On Signs, Metaphors, Meaning, and Purpose

[NOTE: readers not interested in philosophical perspectives on the theory of signs (‘semiotics’) and cognition per se as sign-processing (‘semiosis’) may want to skip this post. Those who may be intrigued by the idea of biosemiotics and the semiosic essence of perceptual awareness and conceptual consciousness, however, may find it interesting.]

Are all signs metaphorical? Are all metaphors semiosic? Are ‘sign’ and ‘metaphor’ synonymous?

What does ‘stands to’ mean in saying, “A sign, or representamen, is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity?” The rest of Peirce’s definition of ‘sign’ is clearly triadic, since the ‘representamen,’ strictly speaking, is just one of the three elements of what could be regarded as the critical mass of a cognitively complete sign, where the other two elements are the “interpretant” and the “object” (or sort of idea thereof) that is the “ground” of a (cognitively complete) sign:[2]

(A sign) addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. That sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object. It stands for that object, not in all respects, but in reference to a sort of idea, which I have sometimes called the ground of the representamen. “Idea” is here to be understood in a sort of Platonic sense, very familiar in everyday talk; I mean in that sense in which we say that one man catches another man’s idea, in which we say that when a man recalls what he was thinking of at some previous time, he recalls the same idea, and in which when a man continues to think anything, say for a tenth of a second, in so far as the thought continues to agree with itself during that time, that is to have a like content, it is the same idea, and is not at each instant of the interval a new idea.

In their classic book on the fundamental nature of metaphors in human cognition, Lakoff and Johnson write, “The essence of metaphor is understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another.” How does this differ from Peirce’s contrast between a representamen and its interpretant and the semiosic cognitive dynamic relationship between them? How does our “understanding and experiencing one kind of thing in terms of another” as metaphor diverge from or stand in contrast to “a sign stand(ing) to somebody for something in some respect or capacity?” Are any of the following “key ideas” in their “conceptual metaphor theory” changed in any way if “metaphor” is replaced by “sign?”[3]

—Metaphors are fundamentally conceptual in nature; metaphorical language is secondary.
[Signs are fundamentally conceptual in nature; language signs are secondary.]

—Conceptual metaphors are grounded in everyday experience.
[Conceptual signs are grounded in everyday experience.]

—Abstract thought is largely, though not entirely, metaphorical.
[Abstract thought is largely, though not entirely, semiotic (or semiosic).]

—Metaphorical thought is unavoidable, ubiquitous, and mostly unconscious.
[ Semiotic (or semiosic) thought is unavoidable, ubiquitous, and mostly unconscious.]

—Abstract concepts have a literal core but are extended by metaphors, often by many mutually inconsistent metaphors.
[Abstract concepts have a literal core but are extended by signs, often by many mutually inconsistent signs.]

—Abstract concepts are not complete without metaphors. For example, love is not love without metaphors of magic, attraction, madness, union, nurturance, and so on.
[Abstract concepts are not complete without signs. For example, love is not love without signs of magic, attraction, madness, union, nurturance, and so on.]

—Our conceptual systems are not consistent overall, since the metaphors used to reason about concepts may be inconsistent.
[Our conceptual systems are not consistent overall, since the signs used to reason about concepts may be inconsistent.]

—We live our lives on the basis of inferences we derive via metaphor.
[We live our lives on the basis of inferences we derive via sign(s) — or more accurately, by semiosis.]

Thus, for all semantic intents and practical purposes, cognitively considered, the following appear to be perfectly well-formed conceptual metaphors in the theoretical purview presented by Lakoff and Johnson:

• Signs are Metaphors

• Metaphors are Signs

At the outset here, however, a subtle distinction is (at least implicitly) identified wherein a sign may be complete or incomplete, where the distinction is made on the basis of whether or not all three of Peirce’s critical-mass components are manifest in semiosic correlation: the ground (or object), the representamen, and the interpretant, where the latter serves as the distinctly cognitive element of that critical semiosic-mass correlation. A partial or incomplete sign may be manifest in causal reality and truth despite lacking that cognitive element, as conveyed in (what Thomas A. Sebeok refers to as) Peirce’s “bedazzling sentence:”[4]

It seems a strange thing, when one comes to ponder over it, that a sign should leave its interpreter to supply a part of its meaning; but the explanation of the phenomenon lies in the fact that the entire universe—not merely the universe of existents, but all that wider universe, embracing the universe of existents as a part, the universe which we are all  accustomed to refer to as “the truth”—that all this universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs.

That a sign remains a sign – albeit a cognitively incomplete one – is evident due to its “leav(ing) its interpreter to supply a part of its meaning ….” (emphasis added). The same incompleteness is expressed in Peirce’s synopsis of distinctions between the three relational categories of signs, as follows (emphasis also added here):[5]

A sign is either an icon, an index, or a symbol. An icon is a sign which would possess the character which renders it significant, even though its object had no existence; such as a lead-pencil streak as representing a geometrical line. An index is a sign which would, at once, lose the character which makes it a sign if its object were removed, but would not lose that character if there were no interpretant. Such, for instance, is a piece of mould with a bullet-hole in it as sign of a shot; for without the shot there would have been no hole; but there is a hole there, whether anybody has the sense to attribute it to a shot or not. A symbol is a sign which would lose the character which renders it a sign if there were no interpretant. Such is any utterance of speech which signifies what it does only by virtue of its being understood to have that signification.

Two kinds or modes of semiotic incompleteness are identified here:

1. Iconic incompleteness – a sign whose object or ground may not empirically exist, e.g., the pencil streak Peirce cites (standing for the idea of a line) or a numeral character (standing for the idea of a number).

2. Indexical incompleteness – a sign whose interpretant may not cognitively exist, e.g., the bullet-hole in the mould (standing for a shot as its empirical and iconic object or ground) or radiation and gravity waves (standing for the inspiral collision of neutron stars to form a black hole).[6]

The vital point is that in both #1 and #2 the signs (pencil streak, numeral, bullet-hole, inspiral collision) remain iconic or indexical signs per se despite being either empirically or cognitively incomplete, for lack of having an extant iconic ground (empirical incompleteness) or a causal indexical interpretation (cognitive incompleteness), respectively.

The inspiral collision of a pair of neutron stars observed in August 2017 and reported to the public two months later, an event designated by scientists as GW170817, offers an especially salient semiosic example. The event generated a cosmic tsunami of radiation and gravity waves such as had never previously been observed, but only theoretically hypothesized by Einstein’s relativity theory. Einstein himself didn’t believe gravity waves could be shown to exist in the universe, but a century after his general relativity theory predicted them, the 2017 Nobel Prize in physics was awarded to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) emeritus physicist Rainer Weiss and his California Institute of Technology (Caltech) colleagues Barry Barish and Kip Thorne.[7]

But here’s the catch: the GW170817 event happened 130 million years before its observational representamens were cognitively formed by human astronomers here on Earth. In other words, those radiation and gravity waves began their journey from their point of origin in that inspiral collision 130 million years ago, traveled 764.4 quintillion (764.4 ´ 1018) miles at 5.88 trillion (5.88 ´ 1012) miles per year, to affect the cognitive sensibilities of humans that didn’t exist at all until yesterday, in relative terms. When did those waves become signs – or metaphors – that stood for that inspiral collision event?[8]

This notion of iconic and indexical semiosic incompleteness suggests that ‘sign’ and ‘metaphor’ may not actually be synonymous after all. For Lakoff and Johnson at least, every metaphor is a semantic connection between two “conceptual structures” – i.e., they are inherently cognitive. Conceptual structures themselves and metaphorical connections between them are “grounded in experience” to form “conceptual systems” of scant logical consistency, yet “we live our lives on the basis of inferences we derive via metaphor.” Metaphors appear to be the stuff of which our cognitive awareness and consciousness are made, therefore – semantic networks that give meaning and purpose to our lives as cognitive beings present in causal reality. But the key point is that, unlike ‘signs’ in the Peircean sense, metaphors have no non-cognitive aspects, elements, or components.[9]

Putting this in Peircean semiosic terms, metaphors are particular kinds of signs, namely, dyadic pairs of representamens connected by a relational interpretant of ‘likeness,’ understood as the semantic content common to both representamens. Metaphors are exclusively symbolic signs, therefore, which may furnish cognitive completion to iconic and indexical representamens and their empirical or conceptual grounds. Perhaps the cognitively incomplete iconic and indexical signs are the representamens Lakoff and Johnson have in mind when they refer to the “literal core of abstract concepts” that “ground conceptual metaphors in everyday experience” at the level where “metaphorical thought is unavoidable, ubiquitous, and mostly unconscious.”[10]

In his “bedazzling sentence,” Peirce referred to “that wider universe, embracing the universe of existents as a part, the universe which we are all accustomed to refer to as ‘the truth’.” Could it be Peirce himself was thinking metaphorically here? Was he semantically connecting two of his own conceptual structures (‘universe’ and ‘truth’) as representamens having the same semantic interpretant content, i.e., in a ‘universe is truth’ (and conversely, ‘truth is universe’) metaphor? It could be so, insofar as it is reasonable to regard the universe as “standing to us for truth as its objective empirical ground” -- and conversely as the truth “standing to us for the universe as its objective empirical ground.”

It would seem that only cognitive iconic or indexical signs could be metaphorical structures and all metaphorical conceptual structures would be cognitive symbolic signs. As they’re conceived by Lakoff and Johnson, apart from their “literal cores,” metaphors are the products of the vast and interconnecting semantic networks of all our habits, rules, conventions, traditions, mores, etc. through which meaning and purpose per se are dynamically determined by the metaphors comprising the ethos of our society and the fabric of our culture and its entrenched conceptual structures. Those structures are the ‘old cloth’ and the ‘old wineskin’ abiding in our languages, arts, crafts, sciences, organizations, enterprises, institutions, and all the attitudes and behaviors they induce and nurture – or may abort and suppress – in us from womb to tomb. In this sense, metaphors are purely symbolic forms and molds that give meaning and purpose to signs as the natural resources we refine into awareness and consciousness by metaphorical semiosis. In light of these considerations the metaphors above about signs and metaphors seem to invite a measure of quantification to maintain their veracity:

• Some Signs are Metaphors (but)

• All Metaphors are Signs

Both metaphorically and literally, the meaning of life is grounded in semiosis. Both sentient and sapient life manifest their intents and purposes in the semiosic dynamics of the permanent and transient sign-processing dispositions through which meaning and truth may be discerned, thus affording rational and sensible grounds for purposeful actions and fulfilling lives. Unfortunately – indeed, tragically – as it has turned out, despite the fact that survival is genetically hard-wired into being of every living creature with presence on Earth as the prime directive and overriding purpose, we somehow ended up being hell-bent on self-inflicted extinction by extermination as our pathological meaning and sociopathic purpose as the apex predators on the planet. This has led me to the following parallax perspective on truth and reality in the 21st century:[11]

Hypothesis: Our deathstyle must now become our lifestyle. Humans have run themselves out of time to do anything truly and really meaningful other than to become willing, ready, and able to unconditionally love themselves and their most cherished family and friends, and to stand ready to aid and comfort them as that truth and reality engulf their lives – expanding that lifedeathstyle to immediate community it at all possible. 

Corollary: our genetically permanent predispositions as apex predators fed our rapacity to become a fascist-governed ethos, culture, and society. If we must fight any moral battle at all, this is our battle cry and front line (from Chris Hedges, citing Jean-Paul Sartre), "We don't fight fascism because we expect to win -- we fight fascism because it is fascism." 

In the ‘old normal’ our ‘deathstyle’ was pitifully shallow and vain: beyond event planning and ceremony for our exit event, the very idea of our own death was irrelevant to our lifestyles as we lived them day in, day out, 24 x 7. In the ‘new (MELEE-R6) normal,’ this is turned upside-down and inside-out: the truth and reality of our imminent death entirely beyond our control is now the defining fact of life itself, i.e., we now must live our deathstyles day in, day out, 24 x 7. Some may choose denial as their deathstyle, others may abide in delusions of scientific, technological, social, political, cultural, or in some other hopium den of escapist delusion.

At the end of our day, I suspect Guy McPherson has it right: Nature Bats Last. It’s the bottom of the ninth already, and the score has been Nature ∞, Humanity 0 from the top of the first. After all, the rules of the game are written in the causal laws of the cosmos, and despite our delusion that we actually are sapient and sentient wisdom-loving beings, we’ve done nothing but try to cheat our way through those rules since we took the field to play the game of life. At the end of the cosmic day, from the Big Bang to the Big Crunch, the whimper of our coming and going will amount to a chirp of zero signal to noise ratio lasting perhaps a xentojiffy on the cosmic clock.[12]

What is my deathstyle? Based on the hypothesis and its corollary above, guided by the hopium of my dissident semiotic Christianity, I primarily stay home with family while taking nonviolent direct action against fascist capitalism (mostly remotely) through volunteer engagement with Deep Adaptation and Extinction Rebellion. Therein I find full meaning and purpose that extend beyond and transcend my mere self into the mystery of all that is, was, or ever will be.[13]

Without those, I’m just another p-zombie among the rest of the dead humans walking. With them, at least I’m semiosically awake and cognizant of Truth and Reality.[14] Better to die with full semiotic awareness and consciousness manifesting dynamic meaning and purpose than to be dead already without even knowing it.

Notes

[1] See Daniel Everett’s 4500-word essay, “The American Aristotle,” Nigel Warburton, ed., Aeon Essays (15 August, 2019). The premier biography of Peirce (at least until Everett completes his in-progress work), is Joseph Brent, Charles Sanders Peirce: A Life, revised and enlarged edition (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998). The image is a drawing from Peirce’s writings, MS117, The Categories, Chapter II (1893). The image is engraved on his memorial monument in Milford, PA where Peirce’s ashes are interred with the remains of his wife Juliette.

[2] The quote defining a sign (representamen) is from Charles S. Peirce, Philosophical Writings of Peirce, Justus Buchler, ed. (Mineola, NY: Dover Publications. Kindle Edition, 2012), 99. This book is also referred to among the community of Peirce scholars by the abbreviation, “PWP.”

[3] George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, Metaphors We Live By (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press, Kindle Edition, 2008); 5, 272-73.

[4] Thomas A. Sebeok, ed., A Perfusion of Signs (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1977), Epigraph; from Charles S. Peirce, The Essential Peirce: Selected Philosophical Writings, Vol. 2 (1893-1913), Peirce Edition Project, ed. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1998), 394.  

[5] PWP, 104.

[6] Exactly this sort of “stellar sign” of an inspiral collision of neutron stars was observed on August 17, 2017 and reported on October 16, 2017. See Jennifer Chu, “GW170817 Press Release: LIGO and Virgo make first detection of gravitational waves produced by colliding neutron stars; discovery marks first cosmic event observed in both gravitational waves and light,” MIT News Office (Boston, MA: LIGO Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory, 16 October 2017); cf. Felicia Chou, "NASA Missions Catch First Light from a Gravitational-Wave Event," Solar System and Beyond (Washington, DC: NASA News release 17-083, October 16, 2017).

[7] Sarah Lewin, “Nobel Prize for Physics: Einstein Would Be ‘Flabbergasted’ by Gravitational Wave Win,” SPACE.com (internet magazine, August 08, 2018). Lewin writes, “During a press conference …, Weiss, who got the Nobel call early this morning (Oct. 3) along with Barish and Thorne, reflected on Einstein's perspective on gravitational waves. Einstein thought these waves in space-time caused by massive bodies' gravitational pull would be an incredible challenge to measure, Weiss said. "He even said that this new thing that he had just invented, or gotten out of his equations, will never play a role in science," he added. "That's what he says, very explicitly."”

[8] The salient point and crucial question here is that the radiation and gravity waves from an event happening 130 million years before human observers formed cognitive interpretants of those phenomena were “stellar (indexical) signs” when the collision event occurred. They did not somehow ‘become signs’ 130 million years later only after humans cognitively discerned and interpreted them as such. They began as cognitively incomplete indexical signs in the moment of that collision and became cognitively completed when those observations and interpretations took place 130 million years later in the sentient and sapient brains and minds of human beings present on Earth. This is a controversial perspective on the ontology and epistemology of signs, however, which I regard as dividing semiotic realism from (a narrow form of semiotic) idealism. Clearly, my position is that of a semiotic realist, and it seems Peirce was as well, for at least those times in his philosophical life when he wrote his “bedazzling sentence” and his succinct categorical differentiations in the relational aspects of icons, indexes, and symbols.

[9] See the list of “key ideas in the conceptual metaphor theory” quoted above from Lakoff and Johnson, Metaphors We Live By, 272-73 (see note 3).

[10] Ibid.

[11] Another blog post here adds background for this: MELEE-R6: What Would Hobson Do?

[12] A ‘xentojiffy’ is the time it hypothetically takes light to hypothetically travel one Fermi (hypothetically the size of a nucleon) in a vacuum. This is the shortest time unit hypothetically possible to understand in physics. All hypothetically smaller time units have no hypothetical use in physics. The next two smallest temporal increments in physics are yoctojiffy (3 x 10-49 sec) and zeptojiffy (3 x 10-46 sec).

[13] My dissident Christianity aligns closely with Chris Hedges as a Christian anarchist. See Chris Hedges, American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America (New York: Free Press, Kindle Edition, 2006); Chris Hedges, “The Suicide of the Liberal Church,” Truthdig (Jan 25, 2016); and speaking at the World Affairs Council of Northern California, Chris Hedges, “On Christian Fascists,” Youtube video (April 3, 2008). The primary influence on my simple Christian faith and semiotically complex Christian theology is the Peircean Christian visionary, Leonard Sweet. See especially, Leonard Sweet, I Am A Follower: The Way, Truth, and Life of Following Jesus (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, Kindle edition, 2012); Leonard Sweet, So Beautiful: Divine Design for Life and the Church (Colorado Springs, CO: David C. Cook, Kindle edition, 2009); and Leonard Sweet, Giving Blood: A Fresh Paradigm for Preaching (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, Kindle edition, 2014).

[14] A ‘p-zombie’ is a ‘philosophical zombie,’ i.e. (from Wikipedia): “The philosophical zombie or p-zombie argument is a thought experiment in philosophy of mind and philosophy of perception that imagines a being that, if it could conceivably exist, logically disproves the idea that physical substance is all that is required to explain consciousness. Such a zombie would be indistinguishable from a normal human being but lack conscious experience, qualia, or sentience.[1] For example, if a philosophical zombie were poked with a sharp object it would not inwardly feel any pain, yet it would outwardly behave exactly as if it did feel pain. The thought experiment sometimes takes the form of imagining a zombie world, indistinguishable from our world, but lacking first person experiences in any of the beings of that world.” Cf. Robert Kirk, "Zombies," in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2019 Edition), Edward N. Zalta (ed.): “Zombies in philosophy are imaginary creatures designed to illuminate problems about consciousness and its relation to the physical world. Unlike the ones in films or witchcraft, they are exactly like us in all physical respects but without conscious experiences: by definition there is ‘nothing it is like’ to be a zombie. Yet zombies behave just like us, and some even spend a lot of time discussing consciousness.”