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A Compulsive Influence

Ekman, Paul and Wallace V. Friesen 1969. The Repertoire of Nonverbal Behavior: Categories, Origins, Usage, and Coding. Semiotica 1(1): 49-98. DOI: 10.1515/semi.1969.1.1.49

In studies designed to determine what kinds of information could be derived from observing facial or body behavior we found that inferences about emotions, attitudes, interpersonal roles, and severity of pathology can be made by observers who have had no specialized training [...] Such inferences are usually accurate, in that they coincide with independent assessments of the person's total behavior, life circumstances, etc. (Ekman & Friesen 1969: 50)

The aspects of nonverbal behaviour that are most easily (and accurately) interpreted by lay observers.

Information derived from observing the body differs for acts (movements of the hands and arms, legs and feet, shoulders, or total posture) and still positions. Body acts were found to provide information both about intensity and about the nature of the emotion. Still positions of the body typically provide information about intensity of emotion, but sometimes also about what we call the gross affective state, whether [|] the person felt pleasant or unpleasant. (Ekman & Friesen 1969: 50-51)

This is what is most readily interpreted in paintings, for example (see. Oakley 2007 on the paintings of More and Cromwell, one pleasant and other unpleasan).

Our initiation of two cross-cultural studies required the formulation of a theory of both the origin and coding of nonverbal behavior. The first of these studies involved examination of the encoding, or display, and the decoding, or recognition, of facial displays of emotion in different cultural settings. (Ekman & Friesen 1969: 52)

Curiously informative equivalents - display and recognition are somewhat specific to nonverbal communication but to a lesser degree, or metaphorically, general to all communication.

External condition refers to any of the environmental circumstances which customarily coincide with, inhibit or occasion an act, or qualify its meaning. Setting is one such external condition; for example, the act could be customary in home, office, interviews, conversations, dyadic or group interactions, etc. The act might be more frequent in one role than another: e.g., within settings, husband or father in the home, supervisor or supervisee for an employee located in the middle of a business hierarchy; across settings, in the roles of listener, authority, etc. The emotional tone of the interaction might also be related to the occurrence of an act; e.g., angry, formal, warm, stressful moments, or more enduring characteristics of the particular relationship between interactants. (Ekman & Friesen 1969: 53)

The context of situation in more specific terws. Note that "atmoshere" is essenially the emotional tone of the interaction.

The encoded meaning is idiosyncratic if the meaning is peculiar to one person, and shared if the meaning is common to a set of persons. An act has idiosyncratic decoded meaning if it consistently conveys a particular item of information to a single receiver, but not to others. A parent to his child, a wife to her husband, a psychoanalyst to his patient might be such special privileged receivers who have learned the private decoding of specific acts of another person; but that decoding is not known by other observers who have not shared such intimate contact with the sender. (Ekman & Friesen 1969: 54)

The listed situations are the same as La Barre's illustrations of various forms of phatic (emotional/nonvermal) communication, particularly the "private connotation" types.

We must admit that there may be actions which are meaningless - random activity or noise, movements which have no regularities in either their encoding or decoding, not even for a single person. (Ekman & Friesen 1969: 55)

By this definition of meaninglessness, PC in Malitowski's description is by no means meaningless, as it is qualified with repetitiousness.

The last of the three aspects of nonverbal behavior which must be examined is the principle of correspondence between the act and its meaning. The code which describes how meaning is contained in a nonverbal act, that is, the rule which characterizes the relationship between the act itself and that which it signifies, may be extrinsic or intrinsic. An extrinsic code is one in which the act signifies or stands for something else, and the coding may be arbitrary or iconic. An intrinsic code is in a sense no code in that the act does not stand for but is its significant; the meaning of the act is instrinsic to the action itself. We will characterize these as three coding principles: arbitrary (extrinsic codes, iconic (extrinsic) codes, and intrinsic codes. (Ekman & Friesen 1969: 60)

As it turns out, this matches the Peircan categories of icon, index, and symbol in the following order: iconic codes, intrinsic codes, and arbitrary codes. Intrinsic meaning, thus, is energetic (accomplishing an act). Instead of Peirce directly they base this on Morris (clarified in footnote).

Pointing. A pointing relationship is one in which some part of the body, usually the fingers or hand, points to some person, to some part of the body, to an object or place. Or, the referent may be a more abstract attitude, attribute, affect, direction, or location. Pointing is always intrinsically coded; the act means 'to show something'; the something is the target or referent of the point and, of course, can vary. (Ekman & Friesen 1969: 62)

Here the intrinsic/indexical connection comes to the fore most obviously, but also presents a hurdle: the Something pointed out is extrinsic.

Emblems, of course, also occur during verbal exchange. We are not certain why they are used at one point in a conversation and not another; might it be that emblems are used around the more ritualized aspects of conversation, such as greetings and departures, or changes in status or topic; or might it be that emblems occur when matters get heated; or might it be that emblems are used to derogate the impact of what is said verbally? (Ekman & Friesen 1969: 64)

Emblems, thus, are more prone to appear in phatic communion, as means of greeting or approach. Could do with examples.

We are not satisfied with this account (it is particularly weak in explaining the facial affect display of happiness; but Darwin also had trouble with providing a functionally based evolutionary explanation of this display and had to invent his principle of antithesis). (Ekman & Friesen 1969: 73)

Did Darwin invent it? From what I've seen, it might belong to an older tradition of "the association of ideas" (antithesis would complement similarity, that is, oppose it).

The next category of nonverbal behavior is is what we are calling regulators. These are acts which maintain and regulate the back-and-forth nature of speaking and listening between two or more interactants. They tell the speaker to continue, repeat, elaborate, hurry up, become more interesting, less salacious, give the other a chance to talk, etc. They can tell the listener to pay special attention, to wait just a minute more, to talk, etc. Regulators, like illustrators, are related to the conversation, but while the illustrators are specifically interlaced with the moment-to-moment fluctuations in speech, the regulators are instead related to the conversational flow, the pacing of the exchange. The most common regulator is the head nod, the equivalent of the verb mm-hmm; other regulators include eye contacts, slight movements forward, small postural shifts, eyebrow raises, and a whole host of other small nonverbal acts. (Ekman & Friesen 1969: 82)

Regulators, thus, perform Jakobson's phatic function. A more thorough comparison is in order.

People are likely to attribute regulator differences to rudeness or unmannerliness, rather than to a regulator system different from their own. We are not at all certain about the coding principles involved in regulators; some are obviously intrinsically coded, like shifts in posture to bring about greater or lesser attention, or more or less distance. But we suspect that there are many iconic and arbitrarily coded regulators. (Ekman & Friesen 1969: 83)

A perplexing issue. If I recall correctly, E & F later forsake this category, perhaps exactly because they could not elucidate the coding principles involved. The section ends with: "We are not conducting any researct on regulators."

Scholte, Bob 1969. Lévi-Strauss' Penelopean Effort: The Analysis of Myths. Semiotica 1(1): 99-124. DOI: 10.1515/semi.1969.1.1.99

Perhaps most importantly, structural linguistics - especially phonology - serves as the continued inspiration of Lévi-Strauss' method (cf., Pouillon 1966, Sebag 19g64, or Simonis 1968 for detailed statements). Even the intricate analogy of myth to music; and their respective relations to nature and culture probably are derived from a remark made by Jakobson in the context of phonological studies (Jakobson 1962: 475). (Scholte 1969: 101)

How deep was Jakobson's brief impact on him?

Some of these commentators, including those who have proposed a 'hermeneutic' alternative to myth analysis, feel that Lévi-Strauss has failed to heed his own dictum that "in mythology, as in linguistics, formal analysis immediately raises the question of meaning" (1956: 241). They accuse structuralism of a bias in favor of syntactic rules at the expense of semantic content, the latter being apparently the sole domain of the meaningful. Others are less cornered with the formalism than they are with the contents to which a structural analysis is applied. Thus, the structural relations Lévi-Strauss seems to discover are often so abstract that any elements can be invoked to sustain the alleged reality of a given theme or structure (e.g., Richard 1967: 128). (Scholte 1969: 116)

This, I think, is an issue with Jakobson as well. Are the six functions semantic and pertain to meaning or are they types of sound features? Apparently they are both, the firsn and last three separately.

Danesi, Marcel 1998. The "dimensionality principle" and semiotic analysis. Sign Systems Studies 26: 42-60.

One of the primary objectives of semiotics is to understand semiosis and the knowledge-making activity it allows all human beings to carry out. This activity is known as representation. It is characterized by the deliberate use of signs to probe, classify, and hence know the world. Semiosis is the neurobiological capacity itself that underlies the production and comprehension of signs, from simple physiological signals to those which reveal a highly complex symbolism (e.g. Sebeok 1994). The activity of using signs to capture, portray, simulate, or relay impressions, sensations, perceptions, or ideas that are deemed to be knowable and memorable is a truly remarkable trait of the human species. (Danesi 1998: 43)

Finally a concise summary of representation. For my purposes, these are the exact operations phatic communion is supposed to not achieve.

At that point in the child's development, the object starts to assume a new semiosic form of existence; it has, in effect, been transferred to the physical strategy itself used by the child to imitate its sound features or indicate its presence. This strategy produces the most basic type of sign which, as Charles Morris (1938, 1946) suggested, allows the child from that point on to replace the sign for the object. As is well known, this replacement pattern is known psychologically as displacement. This is the abilty [sic] of the human mind to conjure up the things to which signs refer even though they are not physically present for the senses to cognize or recognize. (Danesi 1998: 43)

Another valuable term for phatic purposes: besides objects in the immediate external environment, small talk also concerns things that are displaced in time or space but preferably known in some way to all participants.

The concept of dimensionality is intended to permit an investigation in Peircean terms of this very interconnection among the body, which is a firstness dimension anchored in the realm of sensory and emotional experience, the mind, which is a secondness dimension anchored in displacement and reflective consciousness, and culture, which is a thirdness dimension anchored in the representational systems that the child will acquired in his/her social ambiance. (Danesi 1998: 44)

Dubious. Is there any basis in Peircean semiotics for such parallels? I'm perturbed mainly because I associate the body, specifically its movements and actions, with secondness, and mind with thirdness.

His [Peirce's] qualisign-sinsign-legisign trichotomy constitutes a space that encompasses the representamen itself, and can thus be called referential:
  • A qualisign is a representamen that draws attention to some quality of its referent.
  • A sinsign is a representamen that draws attention to, or singles out, a particular object in time-space.
  • A legisign is a representamen that designates something by convention.
(Danesi 1998: 49)

I knew of these categories but did not realize that they could be formulated this way. A qualisign is then just an adjective? I have a different image of these categories in my mind. Recording it neverteless, just to have it in stock when I receive better reports from the Transactions.

Notational dimensionality constitutes a space in which the various dimensionalities of the sign (designational, referential, etc.) are inferrable as well relative to three notational axes: the denotative, the connotative, and the annotative. This is a collocational dimensionality: i.e. it is the sign's collocation relative to the axes that determines its notation: if it is closer to the firstness axis it is primarily denotative (intended meaning); if it is closer to the secondness axis it is primarily connotative (extended meaning); and if it is closer to the thirdness axis it is primarily annotative (personal meaning or interpretation). It is, of course, purely denotative, connotative, or annotative if it falls on one specific axis. (Danesi 1998: 52)

Very odd triad this one. Denotation and connotation were coined by Mill for names. While names can indeed have personal meanings, aren't these subsumed under connotation? What does "extended meaning" mean? To annotate means to add notes to a text or diagram, giving explanation or comment. Is this not "extending"?

Lastly, operational dimensionality constitutes a space in which the various dimensionalities of the sign operate relative to three axes: the paradigmatic, the syntagmatic, and the analogic. This is a coactive dimensionality: i.e. it entails a coaction among the firstness paradigmatic axis (a selection operation), the secondness syntagmatic axis (a combination operation), and the thirdness analogic axis (a comparison operation). (Danesi 1998: 53)

Likewise, selection (the paradigmatic axis) already presumes comparison betweet similar options. It's as if Danesi is adding random elements to convert older dyadic distinctions into triadic ones without carefully thinking it through or really considering what the original dyads were about.

Sonesson, Göran 1998. The concept of text in cultural semiotics. Sign Systems Studies 26: 83-114.

Torop (1993) argues what [sic] no single doctrine is common to the members of the Tartu school. However, it seems to me that a certain number of articles written, mostly by Lotman and Uspenskij in collaboration, sometimes by Lotman alone, and in a few cases involving other scholars, form a fairly coherent doctrine about the nature of culture. This is that it [sic] understood by the term "Tartu school" in the present article. (Sonesson 1998: 84)

This is correct. Tartu semioticians read a lot of Lotman. That's almost all that first year undergraduates in semiotics read.

Every use of the term "text" outside of verbal language would seem to be sjbuect to the perils of what I have elsewhere called ontological and epistemological panlinguisticism: i.e. of either presuming that all meaning is built on the model of language, or that it is only accessible for use through the mediation of language (cf. Sonesson 1994c). (Sonesson 1998: 87)

Better, that is, more accurate, than "textual essentialism" pure and simple. I've contended with this problem (i.e. behavioural text) in nonverbal communication (in Lotman's first monograph on poetic structure the term nonverbal text makes an appearance but remains cryptic).

When discussing the fragment as opposed to the text, however, it is instead the text which is supposed to have closure, this time of a more local, internal kind, absent from the fragments. Even if the fragments do not form a text, each one of them individually must possess this [|] kind of closure. Indeed, many collections of fragments have become texts, in the sense of the second hierarchy of textuality. (Sonesson 1998: 99-100)

Under what conditions could a blog made up of fragments become a text? How to achieve "closure" in a hypertext?

The closest we come to this notion in the model of the Tartu school would seem to be the idea of "the cultural text", which is the sum total of all texts in a culture. This text is heterogeneous, whenever its parts are ascribed to the language system, the picture system, the behaviour system, and so forth. (Sonesson 1998: 101)

Again in opposition to my own understanding, according to which a cultural text is any text that carries cultural value, i.e. is recognized as a significant document.

The cognitive psychologist David Olsson (1991) defines text as that which is the subject of comments, that which is discussed, i.e. that which is a quote or is considered worth quoting. In other words, a text is something which gives rise to a meta-text. Originally, he had supposed these properties to apply only to that which is called a text in ordinary language, i.e. instances of written language. However, when anthropologists demonstrated to him that many oral pronouncements are treated in the same way in other cultures, he chose to generalise the notion of text to that which is quoted and which invites commentary. In fact, he could also have generalised from the dictionary meanings of Biblical, or otherwise Classical, quotations. (Sonesson 1998: 105)

Therein lies cultural value. Cf. one of Lotman's characteristic metaphors, "an avalanche of text", meaning that a text should beget further texts.

We are indebted to the Tartu school for having made visible all these different meanings of the notion of text. Of course, the different meanings really only become visible on a second or third reading, but they are clearly there, in the context of enunciation of the label "text". It may be argued that it would have been better to have different terms for such divergent concepts as those which we have encountered here: but we have to accept these new concepts as they were born, sharing a single name. (Sonesson 1998: 107)

Professor Randviir has brought this polemic up in a lecture and said something to the effect of what Jakobsot wrote three quarters of a century ago: "But I don't object - I still follow my late teacher A. M. Peškovskij who said: "Let's not quibble about terminology; if you have a weakness for new terms, use them. You may even call it 'Ivan Ivanovich', as long as we all know what you mean." (1953d: 557)

Savan, David 1965. Decision and Knowledge in Peirce. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 1(2): 35-51.

Traditionally, a logical term is said to have extension (or breadth) and intension (or depth). But the tradition shows no agreement as to how the breadth and depth of a term are to be understood. In order to clarify the distinction, Peirce introduces the notion of a supposed state of information. Information concerning a given term is the logical sum of the synthetic propositions in which the term is either subject or predicate (2.418). The information provides a rule or principle which connects breadth with depth. As the supposed state of information varies, the breadth or depth of the terms among which it mediates must vary. (Savan 1965: 36)

From Jakobson I've learned that depth is denoted and breadth is connoted, but that's not much. A bit, but not much, more helpful: "Relevant literature on information was thus reviewed in a way that ensured appropriate breadth in the coverage of the broad range of existing conceptions of information, while also ensuring depth in covering particular conceptions of information that are of interest to IS [information sciences]." (Boell 2016: 3)"

What are the conditions of the origin and growth of inquiry? Not surprisingly, Peirce finds that they are three. Inquiry is, after all, the asking of questions (7.313). The questioner hopes for an answer. But the questioner also supposes that something previously unquestioned and undoubted has now become questionable. The first condition for inquiry is a precritical and unexamined world, environment, or neighborhood. Second, some hard fact enters this innocent and artless world, raises a real doubt concerning some determinate part of it, and sets investigation in motion. Third, the movement of investigation is termed by a critically evaluated and permanently affirmed belief. (Savan 1965: 37)

Very productive, this. In the case of "phatic theory", there is an unexamined world of popular usage, a real doubt about its origin and conditions of conception, and - on my part - a critical evaluation that affirms an alternative interpretation. That is, these distinctions carry over into metatheoretical discourse quite easily.

Is Peirce justified in speaking of precritical or artificial beliefs? Belief, he says, is mostly unconscious and perfectly self-satisfied (5.417). On the other hand, he also says that "every belief is belief in a proposition" (5.542), and hence deliberate and critical. What Peirce intends is not contradictory. Precritical habits can be called beliefs only by analogical extension. (Savan 1965: 39)

Contrast this with E. R. Clay's definition of belief as "either a knowledge or a strong opinion", which entails a critical component.

It is not always recognized just how many different kinds of indubitables Peirce distinguished. He nowhere provides an exhaustive list, and it may be useful to collect such a list. We may distinguish three classes of indubitables: (a) those which can not conceivably be doubted, (b) those which are too vague to be doubted, and (c) those which are indubitable only because there is no positive ground which could stimulate a doubt. (Savan 1965: 40)

Another addition to a metatheoretical toolbox. In the case of "phatic theory" (still insisting upon quotation marks), Malinowski's definition can be viewed as indubitable because (a) it is an original "invention", (b), it is too vague to be criticized systematically, or (c) there is no system (no theoretical ground) from which to beget criticism.

(b1) Instincts, "that is [...] certain natural beliefs that are true," (5.603) are indubitable because they are excessively vague. There are two broad types of instincts. Some are connected with nutrition, and from these are derived vague and indubitable beliefs concerning the physical world. Others are connected with reproduction, and from them are derived vague and indubitable beliefs concerning people, and our behavior toward them. [↩] (b2) Perhaps connected with the instincts of reproduction are the moral sentiments and instincts which determine our actions in matters of vital importance. In moments of crisis, when decisive action is vitally important, we must trust to moral instincts and moral sentiment rather than to analytical reason (1.655). At such times, he who doubts and hesitates is lost. (Savan 1965: 41)

Exceedingly important, as Peirce belongs to the same generation as Herbert Spencer. Instincts and sentiments, thus, form a bridge from Malinowski to Spencer and, further, to Peirce. Note that nutrition here has to do with "the communion of food" and the pseudo-social nature of some social unions; and moral sentiments are listed by both Spencer and Malinowski (e.g. passion for power and wealth, etc.).

Something is absolutely determinate if every possible predicate or its negative is true of it, but not both (5.299). Peirce wishes to show that no cognition, not even perception (5.306), is fully determined. In later writings, he distinguishes generality and vagueness as two varieties of indeterminacy. (Savan 1965: 42)

Again the two properties that can (but shouldn't) make "phatic theory" indubitable: that it is too general to be argued against (sure all humans enage in small talk, why not), or too vague to be properly understood ("instincts" and "sentiments" are no longer acceptable terms in scientific discourse, making it nearly impossible for modern novices to establish a firm base from which to engage in criticism of these aspects).

"There can be no sense in reasoning in an isolated case, at all" (2.652). It is just in such situations, he writes, that anxiety and vague dread arise (5.292, 5.377). (Savan 1965: 48)

In other words, a token does not lend itself to argument.

Goudge, Thomas A. 1965. Peirce's Index. Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society 1(2): 52-70.

The world of fact contains no triads, although it may be "governed by" them (1.478). Two other sets of terms cut across the icon-index-symbol classification, viz., rheme, dicisign, argument (signs considered in relation to their interpretants); and qualisign, sinsign, legisign (signs considered in abstraction from both interpretants and objects). (Goudge 1965: 52)

Exactly why Danesi's interpretation of these categories seemed "off": they're formulated as a relationship between a subject's attention and the relation to the referent (object).

The examples Peirce gives of indices show what a mixed bag they are. Thus he says that each of the following is an index: a weathercock, a sundial, a clock, the Pole Star, a plumb bob, a low barometer, an old-fashioned hygrometer, a spirit level, a yardstick, a photograph, a piece of mould with a bullet hole, a pointing finger, the rolling gait of a man (an index of a sailor), the combination of bow legs, corduroys, gaiters and a jacket (an index of a jockey), a rap on the door, a thunderclap, the shout 'Hi!', the looks and tones of a speaker, the circumstances of an utterance, demonstrative pronouns ('This,' 'That,' 'These'), possessive pronouns ('His,' 'Hers,' 'Theirs'), relative pronouns ('who,' 'which,' 'that'), personal pronouns ('He,' 'She'), selective pronouns ('each,' 'every,' 'any,' 'some,' 'a certain'), the subject terms of propositions, proper names (at least when first used), the letters A, B, C in a mathematical formula or a geometrical diagram, sets of directions or instructions to a reader or hearer. (Goudge 1965: 53)

I am very pleased to see that the commonsense understanding that Peirces' indexes have to do with nonverbal behaviour holds true. I shall have to look up the highlighted examples in the future and revisit Shusterman's "Somaesthetics and C. S. Peirce (2009).

An index exerts a compulsive influence on its interpreter, forcing him to attend to the indicated object. (Goudge 1965: 53)

In Clay's terminology, an index exerts quasi-attention (since, according to him, true attention must be voluntary; see also Peirce's definition of intention in Baldwin's dictionary).

As in other discussions, Peirce employs a bewildering variety of expressions to make his point. Thus he says that an index awakens and directs attention to an object, draws attention to that object, acts dynamically upon the hearer's attention, and forces the attention upon its object (3.434; 2.256; 2.259; 2.336; 2.357). He also says that the index acts upon the hearer's nervous system, and exercises a real physiological force over the attention (2.287; 3.419; 8.41). Or again, he says that the index forces the eyes to turn to the object, compels the hearer to look about him, compels the hearer to have an experience, and bring the hearer to share the experience of the speaker (2.305; 3.419; 2.336; 4.56). And, finally, he says that the index forcibly intrudes itself upon the mind quite regardless of its being interpreted as a sign; it puts the hearer's or reader's mind into real active connection with what is being talked about (4.447; 3.419; 4.56). (Goudge 1965: 56)

More on the quasi-attention of indexes.

Peirce took the view that quantifiers are indexical signs because of his commitment to the thesis that the subject of every proposition functions as an index. This thesis is one part of his theory of indentification according to which (a) the only identifying sign is the index; (b) it effects identification by having an existential connection with its object; (c) the object is an individual exemplification of Secondness; and (d) a relation to such an object is a necessary condition of any proposition having a meaning. "Thus every kind of proposition is either meaningless or has a real Secondness as its object. This is a fact that every reader of philosophy should constantly bear in mind, translating every abstractly expressed proposition into its precise meaning in reference to an individual experience" (2.315). Such a translation is possible only if the proposition embodies an indexical sign or signs. (Goudge 1965: 65)

By this token, though, phatic communion is not meaningless because "comments on weather, affirmations of some supremely obvious state of things" (PC 2.2) do have an individual experience as their object.

The fifth feature of an index is that it is a non-assertive sign. It says nothing but only shows what it refers to; or, at most, "it only says 'There!' It takes hold of our eyes, as it were, and forcibly directs them to a particular object, and there it stops" (3.361). This feature is most evident in the case of non-verbal signs like a pointing finger or a weathercock, i.e., in the case of genuine or "pure" indices. (Goudge 1965: 65)

A relevant insight for nonverbal communication. In Ekman and Friesen's typology (above), indexes are primarily informative/informational.

Matsuno, Koichiro 2008. Molecular Semiotics toward the Emergence of Life. Biosemiotics 1(1): 131-144. DOI: 10.1007/s12304-008-9002-8

One decisive clue for the present issue must be the nature of cohesive properties unique to the living material world. Even a unicellular organism can maintain an extremely complex organization inside the cell. The cohesive interaction specific to the maintenance of the cellular organization is certainly more than those ascribed to mere electrostatic interactions, the latter of which in fact have been a major factor for substantiating various organizations met in the non-living material world. The question at this point will be whether there could have been a cohesive factor being affirmative to the emergence and organization of life while it could certainly be grounded upon material and physical basis. (Matsuno 2008: 132)

Much like "insistency", "cohesiveness" could play a role in phatic theorising, as cohesion refers to the strength of a bond, particularly an a greater level of abstraction than two individuals, e.g. group cohesion. Dictionary defines it as "the action or fact of forming a united whole".

At the same time, DNA molecules retrievable from dinosaurs frozen in stones found on the surface of the Earth are also molecular imprints of the organisms going into extinction by now, while living creatures inhabiting there constantly feed upon material resources made out of atoms or atomic imprints. Moreover, if a DNA molecule retrieved from a recent fossil is put in an appropriate ribosome, it can restart the protein synthesis already programmed on the DNA sequence. This observation then raises a serious question of how one could distinguish molecular imprints between living and non-living. (Matsuno 2008: 133)

This question mirrors that of whether words stored in a book in an inaccessible library storage space is "information". Signs, likewise, should have "users", so are "signs" that no-one uses even signs?

Bruni, Luis Emilio 2008. Hierarchical Categorical Perception in Sensing and Cognitive Processes. Biosemiotics 1(1): 113-130. DOI: 10.1007/s12304-008-9001-9

Different from (and complementary to) a "formal hierarchy", in a heterarchy there can be relations of complementarity and subordination between categories of different logical levels, giving place to a more network-like nature of emerging processes than a strict relation of vertical subordination, i.e. the horizontal relations are as important. Harries-Jones (1995) makes explicit the heterarchical nature of Bateson's conception of "hierarchical context", which is fundamental for the present approach. (Bruni 2008: 114)

Back when I protested against Jakobson's hierarchy of linguistic functions, I could have used this concept.

The term Categorical Perception was coined in speech perception in the 1950s by Alvin M. Liberman and his colleagues in their seminal paper "The discrimination of speech sounds within and across phoneme boundaries" (Liberman et al. 1957). By categorical perception they "designated the process by which a discrete system of phonemes can emerge from a continuous mass of sounds" (Emmeche 1994). They claimed that a perceived quality (the sound of a phoneme) can be discriminated abruptly (i.e. categorically) from one category to another at a certain point (the category boundary) along a continuum. Later, the notion was "generalised to a broader class of semiotic phenomena in order to make possible a topological or physical dynamic foundation of the description of basic classificatory phenomena" (Emmeche 1994). (Bruni 2008: 116)

Ah, so categorical perception amounts to what Jakobson, after Plato, called mere otherness, i.e. the differentiation of phonemes according to distinctive features, rather than the sense-discrimination of meaning.

A machine can produce a pair of shoes which are symmetrically the same size for both your feet, left and right. However most of us do not have 100% symmetrically perfect feet of the same size and shape. This is why in many cases one shoe may be more comfortable than the other. Since our perceptions are embodied in such a varied biological substrate the "qualia" issue arises. At the outset "qualia" is the result of our biological "imperfection" or idiosyncrasy. Beyond "tabula rasa", "qualia" is further individualized given the interrelation, feedbacks, and upward and downward-causation of sensing, perception and cognition. However, if we place ourselves out of extreme idealisms or phenomenalisms, for practical reasons, that is, acknowledging a physical world that can be sensed by a biological "wetware", and independent of which position we assume for our realism (direct or indirect), we can safely say that there is a mapping process of the pleroma (the physical world) (Bateson 1979), by "scanning" the multifarious differences that are available to us through the sum total of all receptors that conform our perceptual apparatus. (Bruni 2008: 118)

"Wetware" is defined as "human brain cells or thought processes regarded as analogous to, or in contrast with, computer systems", or "computer technology in which the brain is linked to artificial systems, or used as a model for artificial systems based on biochemical processes", e.g. Kurzweil's projection into 2030s. Neat term. Bateson's "pleroma" on the other hand is a theological (gnostic) concept of dubious value.

How can the bacterium sense that it is inside a light organ and therefore it is time to activate the genes that produce luciferase? The bacterium is constantly producing a signal-molecule in low concentrations. When the cell density in the colony increases (as a result of being [|] enclosed in a light organ) so increases the concentration of signal-molecules up to a threshold level that is categorically sensed by the whole colony, triggering the collective production of luciferase. We see here an instance of digital-analogical consensus at the lower levels of the semiotic network in the bacteria-squid-predator system. Each individual signal molecule is an analogue (a shape, which was digitally encoded in DNA). Its specific attachment to a single regulator (another analogue) functions as a digital message, by being or not being there. But The real message to the emergent interpretant is the concentration of signals which is received by the system as an analogue message that triggers the luciferase operon collectively in the colony. (Bruni 2008: 126-127)

Bruni himself wrote about this in 2002: "Does "quorum sensing" imply a new type of biological information?" (Sign Systems Studies 30(1): 221-243).

Violi, Patrizia 2007. Semiosis without Consciousness? An ontogenetic perspective. Cognitive Semiotics 1: 65-86. DOI: 10.1515/cogsem.2007.1.fall2007.65

The relationship between consciousness and semiosis has been a constant object of inquiry for semiotics, underlying, often implicitly, the very definition [|] of what a sign is. Indeed, the basic distinction between intentional and non-intentional signs that has characterised the whole history of the discipline since its foundations, presupposes a reference to the idea of consciousness as intentional agency, intentionally becoming, thus, a crucial dimension in the definition of sign typologies. (Violi 2007: 65-66)

Intention being an act of attention, it does necessitate a conscious agent attending to something as a choice. Though Peirce's musings about the forcible nature of indexicality may be a boon to this simplistic equation.

According to Eco, natural or unintentional signs, such as medical symptoms, only become signs when they initiate inferential activity or, in other words, at the moment in which they become interpreted as such by a human agent. Consciousness is thus required in order to have semiosis, so to speak, only at the tail end of the semiotic chain - i.e. on the part of the interpreter. It is precisely at this moment that something potentially sensible (such as a trace) actually becomes a sign, on the basis of a "conscious" process of interpretation. Signs in themselves may be unintentionally - or unconsciously - produced, but the processes through which we attribute meaning to them - making them into real signs - are not. (Violi 2007: 68)

Accordingly, words in a book no-one reads are not signs, even though they are intentionally produced for (further, "tail-end") interpretation.

In 1988, Eco further elaborates his 1979 position, but does not radically modify it. He maintains the distinction between a stimulus-response process, which is a dyadic one and implies a casual [sic] deterministic sequence, and a triadic model where it is possible to envision a third element C, "call it the code, or the process of interpretation implemented through the recourse to the code" (Eco 1988: 9) interspersed between the two dyadic elements A and B. Semiosis always presupposes the presence of a C-space, since it is always a triadic process, where C-space is a time interval, a space of possibility that permits some degree of freedom. (Violi 2007: 70)

It can be safely assumed that the interpretant accords to the space of codification, of creating equivalences between various signs (in Jakobson's version, including intersemiotic, an intra- and interlingual translation). The interpretant-code association was also made by Lotman (1976). The time-interval is a neat addition because it jibes with Kull's distinction between physical and semiotic realities on the basis of the latter enabling a choice, and making choices (the process of evaluation in another nomenclature) takes some time.

The external mind is what regulates the semiotic field, an intersubjective space that is constructed by both of the interacting actors, the mother and child, together with their wider physical and socio-cultural environment. The external mind becomes, so to speak, the sedimented joint memory of ongoing experiences of intersubjective interaction and semiosis, rather than merely being an internal propriety of each individual mind: a distributed property of the wider semiotic field, in a way very similar to what we nowadays see referred to as "distributed cognition". (Violi 2007: 82)

This external distributed mind could be another point of comparison and contention with Malinowski's obtuse protestations against collective consciousness (for no-one, to my knowledge, protests against "collective semiosis" - even Morris, as is shown in the beginning of this paper, held an element of social convention in his definition of sign-action).

Adamson, Tim 2007. Cognition and Conflation: Addressing a paradox in cognitive linguistics. Cognitive Semiotics 1: 87-101. DOI: 10.1515/cogsem.2007.1.fall2007.87

Both theories assert that we do not think directly about abstract meanings but instead think out abstract issues through concrete images and patterns - whether this thinking involves the repetition of perceptual patterns, as metaphor theory asserts, or the creative construction of new patterns, as blending theory claims. In either case, the very [|] act of meaning-making blurs distinctions, actively transgresses semantic domains, and leads us to identify the meaning of one thing with [...] something else. (Adamson 2007: 88-89)

Isn't identifying one thing by means of another the exact point of semiosis? That is, semiotics generally encourages this transgression and sees it as the very basis of semiotic mediation.

My use of the term "meaning" is phenomenological. That is, anything that can be brought to our awareness has meaning, although I view awareness as a matter of shared, public experience, not purely private introspection. Many habits and other factors act on experience at the subconscious level, but they have meaning insofar as they can be experienced and examined consciously, with reference to publicly shared norms. (Adamson 2007: 89)

With reference to Austin's notorious footnote, "when the cheese is in front of our noses, we see signs of cheese" (1970: 15), which he presented as an absurdity that stretches "signs" into meaninglessness.

What I mean by concrete is anything with a specific, identifiable character derived from its being - in principle - perceivable. Such meanings occur at two levels, broadly speaking: 1) Actual objects, events, or patterns we perceive, feel, encounter, etc., and 2) Imagined objects, events, actions, feelings, etc. On this view, the rock I hold in my hand has a concrete meaning, as does the dynamic pattern of my throwing it into the canyon and observing its path. Their meanings refer to their perceivable, sensible features, e.g. color, weight, distance, speed. (Adamson 2007: 90)

"Traditionally, the word concrete characterizes a material object, something that can be perceived by at least one of our senses." (Buyssens 1988: 191). Buyssens also puts forward a sensible analogue that abstract refers to a part and concrete to a whole. The description here likens it to "individual" in Peircean jargon.

By abstract I mean more general notions that are not bound to specific, concrete elements or images. Love, friendship, justice, understanding, piety, etc., are some of the classical ideas that philosophers have identified as essentially abstract. Put simply, whenever we are dealing with interpersonal, social, political, or intellectual issues, we are dealing with abstract domains. (Adamson 2007: 90)

Pretty standard definition. Ironically, not very concrete. These "interpersonal, social, political, or intellectual issues" are abstract, one could say, because they cannot be grasped readily as wholes - there are always addendums to be made to such issues.

But if this is the reason that we seek the human scale, we must admit that there is something necessarily meaningful and compelling about the humas scale itself, about patterns at the level of perception and action. Cognition seeks the human scale, we must admit, because meaning dwells there most easily, and because the realm of movement, perception, feeling, and action provides the most natural cognitive setting for meaning to be played out. There is thus an existential component to meaning that precedes and guides cognition towards the human scale. (Adamson 2007: 97)

The biosemiotician would here insist that the human scale is so attractive because it is a result our species-specific Umwelt.

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