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Ontogenetic Development of Symbolicity

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Abstract

In this article, we investigate the development of symbolicity from a semiotic point of view. We kick-start this investigation by drawing some fundamental parallels between the re-configurations of inner-outer exchange relations dealt with in biosemiotics (symbolicity) and general psychology (sentience) respectively. In constructing a developmental account of the emergence of symbolicity, we adopt the scenario methodology from general psychology and apply the semiotic vocabulary from Peirce as an analytical strategy. With this synthesis in mind, we visit the scientific field of multisensory perception that deals specifically with understanding the developmental interrelations of the modalities and, more specifically, the phenomenon of perceptual narrowing. Next, we visit certain parts of theoretical biology, more specifically the theory of code-duality, as this theory offers nuanced understandings of temporality that are underdeveloped within psychology. Thus, an overarching theoretical mission of the article is to eclectically combine psychological development with semiotics, so as to initiate the construction of a theoretical framework that links sentience and symbolicity. Through this investigation, we attempt to show how the digital, in its supervenience on the analogue, temporally modifies the subject’s ability to transit from the initial agency of sense-experience of firstness to the symbolic mental representing of thirdness, thus explaining the phenomenon of perceptual narrowing.

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Notes

  1. In this context, supervenience only refers to the fact that the psyche actively restricts which states of the central nervous system (CNS) get realized at any given time (Bunge 2010), but the psyche cannot cause the CNS to vitally change (through downward causality). In formal logical discourse, the term supervenience cannot obtain any more explanatory power than this (Kim 1993), but in dynamical systems and complexity studies, the notion is still developing (Deacon 2012; Deacon and Cashman 2016).

  2. Both in physics and biology, the analysis of systems must assume an arrow of time, such that two states A and B of a system are analyzed as a mapping: A → B. In physics, the uncertainty of measuring is related to the end state B and associated boundary conditions on A (a purely analogue ideal, where the irreversibility is only manifested through the formal separation of states). In contrast, biological analysis must assume that “the uncertainty is in the arrow itself” (Gómez-Ramirez 2014, p. Viii). The latter therefore necessitates a transition of states via a teleological orientation towards time, whereas the former necessitates a transition of states in (the irreversibility of) time. Another way to put it is that the physical mapping assumes a probability vis-à-vis A → B in (analytical) retrospect, whereas biological development is in medias res probabilistic (Gottlieb 2002).

  3. When talking about code, we are not referring to the information theoretical use of the term. Rather, we follow the semiotic tradition, defining code as a semiotic resource: a vehicle for meaning-generating activity to emerge (Hoffmeyer 2014, p. 109).

  4. We do not intend to suggest any easy leap (of faith) over the abyss of the substance dualism, but we are of the opinion that it is a relevant point, even in this extremely tentative format, that the dimension of time could provide a valuable conceptual frame for eventually transcending the psychophysical dualism as it to this day still haunts psychology (Mammen 2017).

  5. To provide some contrast for this, one can imagine at least two exceptions of the metaphysical category of a representamen. Firstly, if Heidegger (2014) is correct, death is an exception for humans. And maybe for Peirce, the apocalyptical thermal equilibrium is likewise an exception from representamens, interestingly proving the rule (Peirce in Voetmann 1996).

  6. This statement should be related to Peirce’s position in the universalisms strides: Peirce is a mediated realist, that is, he claims that universal significations are related to object in the physical world not depending on the signifying subject (or interpretant to be precise) but that they are only perceivable in mediated shapes (Peirce 1931; Stjernfelt, 1992a, b). Furthermore, there exist various interpretations of whether or not symbols own any resemblance to objectives; Bennett (2015) has performed an incredibly thorough work on this topic, which has resulted in a hierarchy of arbitrarily existing sign elements which reaches a maximum with the so-called decontextualized signs (Bennett, 2015, p. 460).

  7. The following use of Peirce categories is, besides the explicit references based on C.P. 1.545-2.49, 4.530-572, 6.222-37 and W 3.257-302

  8. Of course Husserl’s notion was developed as part of a more encompassing model of the experience of duration, including the functions primal impression and protention, where the latter is the futuresque aspect of any given present via, e.g., expectation, and as such is the complementation to retention (Husserl, 1893–1917/1991). Interestingly, Husserl might have undersold an asymmetric conception of the relation between re- and protention (Dimitreu 2013). However, we only mention retention in this context to give a phenomenological characterization of the limit case of purely amodal perception.

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Acknowledgements

This article is the result of a joint work carried out by Denis Ebbesen (Instructor in Developmental Psychology, UCPH) and Jeppe Olsen (Instructor in Philosophy of Science, UCPH), under the generous supervision of Professor Simo Køppe, UCPH, Department of Psychology, whom we would like to thank. We would also like to thank Associate Professor Tom Teasdale, UCPH, Department of Psychology, for helping us articulate some of the most intricate phrases.

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    Denis K. Ebbesen & Jeppe Olsen

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Ebbesen, D.K., Olsen, J. Ontogenetic Development of Symbolicity. Hu Arenas 2, 99–128 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s42087-018-0024-8

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