Tag Archives: code

03/31/25

Looking at Robert Prinz’s Chapter (2024) “Meaning Relies on Codes But Depends on Agents” (Part 1 of 5)

0395 The text before me is chapter eleven in Pathways to the Origin and Evolution of Meanings in the Universe (2024, edited by Alexei Sharov and George E. Mikhailovsky, pages 245-264).  The author hails from Rechenkraft.net e.V., a non-profit association located in Marburg, Germany.  Rechenkraft translates in English as “computing power”.  The author and editors have permission to use and reprint this commentary.

0396 From prior examinations, I propose that Alexei Sharov’s and Morten Tonnessen’s 2021 book, Semiotic Agency, formulates a noumenal overlay for the diverse field of biosemiotics.  All manifestations of semiotic agency are unique.  Each is a subject of inquiry on its own.  Yet, they have one relational structure in common.  

0397 Furthermore, from prior examinations, Deacon and Tabaczek’s interscope of emergence also associates to the S&T noumenal overlay.  Here is a picture of the resulting dyad within a dyad.

0398 In many respects, the chapter under examination consists of a review of the work of Italian biosemiotician, Marcello Barbieri (b. 1940), who has extensively theorized on organic codes.  An organic code is an arbitrary mapping between two independent worlds (A and B) by a set of adaptor molecules.

0399 I can associate the body of this definition to a hylomorphe.  The two real elements are A and B.  The contiguity is a map.  The set of adaptors must be associated with the map.

0400 Does this association key into the S&T noumenal overlay?

Here is a picture.

0401 Indeed, the S&T noumenal overlay offers an alternate way to appreciate Barbieri’s definition of organic code.  Mapping requires two styles of adaptor.  The first (SIs) concerns ways to specify how the two worlds are capable of mapping onto one another.  The second (SIe) locks onto one particular option within this specified capability.

0402 For example, a key (SVs, A) must appropriately move all the tumblers in a lock (SIs), producing that highly uncertain moment when the lock is no longer locked, but is not yet open (SOs).

But, the bolt once held in place by the tumblers (SVe) must glide out (SIs) in order to open (SOe) the lock (SVe, B).

03/26/25

Looking at Robert Prinz’s Chapter (2024) “Meaning Relies on Codes But Depends on Agents” (Part 5 of 5)

0431 In contrast to the capitalization of the term, “code”, if I go back, say 10,000 years before this time, before the potentiation of civilization, then I would find that the word, “code”, could not be uttered in hand-speech talk.

In human evolution, language evolves in the milieu of hand-talk.  Speech is added to hand-talk, as an adornment, at the start of our species, Homo sapiens.

See Comments on Michael Tomasello’s Arc of Inquiry (1999-2019) as well as the masterwork, The Human Niche (by Razie Mah, available at smashwords and other e-book venues).  Portions of the former may be found in Razie Mah’s blog for January through March, 2024.  

0432 Hand-talk words picture and point to their referents.  Consequently, the problem of definition is resolved before it can even be raised.  The referent exists before the gestural word.  Otherwise, what would the gestural word image or indicate?

Nevertheless, hand talk fits into code biology.

0433 The agent cannot be ignored.

For hand and hand-speech talk, the agent belongs to the Lebenswelt that we evolved in.  The linguistic manual-brachial word gesture2a (SVs) stands for the referent that it images or points to2b (SOs) in regards to a specifying code3bperformed by a specific region of the hominin brain1b (SIs).

The hominin agent does not have to ask, “What is happening?”, because ‘something’ is always happening.  All the hominin needs to do is implicit abstraction.  Because hand-talk words are images or indications, then implicit abstraction is called for.  “Decoding” enters the picture when the word-gestures are sufficiently different as to be rapidly interpreted on the grounds that they are easy to recognize.

Yes, meaning relies on codes, but agents cannot be ignored.