Re: Ontolog Forum • Azamat Abdoullaev

As I see it, the semiotics or theory of signs handed down by Aristotle, Augustine, the Medieval Scholastics, Locke, and others took a significant leap toward a truly scientific theory with the work of C.S. Peirce.  This became possible, I believe, not so much driven by any mutation in the taxonomy of signs as catalyzed by Peirce’s concurrent development of the logic of relatives and the mathematics of relations, especially triadic relations.

The task I’ve set for myself under this heading is threefold —

1. There is the scholarly task of figuring out what Peirce meant by the formula:  “Information = Comprehension × Extension”.
2. There is the scientific task of finding out whether Peirce’s theory of information tells us anything useful about empirical realities.
3. There is the theory-engineering task that bridges tasks 1 and 2.  It looks for ways to repair incomplete or inconsistent theories in order to give them a better grasp of the empirical realities.

Resources

• This Blog • Survey of Pragmatic Semiotic Information
• My Notes • Information = Comprehension × Extension
• C.S. Peirce • Upon Logical Comprehension and Extension

cc: Cybernetics • Ontolog Forum • Structural Modeling • Systems Science