Abstract
While the field of semiotics has been active since it was started by Peirce, it appears like the last decade has been especially productive with a number of important new concepts being developed within the biosemiotics community. The novel concept of the Semiotic scaffold by Hoffmeyer is an important addition that offers insight into the hardware requirements for bio-semiosis. As any type of semiosis must be dependent upon Semiotic scaffolds, I recently argued that the process of semiosis has to be divided into two separate processes of sign establishment and sign interpretation, and that misalignment between the two processes result in faulty sign interpretation and over-signification. Such faulty signs were forbidden in the sign classification system of Peirce, so I defined them as forbidden signs. Here I present an analysis of the forbidden sign categories with examples from Occult semiotics. I also show that biological semiosis offers examples of forbidden signs, where the faulty interpretation of signs may lead to decimation of whole evolutionary lines of organisms. A new concept of Evolutionary memory which is applicable to both human and biological semiosis is explained as the combination of two processes; one leading to diversity generation within semiotic scaffolds followed by a second process of decimation of faulty signs during selection in specific learning environments. The analysis suggests that forbidden signs are always used as early stages in the iterative sign establishment process during semiosis.
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Notes
A second reviewer pointed out, that this process may be defined as the first interpretation process in semiosis. This makes sense because the outcome of the establishment phase will serve as a cue whether to tag the memory as important or to let it fade. All subsequent interpretation phases will likewise add robustness to the sign by further enforcing, and thus be part of an iterative establishment phase. I will however need to continue with the floating distinction between an establishment phase and a retrieval (interpretation) phase in order to bring the forbidden signs out of the darkness. A prior phase, where a sign does not exist in the memory yet has not been included in the present model, which focuses on the semiosis process.
Many types of renderings have been presented to capture the triadic nature of the Peircean sign, but the simplest is just to define a sign within a sign-path as a specific relation Ψ between the object, Representamen, and Interpretant (see Kilstrup 2015). In the generic sign-path “a-b-c-d-e-f” one of the signs, could be written as Ψ(a,b,c), where a is the Object, b, the Representamen, and c the Interpretant. The following sign in the path would be Ψ(b,c,d), where b is now the Object, c is the Representamen, and d is the Interpretant. Thereby, any sign will have its location in a three dimensional O,R,I space. Most Peirce scholars prefer sign elements to be written in the order of R, O, I as it fits better with Peirce’s ideas about firstness, secondness and thirdness (to be discussed later). By using the O, R, I order, however, we get the benefits of a logical process during interpretation of larger semiotic pathways.
As an example, a sign could be characterized as a Rhematic Symbolic Argument.
As an example of the Icon- Index-Symbol distinction, Peirce defined (CP 2.255) that an Icon relates to its object solely by likeness. By induction from his examples, the reconstructed model defines that the Icon-Index-Symbol distinction is based upon the relation between the Representamen and the Object during sign interpretation. In the second classification scheme Rheme-Dicisign-Argument, an example of an argument from Peirce is a sign “for which its Interpretant is a sign of law” (thirdness). This and other statements about Rhemes, Dicisigns and Arguments only makes sense if the Rheme-Dicisign-Argument division is determined by the relation between the Representamen and the Object during sign establishment. At the third level we have a Qualisign-Sinsign-Legisign division. As Peirce stated, a “Qualisign is a quality that is a sign” (CP 2.244); a Sinsign “is an actually existant thing or event that is a sign” (CP 2.245); and a “Legisign is a law that is a sign” (CP 2.246). The most simple reconstruction of the logic behind this division from Peirce’s examples is that it refers to the highest mode of representation that can be established between the Representamen and any Object (or had been established at the time of interpretation, in which the highest mode is defined from the ranking: thirdness > secondness > firstness).
A Symbolic Argumental Legisign is thus a Law that is a sign (Legisign), which is learned as being a law (Argument) and is interpreted as a law (Symbol).
Forbidden sign classes are labeled like this: <forbidden sign class>
To recapitulate, Peirce allowed Legisigns whose establishment was solely based upon representations of the Firstness category (Rheme) to be interpreted as such even though the actual relation between the Representamen and its Object is based upon causality (Indexes) or conventional (Symbolic) relations. But he did not allow the opposite. Signs that were established as Arguments could only be interpreted as such if the actual Representamen during interpretation was truly related to an Object through convention (Symbolic Arguments).
One may argue that unfamiliarity can be characterized as a property of comets or earthquakes or of any other phenomenon. However, the question may end up in same way as Gottlob Frege’s question of whether the number of apples in a basket is a property of the apples (Frege 1950). Theoretically we may have to define unfamiliarity in the context of set theory (Russell 1908), possibly defined as the set of phenomena that are infrequently occurring from the viewpoint of the earth. This task will however not be attempted here, but above I showed that Representamens in biological signs often rely on sensing of the concentration of molecules. The concentration of a molecule, i.e., the number of molecules per volume, must likewise be defined as the property of a set of identical molecules, and not of the molecule itself. As a last comment to unfamiliarity, it could be added that the adaptive immune system in humans and animals rely on the distinction between self and non-self (Boehmer and Kisielow 1991), and the behavioral tagging hypothesis of memory function (Ballarini et al. 2009) uses novelty or non-familiarity as trigger. This is actually a special case of a distinction between familiar and unfamiliar. During maturation, the collection of “sensory” T-cells in the immune system is decimated so that all T-cells that recognize familiar proteins are removed because these proteins are potentially dangerous, while T-cells targeted against unfamiliar proteins are saved. In that way, the adaptive immune system is a semiotic scaffold that is able to interpret unfamiliar Representamens as Indices of danger.
Epigenetic changes in the human genome related to hunger during pregnancies could be a clue to such differences in disposition and fate of babies born at different times of year, if the pre-historic culture that made the accounts experienced reoccurring seasonal hunger periods.
In Peirce’s words (CP 5.538): In the formation of habits of deliberate action, we may imagine the occurrence of the stimulus, and think out what the results of different actions will be. One of these will appear particularly satisfactory; and then an action of the soul takes place which is well described by saying that that mode of reaction “receives a deliberate stamp of approval.” The result will be that when a similar occasion actually arises for the first time it will be found that the habit of really reacting in that way is already established.
A semiotic analysis of this pathway can be presented as follows. The Representamen of the central sign in the sensing system must be the chaperone availability, and the Object of the sign must be the amount of denatured proteins in the cell. Following the notation Ψ(Object, Representamen, Interpretant) we could write the Ψ(O,R,I) sign as Ψ2(high concentration of denatured protein, low chaperone availability, increased chaperone synthesis). Since the chaperone availability is causally related to the concentration of denatured proteins, the intracellular concentration of denatured proteins must be the Representamen of another sign (Ψ1) in which the chaperone availability is the Interpretant. This sign must have the stressful conditions leading to denatured proteins as Object. Thus we have a second sign which can be written as Ψ1(Denaturing stress condition, high concentration of denatured protein, low chaperone availability). A third sign must also have been established during selection to increase survival during the stressful selection environment: Ψ3(low chaperone availability, increased chaperone synthesis, lowered concentration of denatured proteins). Yet another sign must already have been present in the progenote: Ψ4(increased chaperone synthesis, lowered concentration of denatured proteins, faster growth), since the growth rate will be severely affected when intracellular proteins are denatured. In the total signal path shown below, we can thus identify four successive signs (Ψ1, Ψ2, Ψ3, Ψ4) resulting in the signal path: Denaturing stress condition ➔ high concentration of denatured protein ➔ low chaperone availability ➔ increased chaperone synthesis ➔ lowered concentration of denatured proteins ➔ faster growth
To recapitulate, the part of the semiotic scaffold responsible for the Ψ1 sign was already present in the cell, because it is simply a consequence of the affinity that the chaperones have for denatured proteins. Ψ2 and Ψ3 are novel signs that were established in evolution after the separation of the gram-positive and gram-negative lineages. They required selection of a semiotic scaffold consisting of the correct relation between chaperone genes, HrcA repressor, CIRCE binding sites, and chaperones. Like Ψ1, the Ψ4 sign rely on pre-established relations between chaperones, denatured proteins, and cellular performance; and obtained an important signaling function in the complete functional sign path that served to increase the fitness of the gram-positive bacterial lineage. It appears to be a matter of taste how detailed a sign should be written. The signal path could be identified as a compounded sign Ψ1–4(Denaturing stress condition, increased chaperone synthesis, faster growth), or as a succession of separate signs (Ψ1➔Ψ2 ➔ Ψ3 ➔ Ψ4). A more detailed description could even require that each sign was broken up into several micro-signs. It appears like signs in general have a semi-fractal structure which makes it possible to subdivide most signs into signal paths at a lower level, or to form compounded signs at higher levels.
One may say that the Representamens and Interpretants of the novel signs during establishment were related to the Object (i.e., the unrelated stress condition where they were accidentally selected) by a causal relation due to their co-localization. Thereby the signs can be characterized as Dicisign in relation to the selective stress condition. In subsequent instances of the selective stress condition the bacterium could have a fitness advantage in relation to its relatives that do not have the specific interpretation competences related to the novel sign.
We seem to lack a void Zeroness category to complement the Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness categories, in order to characterize two phenomena that do not share any characteristics. Such a Zeroness relation was of course not of interest to Peirce in his search for a logical system. In lack of a better definition, such a faulty biological sign may for the time being be defined as an < Iconic Dicisign>
Selection of useful signs during establishment requires that sign interpretation and its cognate response have consequences for the individual. The fitness of all signs needs to be tested in order for useful sign to be selected and bad signs to be discarded. In the absence of selection, which could be the cause of some defects, the semiotic scaffold will remain chaotic and be of less use for navigation. A person with a dysfunctional semiotic scaffold might continually interpret Icons that have no actual causal relation between Representamen and Object, as if they had significant relations to underlying causes. Thus, the exaggerated use of < Iconic Dicisigns > or the inability to distinguish between these and Iconic Rhematic signs could be a characteristic of human semiotic pathology.
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Kilstrup, M. The Forbidden Signs. Biosemiotics 9, 467–483 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-016-9277-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12304-016-9277-0