected, anyway.
13.93
Did I already mention that I find 'middle-ism' an apt label for my outlook?
The obvious association with 'muddle-ism' is intentional. It is the 'mystery'
of the human condition. A (wo)man is always her/his own middle from where (s)he
muddles. What the ennead’s dimensions allow is that man can recognize it as
middle. For that's his (disad)vantage point in an — experience of —
encompassing structure. When I speak for myself, I feel inevitably both caught
in my middle/muddle and freed by dynamics (as I can move from one middle to the
next, and so on).
13.94
Only a problem motivates. It's just, I believe, that we often don't realize
what 'problem' we're actually working on. That's not necessarily bad. On the
contrary, semiosis as flow takes the person somewhere which he subsequently (of
course, semiosis once again) tries to justify ... sometimes.
13.95
Ultimately, motive is beyond mathematics, philosophy, or whatever lies
within the human condition to specify.
13.96
Genuine philosophy is not for spectators, but for practitioners. Otherwise
it is at best sterile and at worst dangerously misleading.
13.97
I would say that Peirce took from Kant that worldview doesn't stand on its
own. It must be irreducibly tied up with the worldviewer. So, the structure of
the worldview becomes part of the structure of the worldviewer, vice versa. I
am content to remain in awe of the 'mystery' beyond.
13.98
There's just no escape. And if you cannot beat it, please join it.
13.99
It's making life more difficult for those who attempt to build a bridge,
that's for sure. Once, I believed that such a bridge would be welcomed. But from
static middle-ism, hardly anyone has the integrity ... to integrate. Both
so-called academics and practitioners are mostly happy to remain at, and
maintain, their own side of the chasm.
13.100
It fits my perspective on mathematics, philosophy etc. that only
what remains structurally connected to practice is of interest. The word
‘interest’ provides a strong indication. At least, I see it as synonymous with
motive. So, interest/motive is related to behavior/practice, as the ennead
suggests.
13.101
As you cannot step in the same river twice, semiosis is always different.
13.102
But why postulate 'independent' problems when there might be a one-size
solution that fits all?
13.103
As I'm self-employed and also financing r&d in software engineering
based on metapattern, I cannot afford to study full-time. Then again, I don't
want to, for it is always an experienced problem that motivates further
development.
13.104
As might be expected on the basis of the ennead, I cannot help but include
motive in my interpretation. Here, I mean the motive of the 'other.' I am
extremely impatient, for example, with academic irrelevance, often clouded in
pretense at rigor. On the other hand, I will always express sympathy for
someone with — what I experience as — a sincere orientation at interdependence.
That's where especially differences become productive, for they promote
dynamics of middle-ism, that is, considering different perspectives. It's the
egoism of altruism ...
13.105
Rather than being paralyzed by the mystery, we 'create' ground somewhere.
How any ground works out, I would say depends on our purpose(s) which once
again makes clear how inescapable circularity is, at least in argument.
13.106
As an engineer I feel comfortable with methodological individualism. Now
that's of course derived from a particular engineering paradigm. There we go
again ...
13.107
Anyway, as engineering — as I know it — is concerned with recognizing
individual elements to participate in structure, structure-as-such is no
element. For necessary ground, such a difference must be established (cf.
Russell’s theory of types).
13.108
It follows that the performance of the structure emerges from how elements
interact. So, every element is inherently 'wired' for interaction. My
assumptions therefore include:
The provision of empathy ‘controls’ to what extent individual behavior is social. (See chapter 1, section 2, of Semiosis & Sign Exchange; there, see also chapter 6, on Schopenhauer.)
13.109
I'm fully aware that there is something beyond the individual.
Situationism is 'only' meant to convey how the individual exists. The other
existences, i.e. at different 'levels' cannot be expressed in terms of the
individual. So, a 'locality' surrounds the subject-object difference.
13.110
Respectful differences are especially productive. They help to agree on
essential similarities.
13.111
And while we still disagree, my case for subjective situationism is
especially strong ... :-)
13.112
Respecting differences optimizes similarities.
13.113
I 'only' see emergence from a ground level of materiality. And that's why I
support the idea of three cause types.
13.114
I'm tolerant to differences. It's always interesting to see new
relationships suggested.
13.115
Calling something ‘rational’ is always a request for compliance and often
aimed at dominance. Respect implies being open to the irreducible rationality
of the other in exchange.
13.116
A discipline where I would like to see the semiotic ennead applied is
cognitive science/evolutionary psychology. With any neural node potentially a
'focus,' and a mechanism for focal shifts, motivational annex conceptual
variety 'naturally' follows.
13.117
I like to practice nesting, recursiveness, or whatever. It usually even adds
flexibility and greatly increases sign compactness. Enneadic dynamics is a
prime example.
13.118
First of all, I'd like to emphasize that I am keeping situation formally
distinct from context. Let's say that so-called analytical philosophers stick
to naive realism which is where they right away lack requisite variety for
modeling.
What I also see everybody still do when they deal with situation/context, is to
consider it an absolute concept. Then, situation is assumed as 'something'
different from an object. So questions arise how to model situation, what
to do when situations overlap etc.
All such questions are resolved through my assumptions. I'm not so much
concerned with modeling situation. Instead, I concentrate on modeling an
object's behavior. Next, I recognize that a particular object may exhibit
several behaviors. This raises the question of how a particular behavior is
determined. My answer: situation. So, my concept of situation has evolved from
the requirement for behavior selection. It only follows that I've introduced
the constraint that situations are disjunct. Otherwise, behavior could not be
unambiguously determined. For any object, there's a 1:1 relationship between a
particular situation and a particular behavior. Or, given a situated object,
its behavior is accurately determined. In order to qualify as criterion for
selection of behavior — and now we're moving to the sign dimension — context
need only consist of a unique label. Combined with the object's unique label,
its so-called signature, intext can be retrieved.
Now that would already be enough when 'levels' were fixed. My analysis of
variety is that such levels are better assumed relative. In terms of hierarchy,
it means that you can move upwards and downwards. Upwards, what was first taken
as a situation as a whole, may turn out to be a next-higher level object in a
next-higher level situation. You can repeat the procedure until you feel that
you've reached a practical limit, i.e. the behavioral horizon for, say, the
ecosystem that you're modeling. Downwards, the same principle applies. Now,
what was first taken as a behavior as a whole, may turn out to be a next-lower
level object with next-lower level behavior. Again, you can repeat the
procedure until you feel that you've reached a practical limit. In this case,
that is, downwards, what results are primitive chunks of behavior. Please note
that both the upward and downward limits of decomposition remain relative. The
structure is also variable at both extremes. So, the horizon may be lifted
and/or additional behavioral detail added as primitive.
13.119
I simply avoid the issue of 'what is a situation'? At least, I refuse to
answer it in any absolutist sense. Situation takes its structural
position/value. It gives operational meaning to what behavior is, vice versa.
And as for its meaning, it irreducibly requires even all the ennead's elements
and their relationships.
13.120
Such structuralism also undermines traditional logic's paradigm which is why
I don't waste time studying such ill-directed proposals. As I cannot recognize
any relevance, my reader's block sets in.
13.121
When aspects, whatever they’re called, are relevant for determining
behavior, one way or another they'll be reflected in context (because they are
assumed to exist in the behaviorally relevant situation for an object).
13.122
And ennead dynamics are not only recursive (allowing up- and downward
movements), but also reflexive. This I took directly from Peirce. See chapter 2 of Semiosis & Sign Exchange for cycles in semiosis;
the interpretant of one cycle 'acts' as the sign for the next.
And then there's the mechanism of lateral movement. Please note that every
single node immediately implies a full ennead.
13.123
There are corresponding semiotic factors along the sign dimension. And they
would be the factors necessary and sufficient for determining a particular
intext as appended to a particular signature.
Please note that, at least according to the semiotic ennead, what we are
calling context/signature/intext, just as we do situation/identity/behavior,
are 'all in a man's imagination,' that is, his interpretation
(motive/focus/concept).
13.124
Of course I see that it is often practical to assume that, for example, an
institution exists independently. More fundamentally, though, it is constituted
by actors' behaviors. At least, I find that a more productive assumption
concerning the kind of 'work' I'm applying my conceptual instrument for.
13.125
As any expression is always a sign, there's no circumventing metapattern and
subsequently the semiotic ennead.
13.126
When you look at the ennead's visual presentation, indeed, it seems just
static. That's why I add emphasis on enneadic dynamics. And I
especially designed metapattern to be able to present with precision an
overview of signatures, etcetera.
13.127
From the perspective of social psychology (methodological individualism),
there's a continuum, not an opposition. Then, traditional sociological concepts
are abstractions from social psychological concepts. Please note that the
semiotic ennead is already outright social in its understanding of semiosis; I
refer to my use of Schopenhauer's concept of empathy.
13.128
A framework to mediate between previously distinct sociological and
psychological approaches, respectively, does have great value, period. When you
closely read my commentary on the semiotic ennead, that's precisely what I've —
also — tried to ground.
13.129
The germ of interdisciplinary mediation is present in Peirce's triad. It becomes
— more — explicit by turning Peirce's original elements into dimensions (where
I have even made the 'new' elements relative).
13.130
As a pragmatist, of course I find the whole ennead a heuristic device (cf.
Vaihinger, the philosophy of As If).
13.131
In my view, each dimension has a ‘center.’ At the same time, they are not absolute
centers. First of all, the relationships between the ennead's elements are
irreducible. That includes the relationships between signature, focus and
identity. Secondly, how elements along the dimensions are determined is always
relative.
13.132
I'm not an expert but I would argue that Levi-Strauss 'limits' himself to
two explicit dimensions for mediating structural correspondences. Indeed, that
fits how De Saussure conceives of the sign in his semiology.
Perhaps it is a good idea to refer to Levi-Strauss' work as two-dimensional structuralism.
Then, through Peirce I've made the extension to a three-dimensional structuralism.
13.133
There's certainly something — or even a lot — seductively archetypical about
the ennead. But then, what is an archetype other than a self-fulfilling prophecy?
13.134
I don't distinguish information from knowledge. Instead, I throw all terms
such as information, data, communication, knowledge ... together. It just
depends on which subset of the dia-enneadic framework seems to be implied to
suggest which of those terms is most apt. As I myself 'believe' in
irreducibility, my own orientation is from the full framework.
13.135
Enneadic dynamics involves randomness, too.
13.136
I prefer to start arguing from problems as experienced (see John Dewey's
pragmatism). The absence of problems maintains situations: tradition. No
problem? Then there's also no design to speak of. A real problem implies
solution-oriented behavior. The solution necessarily is a difference, thus
undermining tradition.
Socially speaking, one person may find that the solution-oriented behavior by
another person presents ... a problem. Given sufficient power, that one person's
solution is what on the surface looks like maintaining a tradition. In that
case, though, tradition has a paradoxical character. Only power dictates. Or,
if you like, the worldview of the powerful does. Is there a better explanation
for the marginal existence, at best, of new proposals for paradigms?
13.137
A sign never 'means' something just like that. To a large extent, we even
have to learn what we'd better take as signs in order to survive. Of course,
what it takes to survive partially changes.
13.138
It depends very much on a person's previous 'conditioning' (see Wittgenstein
on training). Because I am by now so familiar with the ennead, it provides me
with an understanding that I cannot otherwise experience. Yet I do realize that
the enneadic 'sign' is meaningless for almost everybody else. So, I need to
invent other ways to communicate at least some of the need for their compliance
with my perspective ... and that's where it gets really difficult ...
13.139
I haven't bothered to check Foucault on this, but I would actually be surprised
if he didn't argue that myths are instruments for wielding power. We are
conditioned to behave accordingly. After some generations, even the elite
doesn't make that connection, making their power 'natural' to themselves.
13.140
The ennead is extremely writerly (cf. Barthes) ..., if you insist, it is the
proverbial writerly sign ...
13.141
We are performing at the level of semiosis, with the irreducible
subjectivity it entails, period. We cannot 'do' semiosis outside ... semiosis.
Call it the semiotic imperative.
13.142
As a metaphor, the concept of 'center of gravity' might help. The mass
(gravity) may rotate over time while the center (identity) remains stable. The
center 'supports' the body's variable behavior precisely because it is itself
considered mass-less.
13.143
Likewise, the main 'purpose' of the subtriad of focus/signature/identity is
to provide for semiotic variation (also read: enneadic dynamics). Along each
dimension, the ennead already dynamically mediates between background and
foreground.
13.144
I'd like to refer to recent insight into rationalization. It appears that
most of the time we just 'do' something, making up an explanation only after
the (f)act. The ennead, for example, resulted from some 'flow' (that I could
subsequently refer to as enneadic dynamics).
13.145
My view is that there are no other explanations than subjectively conceptual
explanations. I find that corroborated by experience; I find it completely
natural that we should disagree; that doesn't mean that we should end our
discussion; on the contrary, given necessary differences in conceptual
explanations, discussion stimulates further development all around.
13.146
It is in the nature of semiosis that you never encounter the same sign
twice. Every application of the ennead changes the cognitive mass from which it
is brought to bear the next time around.
13.147
My hypothesis is that understanding is secondary, at best. First always
comes politics. A sign is a request for compliance. It can inform us first and
foremost, therefore, on the political order in the ‘situation’ it originated
from.
13.148
I don't want to remove explanations from empirically reasonable grounds
before I've really exhausted them.
13.149
My precursors are Schopenhauer and Peirce. Of course they also have
precursors, and so on. There's a practical limit to how far I am prepared to
retrace origins. In fact, I already went farther back than usual nowadays. But
it certainly paid off.
13.150
I don't believe it helps to reason from superiority or inferiority. It's
about situational adaptation, with individual subjects as agents. We are now
challenged in ways unimaginable to the ancients (as they were challenged, for
that matter, in ways that should baffle us).
13.151
For the semiotic ennead I claim general, i.e. cross-cultural, or
supra-situational, validity. Of course, it also explains the sign life of other
animals and plants. However, I don't see a possible generalization for positive
ethics. Practically, I mean, not 'just' theoretically.
13.152
The semiotic ennead has a highly heuristic quality. Many 'things' work,
even while we're struggling to understand why. But I do have some ideas on the
matter. The first is that it is in the nature of the cause type of the sign
that it is essentially triadic (Peirce). The second is that Peirce's triadic
elements are too static; they don’t permit dynamics. As the example of the
center of gravity shows (see above), it is precisely at such a center that a
body can be 'pinned down' in order to 'move around' in the world. So,
differences with continued entity also minimally require a division into three
(in this case: body, center and world).
Taken together, threefold division 'appears' as both necessary and sufficient
in those two steps, yielding the ennead. It doesn't work with less, and more
elements only clutter.
13.153
Anysign — pun intended — can be made to fit a semiotic ennead. That's obvious,
for otherwise it wouldn't be a sign!
13.154
Every sign is involved with semiosis and therefore irreducibly implicated in
an ennead.
13.155
There's no objective measure to decide on an interpretation's value. Here I
see the opportunity to connect interpretation to design and engineering. How
useful is a particular interpretation from a design perspective? It might help to
distinguish between design theory in general and some particular design
problem.
13.156
With poetry, it's also always down-to-earth, banal. For example, the poet
was given a meal for a song. Or the poet sings a baby to sleep, because he's
also a father, an uncle, or whatever. When a power-that-is recognizes that it
catches on, solidifying her/his position, he may invest in extensions, and so
on.
A poem is action of the sign, too, and is therefore essentially enneadic, that's
all. Because what we now call poems, myths, etcetera invariably deal with
questions of life, it already is a closed issue what they are about. It's like
arguing that before people only built churches because they are the only old buildings
around. Their survival has nothing to do with their churchness, and everything
with the durable material they've been erected from.
13.157
Please don't take your conclusion as your assumption.
13.158
I'm sure that several ancient poets have reflected on their own craft, resulting
in some, say, proto-semiotic analyses woven in whatever myth they were
tinkering with at some particular moment. But that's far from making myths
about design in principle. Of course, myth is essentially about social structure.
As structuralist interpretations by Levi-Strauss show, natural structure is set
off against cultural structure. Culture ... artificial ... design ... so, of
course, there's always a possibility to somehow connect to the issue of design.
In most cases, though, I believe it is too far fetched.
13.159
First of all, there was metapattern. I only called it metapattern when I undertook
writing a book explaining it (which became Metapattern:
context and time in information models). The book was published in the fall
of 2000 (with the Publisher, Addison-Wesley, already dating it at 2001; that
seems to be customary, as with cars). I documented, in 1991, my initial
development of the proto-metapattern. Later I made an English translation,
titled Multicontextual
paradigm for object orientation. Around 1977 I read the then recently
published book Information where Ronald Stamper
introduces semiotics to information scientists. It left me with the intention
to come back to semiotics more seriously. I did, starting from Peirce. How I
got to the ennead is fairly well documented in the first chapters of Semiosis & Sign
Exchange.
Especially the paper on multicontextual paradigm should emphasize that a particular
design problem was thrown up, for which I apparently was 'ready.' Also see Innovation dynamics across
theory, technology and tool.
13.160
A designer will often just redesign, coming up with the same solution. It's faster
than consulting incomplete documentation. So, too, if one person has experienced
some particular problem, and another person, too, there's a good chance their
solutions are similar. They don't have to be, of course. See natural evolution
for both converging and diverging 'solutions.'
13.161
Explanations are usually straightforward, if only you know enough about the
relevant situation.
13.162
I associate emergence with crossing to a level of greater variety, much as Prigogine's
concept of order out of chaos. I limit emergences to the order of cause types
(which I've already mentioned several times). Later I found that Nicolai Hartmann
holds a similar view on ontology, of course developed much earlier. A
difference between Hartmann's view and mine is that he assumes four levels. His
fourth, indeed, is Geist. There, I don’t follow him.
13.163
How ‘old’ is semiosis? At some point, I suppose, out of impulse developed
sign (of course, after out of force developed impulse). My hypothesis is that
signs and all they entail only make 'sense' under conditions where
self-contained selection of behavior provides an evolutionary advantage.
So, for me semiosis is a fact of natural history, as I've recently sketched in
section 2.6 in Semiotics
of identity management.
13.164
I see the enneadic model as part of development of empirical sciences. Never
before was there the 'problem' of unambiguous control of informational variety.
As long as man himself was always the, say, context-switcher, indeed, it was if
we were the fish not realizing what water is. But now we're increasingly
leaving the context-switching to machines, requiring explicit design considerations
for context. Presto, the formal ennead.
13.165
Attention for context is nothing new. There just hasn't been anyone around
before me to include in a formal model of semiosis.
13.166
As mathematician Brouwer argued, our theories are actually theories about our
instruments. He has a point. To the man with a hammer, everything looks like a
nail. Use a lens, and everything appears lens-like, of course.
13.167
Semiosis is part of nature.
13.168
Given man's capacity for reflection, there must have been views of semiosis
— under whatever label — almost from the origin of man. Wouldn't that be a
spectacular archeological find, i.e. a stone from a prehistorical tomb,
engraved with an ennead!
13.169
With the semiotic ennead, I created something that just wasn't there before.
Or actually it may turn out that it’s not really original, but as far as I am
concerned it certainly emerged. My own experience was that of a practical
problem. Nothing mysterious about it, really.
13.170
Peirce is known for being inconsistent. The self-contradictory nature of his
work, taken as a whole, makes selection necessary.
I've focused on his triadic sign model, emphasizing his point of
irreducibility. On irreducibility, please notice, I find that I'm succeeding in
being more consistent than Peirce was. Mixing in metapattern and Schopenhauer's
will, as far as semiotics is concerned I've moved beyond Peirce.
13.171
Design, from my perspective, is a moving-on. It is essentially progressive.
13.172
A designer is someone who knows when to choose her/his 'progressive
moments.'
13.173
A designer/engineer doesn't mind at all being 'right' for the 'wrong'
reasons. Rationalization always comes after recognition.
13.174
Any reconfiguration essentially abuses its constituents. Otherwise, it
wouldn't be significant ... as a reconfiguration, innovation, etcetera.
13.175
I find it useful to divorce Peirce's formal logic from his semiotics.
Indeed, and as I referred to in Semiosis & Sign
Exchange, one strand in Peirce is naturalism/realism, the other
transcendentalism (cf. Goudge). Please notice that I avoid terminology such as
right or wrong.
December 2005 – January 2006, web edition 2006 © Pieter Wisse