User:Jon Awbrey/TEST

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Dear John,

I agree, that for "semiotics" to be an effective unifying discipline it must not isolate itself. Unfortunately, it's too late. By a series of missteps, related cross-discipline confusions, and plain term usage, "semiotics" *is* isolated.

The irony is that semeiotic theory is necessarily first among sciences. Yet its current position is worse than last. If you surveyed most scientists today that understand the discipline I suspect they would consider it irrelevant, many more have never heard of it.

And I do not think the situation can be rescued. Any serious analysis of the situation must, I think, draw this conclusion.

The right approach I have concluded is to drive a resurgence with renewed interest in logic and its foundations, expanding the scope of the discipline to encompass the concerns that rest within what we call "semeiotic theory." Logic has a role that is better appreciated and can be driven toward a useful expansion and a clarification by semeiotic theory.

This will seem to many here as the child usurping the parent but I see it as the only way forward.

The first challenge in this regard is to undermine the common view that logic, as computation (as conceived in "Computer Science"), is a "done deal." And we may shake this view by producing significant practical results that demonstrate the value of new and advanced general theories that elucidate both the operation of biophysical systems and enable the construction of new computational machinery.

If the case can be made that without a renewed effort in the foundations of logic that further progress is hampered, then there is hope (for it is surely semeiotic theory that can lead us out of the "dead end" we face in socially critical science and engineering).

With respect, Steven

PS. As an illustration of what I suggest, consider my abstract for "The Incomputable" conference to be held in England next year, found here:

http://www.mathcomp.leeds.ac.uk/turing2012/inc/give-page.php?8

And indeed, this conference generally (http://www.mathcomp.leeds.ac.uk/turing2012/inc/give-page.php?1) and the one that I am organizing at Stanford University (http://challengingturing.org) are examples of the way ahead. These are still very much "frontiers" events and there are many miles to go before the broader consideration that these matters require enter the mainstream.