Changes

There is one other reason for lingering a while longer in these primitive forests, and this is that an acquaintance with "bare trees", those as yet unadorned with literal or numerical labels, will provide a firm basis for understanding what's really at issue in such problems as the "ontological status of variables".

There is one other reason for lingering a while longer in these primitive forests, and this is that an acquaintance with "bare trees", those as yet unadorned with literal or numerical labels, will provide a firm basis for understanding what's really at issue in such problems as the "ontological status of variables".

It is probably best to illustrate this theme in the setting of a concrete case, which we can do by revisiting the previous example of reductive evaluation:

It is probably best to illustrate this theme in the setting of a concrete case, which we can do by reviewing the previous example of reductive evaluation shown in Figure 16.

The observation of several ''semioses'', or sign-transformations, of roughly this shape will most likely lead an observer with any observational facility whatever to notice that it doesn't really matter what sorts of branches happen to sprout from the side of the root aside from the lone edge that also grows there — the end result will always be the same.

 

The observation of several semioses of roughly this shape will most probably lead an observer with any observational facility whatever to notice that it doesn't really matter what sorts of branches happen to sprout from the side of the root aside from the lone edge that also grows there — the end will all be one.

Our observer might think to summarize the results of many such observations by introducing a label or variable to signify any shape of branch whatever, writing something like the following:

Our observer might think to summarize the results of many such observations by introducing a label or variable to signify any shape of branch whatever, writing something like the following: