Re: Ontolog Forum

Artem Kaznatcheev posted an interesting discussion on his blog under the title “Models as Maps and Maps as Interfaces” that I saw as fitting under this head.  A reader of Peirce may recognize critical insights of pragmatic thought cropping up toward the end of his analysis, prompting me to add the following comment:

Map and “mirror of nature” metaphors take us a good distance in understanding how creatures represent their worlds to themselves and others.  But from a pragmatic semiotic point of view we can see how these metaphors lock us into iconic forms of representation, overstretching dyadic relations, and thus falling short of the full power of triadic symbolic relations that support practical interaction with the world.

cc: Systems Science • Structural Modeling