Signs Of Signs

[Jon Awbrey]

Signs Of Signs • 1
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/03/16/signs-of-signs-1-a/

Re: Michael Harris • Language About Language
• https://mathematicswithoutapologies.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/language-about-language/

There is a language and a corresponding literature treating
logic and mathematics as related species of communication and
information gathering, namely, the pragmatic‑semiotic tradition
transmitted through the lifelong efforts of C.S. Peirce. It is
by no means a dead language but it continues to fly beneath the
radar of many trackers in logic and math today. Nevertheless,
the resource remains for those who wish to look into it.

Resources —

Higher Order Sign Relations
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Inquiry_Driven_Systems_%E2%80%A2_Part_12#Higher_Order_Sign_Relations

Survey of Pragmatic Semiotic Information
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/03/01/survey-of-pragmatic-semiotic-information-8/

Survey of Semiotics, Semiosis, Sign Relations
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2024/01/26/survey-of-semiotics-semiosis-sign-relations-5/

Regards,

Jon

cc: https://www.academia.edu/community/LpWxoO
cc: https://mathstodon.xyz/@Inquiry/114174025186011486
cc: https://www.researchgate.net/post/Signs_Of_Signs

[Jon Awbrey]

Signs Of Signs • 2
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/03/18/signs-of-signs-2-a/

Re: Michael Harris • Language About Language

• https://mathematicswithoutapologies.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/language-about-language/comment-page-1/#comment-346

❝I compared mathematics to a “consensual hallucination”,
like virtual reality, and I continue to believe that
the aim is to get (consensually) to the point where
that hallucination is a second nature.❞

I think that's called “coherentism”, normally contrasted with or
complementary to “objectivism”. It's the philosophy of a gang of
co‑conspirators who think, “We'll get off scot‑free so long as we
all keep our stories straight.”

[Jon Awbrey]

Signs Of Signs • 3
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/03/19/signs-of-signs-3-a/

Re: Michael Harris • Language About Language

• https://mathematicswithoutapologies.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/language-about-language/comment-page-1/#comment-353

❝And if we don't [keep our stories straight], who puts us away?❞

One's answer, or at least one's initial response to that question
will turn on how one feels about formal realities. As I understand it,
reality is that which persists in thumping us on the head until we get
what it's trying to tell us. Are there formal realities, forms which
drive us in that way?

Discussions like those tend to begin by supposing we can form a distinction
between external and internal. That is a formal hypothesis, not yet born out
as a formal reality. Are there formal realities which drive us to recognize them,
to pick them out of a crowd of formal possibilities?

Resource —

Higher Order Sign Relations
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Inquiry_Driven_Systems_%E2%80%A2_Part_12#Higher_Order_Sign_Relations

Regards,

Jon

[Jon Awbrey]

Signs Of Signs • 4
• https://inquiryintoinquiry.com/2025/03/20/signs-of-signs-4-a/

Re: Michael Harris • Language About Language

• https://mathematicswithoutapologies.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/language-about-language/comment-page-1/#comment-380

❝But then inevitably I find myself wondering whether a proof assistant,
or even a formal system, can make the distinction between “technical”
and “fundamental” questions. There seems to be no logical distinction.
The formalist answer might involve algorithmic complexity, but I don't
think that sheds any useful light on the question. The materialist answer
(often? usually?) amounts to just‑so stories involving Darwin, and lions
on the savannah, and maybe an elephant, or at least a mammoth. I don't
find these very satisfying either and would prefer to find something in
between, and I would feel vindicated if it could be proved (in I don't
know what formal system) that the capacity to make such a distinction
entails appreciation of music.❞

Peirce proposed a distinction between “corollarial” and “theorematic”
reasoning in mathematics which strikes me as similar to the distinction
Michael Harris seeks between “technical” and “fundamental” questions.

I can't say I have a lot of insight into how the distinction might be drawn
but I recall a number of traditions pointing to the etymology of “theorem”
as having to do with the observation of objects and practices whose depth
of detail always escapes full accounting by any number of partial views.

On the subject of music, all I have is the following incidental —

🙞 Riffs and Rotes
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Riffs_and_Rotes

Perhaps it takes a number theorist to appreciate it …

Resource —

Higher Order Sign Relations
• https://oeis.org/wiki/Inquiry_Driven_Systems_%E2%80%A2_Part_12#Higher_Order_Sign_Relations

Regards,

Jon

cc: https://www.academia.edu/community/LZaDXJ