0351 In terms of the S&T noumenal overlay, a beta-linked polysaccharide in the claws and jaws of the “holder” and “cleaver” biomolecules is like an emergent being.

0352 Now, natural selection enters the picture.  Bacteria with the innovation prosper.  Bacteria with improvements on the innovation prosper even more.

Plus, the wood-eating insect comes under natural selection as well.

0353 Phase two of diversification follows.

0354 At this point, I must remind myself that this scenario is hypothetical.

It is a fiction that is more than a confection (an elaborate frivolous construction), even though it contains a confection (a compounding of two things).

To some, this confection (sugary delicacy) may taste implausible.

But, it offers the curious flavor of an empedoclement.

0355 The sign-elements associated to the S&T noumenal overlay conveys the new message.

For the specifying sign, exposed cellulose in the wood-eating insect’s gut_2a (SV_s) stands for the emergent being of a conformationally-distorted beta-linked polysaccharide held in the jaws of a cleaving enzyme_2b (SO_s) in regards to bacterial self-governance_3b operating on potential courses of action_1b (SI_s).

For the exemplar sign, the emergent being of a beta-linked polysaccharide bound to “the claws and jaws” of new complex_2b (SV_e) stands for a seemingly endless source of glucose from ingested cellulose_2c (SO_e) in regards to what certain bacteria in the insect’s gut_3c are capable of doing_1c (SI_e).

0356 Each of the sign-vehicles and the sign-objects have observable and measurable facets that will eventually go into scientific models.  The scientific models will assist in accounting for each of the sign-interpretants.

Biosemiotic research may be conducted after phase one is complete.

Biosemiotic research can never tell whether phase one is proceeding.

This is the way of empedoclement.

0357 It seems that the wood-chewing insect, so empowered, would go berserk and start to eat every living plant.

Like ripples in still water, biosemiotic waves propagate.

If these wood-chewing insects go after a living plant, then all that plant needs to do is develop a toxin that poisons those little beta-linkage breaking bacteria.  Problem solved.

Okay, so these new insects are not invulnerable?

0358 Tell that to the exterminator.

The exterminator facing a wood-eating insect infiltration, knows that certain principles apply.  He assesses signs.  Is communication (section 10.3) an issue here?  I suppose that depends on who is doing the talking and who is receiving the message.

0359 Peirce’s definition of a sign as a triadic relation is crucial for biosemiotics.  So, are Peirce’s three categories.  Even before getting to a question of communication, there is a character to the S&T overlay that embodies the relational structure of specifying and exemplar sign-relations.

Here is a picture.

0360 These sign-elements, in turn, represent locations in a three-level interscope.  An interscope is a category-based nested form composed of category-based nested forms.  Each nested form exhibits a normal context₃, actuality₂ and potential₁. Then, the nested forms compose the three levels of content_a, situation_b and perspective_c.

See A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form and A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.

0361 I will not show a picture of the three-level interscope.

Instead, here is how the elements of the three-level interscope correspond to elements in the S&T noumenal overlay.

0362 For the specifying sign-relation, a content-level actuality_2a (SV_s) stands for a situation-level actuality_2b (SO_s) in regards to a situation-level normal context_3b and potential_1b (SI_s).

For the exemplar sign-relation, the situation-level actuality_2b (SV_e) stands for a perspective-level actuality_2c (SO_e) in regards to a perspective-level normal context_3c and potential_1c (SI_e).

0363 In terms of communication, I can imagine that the SV_s is like a transmission sent and the SO_e is like the transmission received.

0364 According to Shannon’s information theory, which offers a mathematical model for “information” occurring in human-mediated electro-magnetic transmissions, there are five components to the whole process: (i) an information source, (ii) a transmitter, (iii) a channel, (iv) a receiver and (v) a destination that serves as an information sink.

0365 Can I draw associations to the S&T noumenal overlay?

I suppose so.

0366 The specifying sign-interpretant_3b,1b (SI_s) is like an information source (i) and the specifying sign-vehicle_2a (SV_s) associates to the transmission (ii) of something_2a that stands for information_2b (SO_s).  Maybe, I can say that the SV_s is like a transmitter (ii) and SO_s is like that transmission entering the proper channel (iii).

The SO_s is contiguous with SV_e, so a transmission in the proper channel_2b (iii) constitutes an exemplar sign-vehicle_2b(SV_e) that stands for a perspective-level actuality_2c (SO_e) (iv), according a perspective-level normal-context_3c and potential_1c (SI_e) (v).  So, the SO_e may be labeled as a receiver (iv) and the exemplar sign-interpretant_3c,1c (SI_e) associates to the information sink or destination (v).

0367 Here is a picture.

0368 Of course, my associations are both evocative and fallible.

Here are three implications (F, G, H).

0369 First (F), Shannon’s theory of communication regards biosemiotic sign-interpretants as sources (i) and receivers(iv).  These are precisely the elements in the S&T noumenal overlay that need to be explained.  Shannon’s theory places them in black boxes and treats them as givens.

What does that imply?

From the point of view of biosemiotics, I wonder, “What is Shannon’s theory actually modeling?”

0370 After all, if I go to the start of the chapter, the two crucial aspects involved in biological change, as characterized by the premoderns, correspond to sign-interpretants.

0371 Shannon’s theory of communication takes these two primordial aspects for granted, in order to concentrate on another question.

What is the channel’s capacity to carry information?

0372 What is so important about the channel_2b (iii)?

Hmmm. I see that the channel_2b corresponds to “information_2b” and to SO_s[and]SV_e.

What is that about?

Is [and] the same as [contiguity]?

Is this topic about to get fuzzy?

0370 Second (G), Shannon’s theory of communication, as depicted above, is consistent with a biosemiotic approach in regards to the sources of phenomena for communication: transmitter (SV_s) (ii), channel (SO_s [and] SV_e) (iii)  and receiver (SO_e) (iv).

Okay, so everything’s fine.

0371 Does that mean that Shannon’s theory of communication somehow is relevant to the hypothetical scenario where the... um… vehicle of a beta-linked polysaccharide_2a (SV_s) is “transmitted” then “received” as the object of glucose molecules ready to power a wood-eating insect’s metabolism (SO_e)?

In this case, does the term, “information_2b“, correspond to “the ability of a gut bacteria’s dual-modular claw and jaw apparatus to cleave the terminal glucose of a beta-linked polysaccharide”?

It makes me wonder about the meaning, the presence and the message underlying the word, “information_2b“.

There seems be a lot going in within the situation-level actuality_2b, which is where the SO_s transits into the SV_e.

0372 Third (H), Shannon’s theory of communication, expressed as an application of the S&T noumenal overlay,presents a simplification that drags the inquirer to that confounding channel_2b.

After all, the channel (iii) goes with phenomena.

In human electronic communication technology, the channel_2b can carry only so much information_2b.  Noise is the loss of information_2b.  Is “noise” information that can no longer be properly received?  Or is “noise” some lacking that makes information no longer salient?

Questions like these, as problematic as they are, seem well-cogitated compared to ones that arise when Shannon’s theory of communication is transferred from the dyadic S&T noumenal overlay to a three-level interscope containing the specifying and exemplar sign-relations.

0373 Recall the unexpected and twisted path from point 0270 to point 0300?

Now, maybe I should start getting used to that storyline.

0374 Why?

It’s the story of the evocation of thirdness by firstness.

0375 Initially, Sharov and Tonnessen’s noumenal overlay associates to the specifying sign relation.

Once the Deacon and Tabaczek interscope for emergence enters into the picture, the S&T noumenal overlayincorporates the exemplar sign relation.

0376 Initially, Sharov and Tonnessen’s noumenal overlay belongs to what is of the Positivist’s judgment.  It belongs to firstness.  Yet, it touches base with secondness, in so far as its own dyadic structure serves as a guide for discerning what should be regarded as phenomena and what is in need of being modeled.

This makes sense, in so far as biosemiotics is the study of the relational thing that all biological entities have in common.

0377 I mean really, how is a biologist going to examine a sample of the relational thing that all biological entities have in common?

Hey, who left a biosemiotic slide in the microscope?

Is it Shannon?

Let me take a look.

0378 Yeah, it’s Shannon’s alright.  It has information theory written all over it.

But now, the associations are even more evocative.

0379 The two tendencies that the premoderns identified, the force of life and the influence of circumstances, now associate to normal contexts and potentials.  The stuff of strife (situation-level) and love (perspective-level) associate to both thirdness and firstness.  These are the things that biosemiotics is supposed to account for.

0380 Shannon’s information theory fixates on the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality.

0381 The perspective-level actuality_2c of a receiver_2c virtually brings the situation-level actuality_2b of a channel_2b into relation with the potential of a content-level information transmitter_2a.

Yes, these actualities manifest phenomena that can be observed and measured.  Shannon’s information theory assists in modeling those observations and measurements.  But, do those models tell me about the situation- and perspective-level normal contexts and potentials?  Do they tell me about the specifying and exemplar sign-interpretants?

If they do not, then is Shannon’s information theory biosemiotic?

0382 Does Shannon’s information theory offer a metaphor for biosemiotics?

And, how weird and disturbing would that analogy be?

0383 Consider the hypothetical that exemplifies the author’s biphasic depiction of evolutionary growth.

Here is a picture.

0384 According to Shannon’s information theory, I should focus on the virtual nested form in the realm of actuality.

The perspective-level actuality_2c of free glucose to the insect’s body_2c virtually brings the situation-level actuality_2b of the functionality of the claw and jaw combination achieved by bacteria in the insect’s gut_2b into relation with the potential of the content-level actuality_2a of glucose bound within the cellulose that the insect has eaten_2a.

0385 My exterminator says that he recommends a new product.

Apparently, investigators at the Molecular Biology Department at the University of Slidell, in Louisiana, hatched a scheme for treating lumber with dilute concentrations of hydrofluoric acid.  They patented the process.

0386 Apparently, the fluoride replaces a hydroxy group on the beta-linked polysaccharides of wood, here and there.  The fluoride causes the claw part of the jaw and claw to not let go.  Apparently, one fluoride on one beta-linked polysaccharide can gum up the operations of a whole bacteria and the bacteria dies, which is no big deal, until the wood-eating insect’s gut digests the bacteria and frees that one fluoride-labeled beta-linked polysaccharide back into the gut, for another bacteria to pick up to digest.

In short, bacteria-killing fluoride-labeled beta-linked polysaccharides start to build up in the wood-eating insect’s gut and the insect gets less glucose, even as it continues to eat the treated wood.  This is no good.  So, the wood-eating insects move on.

Yes, the treated wood_2a transmits a message into a channel within the wood-eating insect’s gut_2b so the insect itself receives a signal to move on_2c.

0387 What a sales pitch.  The explanation offers a specific mechanism for deterring wood-eating insects.  Plus, it fits a budget.

The economy of the exterminator’s proposal, along with the promised robustness of treatment and flexibility in application, convinced my neighbor to use the processed wood for his new shed, which replaces his old, well-infested, one.

I suspect that my neighbor secretly hopes that the wood-eating insects simply move over to my lot.  It is as if my neighbor_2a transmits a message into a channel consisting of a trail of wood-eating insects to my untreated wood shed_2bthat signals to me that I better build a new shed with treated lumber_2c.

0012 Okay, the Positivist’s judgment uses the empirio-schematic judgment as a tool for generating models.  For this reason, what ought to be belongs to secondness.

At this point, the reader may see a method to the madness of the seventeenth century mechanical philosophers.  Truncated material and efficient causes permit the construction of mathematical and mechanical models, based on observations and measurements of phenomena.  Final and formal causes cannot be regarded as data, since they are metaphysical.  Metaphysical causalities cannot be regarded as physical.

Mathematical and mechanical formula represent the physical world as models (what ought to be, secondness).  Disciplinary language (relation, thirdness) couches these formula (what ought to be, secondness) in terminology that applies to observations and measurements of phenomena (what is, firstness).  Phenomena belong to firstness (the realm of possibility) because they have the potential to be observed and measured.

0013 In regards to what is, a dyadic relational structure belongs to the category of firstness.

What is the nature of this dyad, a noumenon [&] its phenomena?

0014 When an Aristotelian approaches a thing, the first abstraction sees the thing in terms of matter and form.  Typically, matter raises questions in regards to material and formal causalities.  Form raises questions in regards to efficient and final causalities.

Aristotle’s hylomorphe is a premier example of Peirce’s category of secondness.  Secondness consists of two contiguous real elements.  The contiguity, which is placed in brackets for proper notation, should signify the… um… how one real element accounts for the other real element.

Here is a picture of Aristotle’s hylomorphe and Peirce’s category of secondness.

0015 Yes, both these figures associate to Peirce’s category of secondness, the realm of actuality.

Now, according to the Positivist’s judgment, the noumenon (the thing itself) and its phenomena (the observable and measurable facets of the noumenon) belong to the category of firstness.

Here is a picture of a slogan that may be attributed to the German philosopher, Immanuel Kant (1724-1802 AD), even though he may never have actually said it.

0016 Isn’t that how philosophy operates?

A lifetime of dedicated thinking gets alchemically distilled into a slogan propounded by people who claim to be dedicated to philosophy, but are only gossips spreading unwarranted attributions.

0017 Well, maybe not “unwarranted”.

How so?

Kant’s slogan makes a crucial point.

No matter how many observations and measurements of phenomena that one makes, the resulting model does not fully objectify the thing itself.

0018 Kant’s slogan is anathema for any scientist who is convinced that science is the only reliable way to approach reality.

But, scientists are a hearty sort, even when wounded by technically appropriate statements that are anathema.  One hundred years after Kant (and I suspect, even during Kant’s lifetime), triumphalist scientists have a response-at-hand.  The noumenon is a philosophical construct.  Therefore, it may be regarded as the first approximation to a successful model, which can be objectified as its phenomena.  Since the model belongs to secondness in both the Positivist’s and empirio-schematic judgments, the model is more actual than the noumenon.  So, the model should replace the noumenon.

0019 If a model overlays the noumenon, then the apparent contradiction resolves.

Isn’t that cathartic?

0020 Well, it is good enough for scientists who are not much interested in philosophy.

How so?

To start, how can a mathematical or mechanical model be the source of the phenomena that is observed and measured in order to generate… um… itself, through the medium of a scientific disciplinary language?

0021 Okay, what about a college-level physics or chemistry or biology laboratory?

Have you ever noticed that some students (especially the one’s susceptible to philosophical inquiry) find each laboratory perplexing, as an instructor leads the class through a recipe that demonstrates that the principles behind the recipe are as real as well… any thing that you’d find in nature?

The laboratory recipe allows one to generate the phenomena that need to be observed and measured (please correctly fill out the experiment’s fact sheet) in order to validate that the model [can be objectified as] its phenomena.

And, the instructor never mentions Kant’s slogan, because the instructor has excluded philosophy so rigorously that things themselves can be replaced by scientific mathematical and mechanical models.

0022  From the point of view of a college instructor, the model (overlaying the noumenon) can be objectified as its phenomena.

The instructor does not realize that the phenomena have changed. They are not the observable and measurable facets of things that one encounters in nature.  They are recipes for generating observations and measurements in a laboratory.  A subtle change in the nature of the noumenon (it is now a model) changes the phenomena.  In this case, the phenomena become so routine that college sophomores can handle the equipment necessary to encounter the model overlaying the noumenon.

0023 In a weird sort of way, biosemiotics parallels laboratory science.  Biosemiotics seeks a recipe where a sign-relation can substitute for a noumenon.  Semiotics goes with sign-relations.  Agency goes with the operations of biological agents.

At the same time, the parallel fails.  Semiotic agency is not a successful empirio-schematic model, worthy enough to place over its noumenon.  Semiotic agency is a philosophical formulation, which contains all four of Aristotle’s causalities in such a way that metaphysical unities express distinctive phenomena.

In sum, semiotic agency, properly defined, may satisfy the positivist intellectual mandate that metaphysics is not allowed.  How?  Semiotic agency places metaphysical unities within the noumenon, which gives rise to phenomena.

0024 In sum, Sharov and Tonnessen’s challenge is to produce a vision of semiotic agency that is not a natural science model, but can serve as what the noumenon must be, in order to be objectified as biosemiotic phenomena.

0025 I now have set the stage for examining section 1.1, titled “Agency as a Subject of Science”.

If semiotic agency overlays the noumenon, then I can discern its phenomena.  Phenomena are observable and measurable facets that objectify their noumenal overlay.  Semiotic agency, for biosemiotics, parallels successful physical, chemical or biochemical models, for the laboratory sciences.

0026 Where to start the construction of semiotic agency as a noumenal overlay?

The authors refer to a 2009 paper by Kaveli Kull, who proposes the following what is for the Positivist’s judgment.

To me, the agent looks like a reasonable noumenon.  Plus, an agent cannot be fully objectified as its measurable and observable facets (phenomena).

0027 For the Kantian slogan, the agent (or agency) is the noumenon.  The noumenon cannot be objectified as its phenomena.  The noumenon is a semiotic agency.  Its phenomena follow the four criteria for agent behavior.

So, what if, through philosophical sleight of hand, I substitute a sign-relation as a noumenal overlay over agent as noumenon?

And, what if the four points listed as phenomena are embedded within that sign-relation?

Then, the noumenon changes from “agent” to “semiotic agency”.

0028 Semiotics concerns inquiry into sign-relations.  Agents participate in sign-relations.  So, the four phenomena identified by Kull may be specific to a sign-relation.  Plus, that sign-relation may be subsumed into a noumenon.

0029 The sign-relation has a triadic structure involving three elements: sign-vehicle, sign-object and sign-interpretant.  The formula for expressing a specifying sign-relation goes like this: A sign-vehicle (SV_s) stands for (or “specifies”) a sign-object (SO_s) in regards to a sign-interpretant (SI_s).

Since Kull’s criteria can be observed and measured and since they are integral to each agent, then these four phenomena must belong to a specifying sign-object (SO_s).  This SO_s situates a sign-vehicle (SV_s) that corresponds to a content-level actuality.

0030 Well, that is a good first step.

But what about the specifying sign-interpretant (SI_s)?

Perhaps I can assign two of Kull’s four phenomena to the SI_s, as in the following figure.

A content-level actuality (SV_s) specifies (stands for) a goal (SO_s) in regards to an agent’s self governance operating on possible courses of action (SI_s).

0031 Now, I already mentioned that the judgment (as a triadic relation) unfolds into a single category-based nested form.  A normal context₃ brings actuality₂ into relation with the possibility of ‘something’₁.  Thirdness brings secondness into relation with firstness.  (See A Primer on the Category-Based Nested Form, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.)

The specifying sign-relation is not so simple.  A SV_s stands for a SO_s in regards to a SI_s.  Both SV_s and SO_s belong to secondness, the realm of actuality.  But, they do so on different levels.  The SV_s is a content-level actuality.  The content level associates to firstness.  The SO_s is a situation-level actuality and therefore, virtually situates the SV_s. The situation level associates to secondness.

This leaves the SI_s as the normal context_3b that contextualizes the situation-level actuality_2b and the potential_1b that underlies the situation-level actuality_2b.  In other words, the SI_s is the situation-level normal context_3b operating on a situation-level potential_1b.

0032 Here is a picture of the specifying sign, within a two-level interscope.  (See A Primer on Sensible and Social Construction, by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues.  Two-level interscopes are typical for sensible construction.)

0033 Now, I can apply Kull’s criteria characterizing semiotic agency as a noumenal overlay.

0034 Kull’s criteria transform into the stuff of phenomena and models.

0035 The situation level may be rebranded as the agent level.

The content-level can be labeled the event or sign-vehicle level.

An event can serve as a sign-vehicle.  People routinely confound the sign-vehicle with the sign-relation.  This makes sense, in so far as a sign-vehicle stands for its sign-object in regards to a sign-interpretant.  Therefore, the sign-vehicle and the sign-relation are inseparable.  The event-level contains a real actuality_2a (SV_s) that initiates a sign-relation containing another real actuality_2b (SO_s).  The event is semiotic.

0036 Here is a picture.

Note how I move the sign-object (SO_s) to the object in contiguity with a goal since the object and the goal each have their own labels.  For biosemiotic processes, the object is like matter and the goal is like form.  The contiguity is reserved for later discussion.  At the moment, suffice to say that the agent actualizes an object (SO_s) [in contiguity with] a goal_2b.  The agent₃ actualizes agency₂.

Also, the agent as interpretant says, “The normal context of self-governance_3b operates on the possibility of ‘courses of action’_1b.”

0037 I ask, “Does this sign-containing two-level interscope of agency or agent_b(event_a) qualify as a noumenal overlay?”

In section 1.1, the authors wonder whether this agency_b(semiotic_a) can serve as a subject of science.  The answer is affirmative, under the condition that the above noumenon manifests observable and measurable facets.  The resulting data may then be used, under the guidance of a disciplinary language, to produce mathematical and mechanical models.  Or, if not explicitly mathematical or mechanical, then models, nonetheless.

Then, in principle, each successful model can be set over this noumenal overlay, and we don’t have to worry about agent_b(event_a) anymore, until encountering section 1.3.