*4.1. The Semiotics of Peirce*

In contrast, the semiotics of Peirce is an epistemological doctrine describing the classification or categorization of the meanings or meaning-processes inherent in all existence. It is reductive and inert, since inserting the concept of sign or representation between a phenomenon and meaning adds no new meaning [55]. According to Peirce, semiotics is a logic and is logical, but only in the sense of standard, bi-valent or multi-valent linguistic logics. Peirce's famous 'three-tailed' graphs do nothing but provide a visual equivalent of bivalence.

For us, the discovery of new relations between categories is a semiotic process, but only because it takes place *outside* the epistemological categories. To say that it is 'Thirdness' is a tautology, and the entire structure of Peircean semiotics lies in the domain of non-natural philosophy.

Our concern with semiotics stems from the feeling not that it is wrong in some absolute sense, but that it addresses secondary aspects of the complex phenomenon of meaning and its exchange. The hermeneutic process adopted by Peirce illustrates this: he takes the extant domain and categorizes it without making an ontological commitment as to its basis, something which we consider an unavoidable necessity if the properties of existence are to be correctly represented.

In the realistic approach adopted in this paper, we sugges<sup>t</sup> that the only possible hermeneutic process requires starting from a correct assignment of ontological priority. We have access to an historical emergence of knowledge, defined as a mental process for insuring the flourishing of living beings, as individuals and species. Since survival, if possible without pain, is the objective, knowledge of how to accomplish this is what is meaningful for the individual; it is constitutive of meaning.

Logic in Reality, which provides a rigorous framework for discussing presence and absence and their interactive relation, provides a non-linguistic definition of a sign as a perceived phenomenon in relation to meaning in the above sense. For a deer, the information received as the smell of a lion, or sight of its droppings, *are* the lion as a potentiality, in potential form. The deer, having interpreted these signs, undertakes actions to insure this potentiality does not become actualized nearby.

Peirce based his theory on a division of phenomena into categories of Firstness (possibility), Secondness (existence) and Thirdness (reality). The 'First' is a 'Sign' or 'Representamen' which is in a genuine triadic relation to a 'Second', called its 'Object' so as to be capable of determining a 'Third', its 'Interpretant' to assume the same triadic relation to its Object in which it stands itself to the same Object'. The term 'Sign' was used by Peirce to designate the irreducible relation between the three terms, irreducible in the sense that it is not decomposable into any simpler relation, such as some form of part-whole relation.

In our view, the Peircean categories invert the ontological priority in the universe and fail to add to knowledge or how to acquire it. The problem was succinctly addressed by Petre Petrov in his "Mixing signs and bones: John Deely's case for global semiosis", [56]. On p. 412 he writes: "The transformation of physical reality into objective sign reality is the same as the transition between Peirce's categories of Secondness (a binary relation of opposition, impact, cause and e ffect) and Thirdness (a triadic structure in which one item relates to another *for* ye<sup>t</sup> another, the last one being the 'interpretant' of the dynamic between the first two).

*The trick succeeds only because one has put the rabbit in the hat beforehand only to pull it out later. Secondness is already implicitly Thirdness, and the so-called physical relation is already implicitly objective*" (italics ours).

When one tries to talk to Peirceans about possible overlaps between the categories when applied to real change, one is told "Oh yes, Peirce was aware of them and they exist". However, there seems to be no more grounding for any physical relationships in these than in the original categories.

Lupasco devoted major studies to application of his logic to living systems [45] as discussed elsewhere by Brenner. In current terms, his logic is consistent with a view that life emerges from the recursive processing possible in some still undefined proto-structures, and what can be called semiosis in higher animals from some further recursive processing of information within life's physico-chemical structures. Only physical processes are required for meaning; for us, they can be and **are** meaning. Signs are inert, *a posteriori* epistemological constructions without explanatory value. (In our approach, biological 'codes' are not signs. They are static scientific abstractions.) The concept of operators is useful here [57]; it is the chemical structure of nucleotides in the DNA that 'operates' the genetic process.) Let us now therefore leave the austere world of Peirce and his acolytes and discuss concepts of semiotics and semiosis from other logical and scientific standpoints

#### *4.2. The Semiotics and Semiosis of Igamberdiev*

From the earliest known examples of abstract thinking, humans faced the two types of paradoxes, one referred to as semantic and the other as kinematic. The first apparent formulation of the semantic liar (*pseudomenos*) paradox was that of Epimenides of Cnossos who was a semi-mythical thinker of the 7th or 6th century BC. Its later formulations belong to Eubulides (4th century BC), and in other cultural traditions to Bharthari (India, 5th century AD) and to Nasir al-Din al-Tusi (the Islamic tradition, Persia, 13th century), who identified the liar paradox as self-referential. This paradox substantiates the impossibility of non-contradictory application of binary logic to the process of signification (assigning of meaning).

The first known formulation of the kinematic type of paradox in the West was by Zeno of Elea, who was the disciple of Parmenides (5th century BC). They were formulated independently by the representatives of the School of Names (Míngjia) in China (5th-3rd centuries BC) and by Nagarjuna in ¯ India (3rd century AD). The origin of kinematic paradoxes is in the impossibility of a non-contradictory formulation of an infinite space-time and to the incompleteness of any formal representation of it. In such representations, contradiction appears between the description of space consisting of an infinite number of points and the possibility of moving past them in finite intervals of time.

Over many centuries, the semantic and kinematic paradoxes were analyzed independently of one other. The main challenge was to try and unite them in a single dynamic process. This was, in particular, reflected in the designation of Cretans as liars in the Epimenides-Eubulides paradox in which the physical (kinematic) parameter (movement) was introduced. If we remain within the physical domain and observe a moving object (*e.g.*, Zeno's flying arrow) embedded in physical space, we can introduce a semantic constituent by assuming that the arrow, at a concrete finite moment of time, is present at a certain point of space, and at the same time is absent there, beyond the semantic field of the person who launches it (the bowman). The dynamic process thus includes the contradiction that is embedded into the moving system and can be fixed logically. Space-time is structured by physically defined parameters that appear to fulfil the function of avoiding the apparent inconsistency of its representation as infinitely divisible to allow movement in it. These parameters represent the fundamental constants of the physical world, and the physical complementarity which manifests itself, in particular, in the impossibility to define strictly the position and momentum of a particle simultaneously. This arises as the consequence of the process of representation into the represented (measured, observed), which continuously produces an infinite recursion. Quantum measurement appears as a semiotic process in which signification takes place continuously and in which the kinematic and semantic constituents are complementary and emerge in tandem from a still unknown *pleroma.*

The incompleteness theorems formulated by Kurt Gödel represent modern interpretations of the semantic paradox but at the same time they have a kinematic constituent which appears in the process of obtaining proofs. The claim that any su fficiently rich formal system is incomplete means

that it contains statements which cannot be proved inside the system, but they can be enumerated (encoded) in the representation of the system. A system of axioms can never be based on itself since the statements about the system itself must be used in order to prove its consistency. The grea<sup>t</sup> invention of Gödel [58] in his first incompleteness theorem is that its proof is achieved via assigning statements about the whole system (corresponding to meta-mathematical statements) to the elements of the system. Signification is therefore attributed to the dynamic process of (epistemologically) developing the proof of incompleteness itself. Although this dynamic process is not analysed logically (or "dialectically"), it represents the necessary condition for obtaining the proof for the theorem. As shown by Igamberdiev earlier, *a* process of obtaining proof, which necessarily generates the encoding in the system, is continuously realized in living systems and their evolution [59]. However, the latter is not the same as proof of statements or their mathematical equivalents. At a higher level of reflexion, it is present as a dynamic process of evolution of social systems and civilizations [60]. A concept that attempts to explain biological encoding as a consequence of metabolic reflexive loops in the system, "closed to efficient causation" in the Aristotelian sense was developed by Robert Rosen [61], discussed further in Section 6. Its further development can be based on analysing the dynamics that results in generation and further complexification of these loops.

To understand this dynamic process, we need to analyze the course of obtaining the proof in Gödel's sense which will characterize the process itself and generate encoding in the system such that it becomes a semiotic entity (seme). During this process, growth of complexity takes place and the system acquires *information* about itself and about the external (to it) reality. In other words, Gödel contributed much more for understanding semiosis than Peirce or Saussure because he explained the necessity of encoding as a required step in the signification process. This process represents a dialectical discourse of the system with other organized systems embedded in the systems reality external to them... The complementarity between the formal Gödel system and Gödel numbering is based on the separation between the system itself and its embedding that represents its encoding. It follows or tracks the growth of complexity via the dynamics that is inherent to Gödel's self-reflexive loop and includes a certain freedom as the encoding (Gödel's enumeration) can be reached by many alternative, i.e., complementary, ways. Thus the growth of complexity is based on the contradiction between a system and its representation (including its internal "encoded" representation), generating new levels of "gradation" of organizational structure, and includes the relational abolition (negation) of previous steps. Some arrangements that were actualized in previous steps emerge later but at a higher level of complexity, as suggested by the Axiom of Emergence in LIR. These moments of the dialectical discourse loosely correspond to "three laws of dialectics" formulated by Engels. This dynamic process was defined by Heraclitus as the self-growing Logos (*logos heauton auxon*).

When Kurt Gödel enumerated metamathematical statements about the system by encoding them within the system, he incorporated at the same time the paradox in the nature of the dynamical system. The next task is to describe in logical terms the procedure of the proof of incompleteness itself. This introduces another paradox: to describe the origin of logic by logical means and the origin of computation by computable means. This means that we enter into a discourse between our own logic and the internal logic of the system with which we interact and which we aim to describe. The nature of this paradox has not been fully analyzed in human thought, except in Plato's dialogue "Parmenides" and perhaps a few other philosophical works. It is very easy to slip from the dialectical discourse to the concept of final truth. This was not avoided by Plato himself (finally in his "Laws") and by Hegel and Marx who abandoned their own well-developed discourse for such a "final synthesis". This synthesis, in fact, rejects the very nature of dialectics and results in total failure for the conceptual field and in social practice.

For resolving the paradox of describing the origin of logic by logical means, it is important to consider Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling as an essential figure in natural philosophy. According to Schelling's views, since the coming into being is not a finished entity but ye<sup>t</sup> becoming and always contingent, existence and movement cannot be a logical category [62]. For the purpose of describing the process of actualization, we need an instrument that can in some way overcome the frames of purely logical description of the process of coming into being, and dialectics represents a substitution for descriptions using classical logic. Arran Gare [63], analysing Schelling's views, comes to the conclusion that Schelling developed a theory of emergence and a new concept of life relevant to current theoretical biology. This theory is grasped in Logic in Reality in the Principle of Dynamic Opposition (PDO) operative at the most fundamental physical level as well as all higher levels of reality. The PDO and contradiction or counteraction, and a robust notion of potentiality, is required for understanding the relation between substances, events and processes. (We note in this connection the debate in Buddhist logic on whether dynamic (al) opposition was or was not real ([38], pp. 404–406), involving, like LIR, an included middle.

The concept of emergence introduced by Schelling was further developed by Alfred North Whitehead [64]. Following Whitehead, it is only events that are the actual entities of the physical world which need to exist in order to have a physics. This leads to a new idea of physical substances, that of a distribution of potentialities, "powers" or propensities, that are "reasonable consequences of a theory of processes" as Thompson [65] suggested. He talks of eternal objects with only a 'pure potential' for ingression into reality in which potentiality is realized (actualized). However what Whitehead designates as Categories of Explanation include highly relevant statements of the ontological foundations of Logic in Reality as a logic of process [64]. Thus


We do not hesitate to characterize this aspect of Whitehead's philosophy as natural: "For you cannot abstract the universe from any entity, actual or non-actual, so as to consider that entity in complete isolation." Whitehead contrasts the philosophy of organism, basically what we discuss in this paper, with that of propositions as abstractions. It is of interest is that Whitehead has no di fficulty in integrating being and becoming without conflating them. Whitehead integrates both physical and philosophical senses of 'potential di fference'. The further di fferentiation of processes by Whitehead into macroscopic and microscopic, e fficient and teleological, complete and incomplete and their comparison with the principles of Lupasco will be discussed elsewhere.

Another important philosophical concept of organizational evolution of matter is tektology of Alexander Bogdanov [66]. It was analyzed recently by Arran Gare [67]. In this concept Bogdanov put process and organization in the center of perpetually evolving reality seen as an organizational process of the Universe. Science itself, according to Bogdanov, is comprehensible as a development within and of nature. Tektology claims that processes are the primary reality rather than things or substances and their attributes, which assumes that a non-formal language is more appropriate for characterising the basic characteristics of nature, and mathematics should be seen as having a derivative status [68].

The aim of modern synthesis in science is to explain the phenomenon of complexification which lies at the foundation of evolution of the Universe [69,70], in evolution and morphogenesis of living systems [71–73] and in social progress [74,75]. For this purpose, the dialectical ideas of Plato and Aristotle revived in modern times by Schelling, Whitehead, Bogdanov and Lupasco represent an essential alternative to the positivist interpretation of reality that dominated science for many years.

#### *4.3. Epistemic Perspectives and Logic in Reality*

The perspicacious reader will have noticed that, although we claimed at the outset to focus on the ontological entities of natural philosophy, we have introduced *three* concepts in the discussion that are primarily epistemological: (1) the *clinamen* in Section 2; (2) the ontolon above, which retains substantial epistemic character in its relation to the epistemon, and (3) essential properties of quantum entities that are outside standard quantum physics as generally understood.

We justify the inclusion of these perspectives, as we do that of Peirce, for their hermeneutic value. They can provide additional insight once it is established and clearly understood that there is no direct physical evidence for the existence of the respective entities *qua* entity. In fact, we have returned in restated terms to the dialectics of appearance and reality. The novel feature that we are able to introduce into this dialectics is the availability, o ffered by LIR, of a dynamic relation between the two—no appearance that is not also partly reality and vice versa, sometimes changing in proportion with time. Meaning inheres, implicitly and explicitly, throughout the domain.

Let us now examine these considerations in the newly available language of information science and philosophy.

#### **5. Information and Communication: The Dialectics of Meaning (2)**

In Section 4, we saw an example of a field of which both formal and non-formal descriptions are possible. Formal approaches are not necessarily incorrect, but they are when they equate to the use of bivalent or multivalent linguistic logics and standard category theory which in our view have limited explanatory value. Non-formal or partly formal approaches have been much less developed, but they offer interpretations of phenomena in terms of dialectics and a non-standard logic of processes, Logic in Reality (LIR), as outlined in Sections 2 and 3.

The two lines of thought are present throughout the human and social sciences and philosophy. Again, the second group has received less attention as being allegedly unscientific and non-rigorous, as most of the time it is. In this Section 5 and the next Section 6, we will address the fields of information and communication and *their* relation to meaning. We will provide a summary of the standard well-known interpretations which we will describe, for convenience, as non-dialectical (ND) and then of ours based on the parallel use of dialectics and LIR.

Also in previous Sections, we have referred to both meaning and information separately, pointing out some of the di fficulties with standard conceptions of meaning in relation to semiotics or semiosis. In this Section we study what can be gained in the understanding of both concepts by looking more closely at the dialectics and logic of the relation between them. Even placing them in conjunction has significant consequences—in what sense are meaning and information the same or di fferent?

Many authors have noted the complexity of information and the di fficulty of giving a 'single, clear' definition of it. Attempts to do so are typical of standard substance ontologies, where hard definitions are automatically given preference. The failure of such attempts suggests that major categorial errors are being made. We therefore make the following lapidary statement which we will try to justify in what follows:

#### **Meaningful information is reality in potential form.**

It is derived from the Lupasco/LIR conception of consciousness outlined in [76] which basically looks at the real dialectical interactions between internal and external, better internalizing and externalizing processes as they move between potentiality and actuality.

In order to understand how our approach to logic and dialectics adds value to the discussion of meaning, information and communication and their interrelation, we need to summarize briefly in this Section the major developments in these fields made in the 20th Century and the last twenty years, both in the West and in China. The concomitant formulation of theories of information in which it was related to the clearly developing information society resulted in a new rationale and methodology for information studies. From the point of view of this paper, the overall movement was from non-dialectical mathematical theories to dynamic ones, including critical aspects from biological science is to be welcomed. Yet each of the kinds of theories outlined in the Sections 5.1–5.4 su ffers in some way from the absence of explicit recognition of the dialectical/logical principles underlying the operation of 'Information in Reality' [30].
