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[xmca] Re: signs and dynamics

Quite right Tony. I am usually sloppy about Perceian terminology, since most other people wouldn't get the distinctions.
But am I right that in some version of Peirce it's not just a distinction, but there is a sense in which semiosis process piggybacks on dynamic-material-causal process? As with development, the later more elaborated forms build on the prior ones. We are used to a fully semiosic world-for-people, where form, material action, and meaning are all always present, requiring only the right interpretant to foreground them. But one of our questions here has been whether in biological evolution, or cosmological evolution, it's always been that way?
I assume that there has not always been semiosis in the history of the universe? or not always been Thirdness? and as a physicist I can imagine an argument that maybe there was a time before Secondness as well. Mythology seems to think there was a time before Firstness, too (when the void was without form ...).
I seem to recall Peirce making a sort of emergence/evolution/ development argument about the universe coming to have more complex kinds of form in it, and I think that was meant to include some sort of arising of the grounds of at least Thirdness, and maybe all three logical relations? He had a nice phrase for this, which I can't now remember. 

What's your take on it?

JAY.
PS. For those less versed in Peirce, he can be read sometimes as a bit schizophrenic. On the one hand a pure logician looking at formal categories. On the other a sort of natural scientist with a very materialist take on things. He did not see it that way, I'm pretty sure, hence his unique interpretation of monism, which is not quite like what we're used to in the Cartesian regime. 

Jay Lemke
Professor (Adjunct)
Educational Studies
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
www.umich.edu/~jaylemke





On Oct 6, 2009, at 8:42 PM, Tony Whitson wrote:


Thanks, Jay,
I own a copy of that book; and I remember where it was on what shelf some time ago; but it's not there now so I'll have to get another!
BTW, this has come up before on xmca, but where people often refer to sign activity as "dynamic," I would follow Peirce in saying that it's semiosic, expressly for the differention with dynamic (as in the policeman pushing someone by his elbow). For CSP dynamic interaction is at the level of secondness; at thirdness, it's semiosic. 

-- Tony

On Tue, 6 Oct 2009, Jay Lemke wrote:


Tony,
Somewhere in my book Textual Politics, I think in the appendix/ afterword (actually written many years before the rest of the book), I have a discussion of meaning making in terms of improvisation in the creation of a dance on the dancers by a choreographer. Gave me a lot of good ideas I've used since. 

JAY.

Jay Lemke
Professor (Adjunct)
Educational Studies
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI 48109
www.umich.edu/~jaylemke





On Oct 2, 2009, at 8:57 PM, Tony Whitson wrote:


Thanks, Ana,
At first I was going to send this just to you, off-list, but then I thought I'd send it to the list. 
First, Congratulations!
.. and, I thought others outside the US might be interested in hearing that we in this country are being treated to the spectacle of right-wing USA super-patriots rejoicing (cheering, applauding vigorously, etc.) at the news that Chicago's bid for the Olympics was not successful. They see this as a failure that will disgrace Obama, and they are welcoming any failure for the USA that they think can be treated as a failure by Obama. I wanted to also mention that at our International Curriculum meeting in South Africa last month, we decided that our next meeting will be in Brazil in 2012. Not sure yet which University will host, or in which city; but it would be great if you would join us -- I will update the list as details emerge. Finally, points in your message encourage me that maybe the manuscript I'm writing might not be too crazy after all. In one part I am working (maybe overworking) an analogy between meaning and dancing, arguing that just as dancing is what dancers do, meaning is what mean-ers do (speakers, writers, thinkers -- but also words, texts, and signs in general). So "I mean ..." , "she means ..." , "that word means ..." "that text means ..."; with "meaning" as a verb, and not a noun (i.e., not something that could be a "content," or something "conveyed"). Anyway, your message also reminded me of the teacher who said, "Mary, put that book away; it's time for reading now!" (I guess that's not intelligible outside of countries where "reading" is a subject and a class that has been taught using systems and materials that bear little relationship to the reading that people do with books outside of schools and classrooms.) Again, Congratulations! President Obama offered his congratulations to Rio and to Brazil when he returned, and he also expressed pride in Chicago. "Sometimes you can play a great game and still not be the winner." To the right wing in our country, any time Obama falls short of what he's trying to do (even on things like reducing unemployment, or finding a way to provide health care for people here -- not just something like the Olympics), they see failure for the USA as a great victory for the American that they are loyal to. 
On Fri, 2 Oct 2009, Ana Paula B. R. Cortez wrote:

Thanks, Mike!
I loved the talk. It makes completely sense. I was teaching PFL (Portuguese as Foreign Language) at the American School of São Paulo this morning and I called one of my student's attention for chatting so much in class. Do you know what she said to me? "Sorry, Ms Cortez, I need to talk in order to think". Well, if a great dancer needs to move in order to put all her creativity into action, who I am to disagree with this student of mine? ;) 
Warm regards to all,
Ana Paula Barbosa Risério Cortez

English Language and Literature Professor
Faculty of Language and Education
University of Mogi das Cruzes-VL, Brazil
Av. Imperatriz Leopoldina, 550
Vl. Leopoldina, São Paulo, SP - Brazil
05305-000
55 11 3648-5050
apbrcortez@yahoo.com.br

--- Em qui, 1/10/09, mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com> escreveu:
De: mike cole <lchcmike@gmail.com>
Assunto: [xmca] schools kill creativity?
Para: "eXtended Mind, Culture,Activity" <xmca@weber.ucsd.edu>
Data: Quinta-feira, 1 de Outubro de 2009, 21:30
Perhaps of some interest.
mike
http://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity.html
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Tony Whitson
UD School of Education
NEWARK  DE  19716
twhitson@udel.edu
_______________________________
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are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
-- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)_______________________________________________ 
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Tony Whitson
UD School of Education
NEWARK  DE  19716

twhitson@udel.edu
_______________________________

"those who fail to reread
are obliged to read the same story everywhere"
-- Roland Barthes, S/Z (1970)_______________________________________________ 
xmca mailing list
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