Cell Language Theory, The: Connecting Mind And Matter

The Philosophical Implications of the Cell Language Theory 401

“6x9” b2861 The Cell Language Theory: Connecting Mind and Matter

10.3 Signs, Thoughts, and “Thoughtons”

According to Peirce, “We have no power of thinking without signs” [235].

That is,

WE THINK in SIGNS. (10.2)

There are three key terms in Statement (10.2):

WE = a biological sign processor,

THINK = a process driven by free energy, and

SIGN = the mechanism or process through which the sign processor

think or compute.

It is possible to conceive of the basic unit of thoughts, to be called

“thoughtons”, that contain all of the three components listed above,

namely, P = the sign processor, E = the free energy necessary for driving

thinking process, and S = the sign that makes it possible for the sign pro-

cessor to carry out thinking. As will be explained below, Peirce’s well-

known definition of signs seems to emphasize mainly on S; Spink’s

definition of signs [393–395] expanded Peirce’s definition by including P;

and the definition of signs that I will propose below will contain all of

these components, i.e., P, E, and S.

Peirce geometrically represented a sign using the triple fork icon, --<

(see Figure 10.1).

In 1981, C. W. Spink’s 3-dimensionalized and Peirce’s 2-dimensional

sign triad by treating the center of the triple fork as the apex of a pyramid

(or a tetrahedron) raised over the triangular base whose vertices are occu-

pied by R, O, and I [393–395].

I

R -- <

O

Figure 10.1 A diagrammatic representation of Peirce’s sign triad. R = representamen,

O = object, and I = interpretant (i.e., the effect that a sign has on an interpreter or a sign

processor). Note that a sign is irreducibly triadic in the sense that it (at least when it is a

symbolic sign; see Section 6.3.1) cannot be reduced to R, O, or I, or to any partial combi-

nations of these.

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