Changes

The <math>\text{A}\!</math> and <math>\text{B}\!</math> example, in the fragmentary aspects of its sign relations presented so far, is unrealistic in its simplification of semantic issues, lacking a full development of many kinds of attributes that almost always become significant in situations of practical interest.  Just to mention two related features of importance to inquiry that are missing from this example, there is no sense of directional process and no dimension of differential value defined either within or between the semantic equivalence classes.

The <math>\text{A}\!</math> and <math>\text{B}\!</math> example, in the fragmentary aspects of its sign relations presented so far, is unrealistic in its simplification of semantic issues, lacking a full development of many kinds of attributes that almost always become significant in situations of practical interest.  Just to mention two related features of importance to inquiry that are missing from this example, there is no sense of directional process and no dimension of differential value defined either within or between the semantic equivalence classes.

When there is a clear sense of dynamic tendency or purposeful direction driving the passage from signs to interpretants in the connotative project of a sign relation, then the study moves from sign relations, statically viewed, to genuine sign processes.  In the pragmatic theory of signs, such processes are usually dignified with the name ''semiosis'' and their systematic investigation is called ''semiotics''.

When there is a clear sense of dynamic tendency or purposeful direction driving the passage from signs to interpretants in the connotative project of a sign relation, then the study moves from sign relations, statically viewed, to genuine sign processes.  In the pragmatic theory of signs, such processes are usually dignified with the name "semiosis", and their systematic investigation is called "semiotics".

Further, when this dynamism or purpose is consistent and confluent with a differential value system defined on the syntactic domain, then the sign process in question becomes a candidate for the kind of clarity gaining, canon seeking process, capable of supporting learning and reasoning, that I classify as an "inquiry driven system".

Further, when this dynamism or purpose is consistent and confluent with a differential value system defined on the syntactic domain, then the sign process in question becomes a candidate for the kind of clarity-gaining, canon-seeking process, capable of supporting learning and reasoning, that I classify as an ''inquiry driven system''.

There is a mathematical "turn of thought" that I will often take in discussing these kinds of issues.  Instead of saying that a system has no attribute of a particular type, I will say that it has the attribute, but in a trivial sense or degenerate manner.  This is merely a strategy of classification that allows one to include null cases in a taxonomy and to make use of continuity arguments in passing from case to case in a class of examples.  Viewed in this way, each of the sign relations A or B can be taken to exhibit a trivial dynamic process and a trivial standard of value defined on the syntactic domain.

There is a mathematical turn of thought that I will often take in discussing these kinds of issues.  Instead of saying that a system has no attribute of a particular type, I will say that it has the attribute, but in a degenerate or trivial sense.  This is merely a strategy of classification that allows one to include null cases in a taxonomy and to make use of continuity arguments in passing from case to case in a class of examples.  Viewed in this way, each of the sign relations <math>L(\text{A})\!</math> and <math>L(\text{B})\!</math> can be taken to exhibit a trivial dynamic process and a trivial standard of value defined on the syntactic domain.

===6.42. Sign Processes : A Start===

===6.42. Sign Processes : A Start===