The Modern Theory of Cognition [1 ed.] 1527569357, 9781527569355

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The Modern Theory of Cognition

This book is the continuation of two previous titles issued by Cambridge Scholars: A theory of General Semiotics (2015) and From Semiotics towards the Philosophical Metaphysics (2017). In the first book the author spoke about semiotics proper; in the second, how his semiotic views led him to the philosophy of knowledge. This book is devoted to philosophy itself. It presents the philosophy of cognition in a new light, speaking of the three consecutive periods of cognitive activity during our evolution as a civilization, and describes implications of this theory when it is applied in practical life.

The Modern Theory of Cognition By

Abraham Solomonick

The Modern Theory of Cognition By Abraham Solomonick This book first published 2021 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2021 by Abraham Solomonick All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-5275-6935-7 ISBN (13): 978-1-5275-6935-5

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction ...................................................................................... 1 One ................................................................................................... 6 How I Define what Philosophy Is Two................................................................................................. 17 What is Ontological Reality? How it Originated and Developed? Three ............................................................................................... 41 What is Semiotic Reality? How it Originated and Developed? Four ................................................................................................ 51 Paradigm of Semiotics and Logics in Sign Systems Five ................................................................................................. 63 Classification of Signs through their Sign Systems Six................................................................................................... 73 Structuralism as the Only Way of Extracting New Knowledge with the Help of Signs Seven .............................................................................................. 91 Imagination and Rational Mind Eight ............................................................................................... 99 On Virtual Reality Nine .............................................................................................. 120 On Metathinking

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Table of Contents

Ten ................................................................................................ 125 The Algorithm of Scientific Investigation Eleven ........................................................................................... 147 ³&RQWLQXLW\ļ'LVFUHHWQHVV´LQ2QWRORJ\ and in Related to it Semiotic Reality Twelve .......................................................................................... 165 Collaboration of the Three Layers of Being Thirteen ........................................................................................ 179 On Visuality Fourteen ........................................................................................ 197 Notion of “Notions´ Fifteen ........................................................................................... 205 What Happens with a Sign System, when it Fulfills its Aim (On the Example of the Earth Cartography) Sixteen .......................................................................................... 229 Summing Up: 50 Theses on Knowledge, Sciences and Education

INTRODUCTION

The modern philosophy of knowledge, in my opinion, is in a deep crisis. It endlessly repeats the assets of traditional approaches to cognition, laid down by the ancient Greeks, and is guided by the metaphysics adopted at the same time. Therefore, in some cases, it is either openly rejected by modern professional philosophers and scientists of other specialties, or is silently ignored. I will cite only two examples of a critical attitude to the existing philosophy of knowledge. One of them belongs to the outstanding scientist of our time, the recently deceased Stephen Hawking, and the second – to the well-known philosopher Susan Haack. When I opened Stephen Hawking and Leonard Mlodinov’s book, “The Grand Design”, I was literally taken aback from the very first lines, because I read there the following statement: “Traditionally these are questions for philosophy, but philosophy is dead (italics is mine – A.S.). Philosophy has not kept up with modern developments in science, particularly physics. Scientists have become the bearers of the torch of discovery in our quest for knowledge. The purpose of this book is to give the answers that are suggested by recent discoveries and theoretical advances. They lead us to a new picture of the universe and our place in it that is very different from the traditional one, and different even from the picture we might have painted just a decade or two ago...” 1

I was discouraged by the words that “philosophy is dead” today. One of the leading physicists of the planet, an outstanding preacher and pro-herald of scientific discoveries of the last decades, states that today’s philosophy does not help him to interpret the latest data on the structure of the universe and the role of man in the overall picture of the world. After all, people have been engaged in philos1

Hawking S. & Mlodinov L. The Grand Design. London, Bantam Books, 2001, p. 13.

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Introduction

ophy for a few thousand years, and even to-day a lot of people claim to fulfill their philosophical duty in explaining the latest scientific achievements. Yet, on reflection, I understood that the authors of the book are to a certain extent right with their adjudication – for contemporary physicists and different other professionals the ancient philosophical views are not necessary. They simply do not need them, because the conclusions of scholars and the existing philosophical postulates coincide to a very small extent – they sort of going parallel without intersecting with each other. Most often, philosophers simply take the latest achievements of scientists and try to adapt them post factum to existing philosophical constructions. What can give such an approach to stimulate new discoveries? And, whether is it necessary for science, which basically feeds on its own internal sources, its own latest innovations and their introduction into practical life? However, the conclusion that scientists themselves, within the framework of their specific science, become the bearer of philosophical knowledge exclusively, does not suit me. From this follows that physicists will give a picture of the world in the light of the postulates they derived, biologists will present their interpretation to us, scientists of other specialties will add additional shades to it, etc. How to summarize such different points of view and such a patchwork knowledge into a common picture of the existing world for all people? We just get a variety of dishes that will be impossible to bring together into a digestible whole. And again, the whole philosophy will remain a simple interpreter of the results already obtained, but in no way a pre – conceived menu with appropriate criteria for the selection of dishes. Philosophy, fortunately, has not concealed anywhere, neither it disappeared at all. A vivid proof of this is the same book by Hawking and Mlodinov, which I quoted above. It belongs in the same measure to both physics and philosophy; only it simply interprets the latest achievements of physics, trying to give them a general philosophical character. In fact, the authors are trying to create modern philosophy instead of the old one, which does not suit them, but they do it exclusively on the material of physics and the sciences adjacent to it. This approach seems to me to be insufficient and not covering those philosophical revelations to which one can

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arrive, focusing on the general scientific approach to the design of modern philosophy, which is based not only on the conclusions of specific sciences. Without denying the importance of new physical results, including the achievements of cosmology and some other scientific fields, I believe that, concentrating only on them, we will not be able to formulate the necessary philosophical generalizations concerning human existence as a whole. This requires creating a new type of philosophy based on postulates others than before. By the way, some professional philosophers hold the same point of view. In support of my assertions I can refer to the long campaign that is being pursued for, so to speak, “saving philosophy from its final disappearance from the scientific arena” by the philosopher from Miami – Susan Haack. In her recent article, “The Genuine Problem: Can Philosophy Be Saved?” She writes: Yes, something has rotted into the very essence of philosophy. According to the remark of my colleague: “Our profession is in rapid decline (in a spin)”. To the question “How long can this fall go on?” the answer was: “To heaven itself”.2

The reason for the trouble Haack considers the following: How did this happen? Some of the problems are the result of changes in the management of universities affecting the whole academy: the burgeoning bureaucracy, the ever – increasing stress on “productivity,” the ever-spreading culture of grants – and – research – projects, the ever-growing reliance on hopelessly flawed surrogate measures of the quality of intellectual work, the obsession with “prestige,” and so on. Some of the problems are the result of changes in academic publishing: the ever-more-extensive reach of enormous, predatory presses that treat authors as fungible content – providers whose rights in their work they can gobble up and sell on, the ever-increasing intrusiveness of copy – editors dedicated to ensuring that everyone write the same deadly, deadpan academic prose, the endless demands of a time-and energy-wasting

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Susan Haack (born 1945) is Distinguished Professor in the Humanities, Cooper Senior Scholar in Arts and Sciences, Professor of Philosophy, and Professor of Law at the University of Miami.

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Introduction peer – review process by now not only relentlessly conventional but also, sometimes, outright corrupt, and so forth.3

Haack cites many other important reasons for the declining popularity of today’s philosophy, and she also criticizes calls to replace philosophy with simple replacements from the achievements of natural scientific disciplines: I don’t believe either that we can simply hand philosophical questions over to the sciences to resolve, or that only questions resoluble by the sciences are legitimate.4

The book you are reading is devoted to the creation of a new form and content of the philosophy of knowledge. Having practicing semiotics for several decades, I decided to contribute to the construction of modern philosophy of cognition, which is significantly different from the previous one (I want to emphasize that I deal only with problems of the philosophy of knowledge – epistemology). Besides, I am going to build a philosophy of cognition which would not only be an interpreter of the results already achieved in various sciences, but that would give initial impulses for the organization of newly undertaken research in any branch of science, not only in physics or another solitary field of knowledge. Along with the substantial novelty in the contents of the book, I want to underline the style of presentation of the problems discussed in it. The book is written in a popular format and is addressed to a non – professional of the public in relation to the philosophy. Although it will be a question of very serious questions concerning the very foundations of our existence, it should be understandable for the ordinary and far from discussing the philosophical problems audience. I will try to write clearly, concisely and clearly, which is not synonymous with a simplified interpretation of the subject of discussion. The reader may be incompetent in philosophy, but he ought to be interested enough to understand what is being said and try to get into the essence of the matter. Bearing in 3

Haack Susan. The Real Question: Can Philosophy Be Saved? At: http://againstprofphil.org/susan-haacks-the-real-question-canphilosophy-be-saved/ 4

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mind what has been mentioned, I proceed to discuss the substantive issues of our theme in the following chapters.

ONE HOW I DEFINE WHAT PHILOSOPHY IS

By philosophy, I understand the reasoning (discourse) about the basic parameters of a certain scientific or even some practical problem, expressed logically and with convincing argumentation. The problem may be central to human existence or into secondary plane (say, whether it is useful to wash the feet before bedtime) – it does not matter. It is important that it be correctly delivered and logically reasoned. Thus, in my understanding of philosophy, the emphasis is not on the importance of the topic under discussion, but on the nature of the discussion – whether it is an accidentally thrown remark on a minor issue for the speaker (or in writing), or a detailed and convincing presentation of the subject matter. In the latter case, in my opinion, one can speak of a philosophical approach to the topic touched upon and of philosophizing in general. Philosophy exists even when not only correct and scientifically confirmed views are expressed (although they are, of course, preferable), but always, when the reasoning represents a complete and convincingly well-founded position of something that affirms a person, the so-called common sense. Most of the reasoning of this kind may not end with a practically significant result; however, they also belong to philosophy. Thus, my understanding of philosophy completely coincides with the meaning of the concept of “philosophy”, which the ancient Greeks gave to him, when they came up with this word. Phileo (love) + sophia (wisdom) simply signified aversion to idle talk and the need for an intelligent person to turn to a reasoned discussion, using suitable arguments. From the standpoint of today’s knowledge accumulated by mankind the views and arguments of the ancient Greeks sometimes seem naive to us, if not absurd, but from the position of the level of knowledge that was achieved in their time,

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they, of course, belong to philosophy. The desire of the ancient Greeks to seriously discuss any problems of life distinguished them from other peoples of the time and provided them with a place in the pantheon of human wisdom. It also awakened interest in this kind of reasoning throughout the entire subsequent history of civilization, which is why philosophy firmly occupied such an honorable place among the disciplines studied – both in amateur disputes and in the course of professional occupations. Yet this continued only until the time, when the arguments could have remained not necessarily scientifically confirmed, but convincing enough for the adoption of a thesis. When the same thesis was finally given a scientific explanation, philosophy was forced to retreat, leaving the relevant space to a corresponding science. Gradually, philosophy retreated further and further to the periphery; and now the time has come when interest in the problems of general philosophy has completely disappeared in sufficiently advanced sciences. Does this mean that philosophy should disappear altogether, replaced from the scientific arena by the achievements of the concrete sciences? From my point of view – not at all. And this is due to two circumstances: a) because, although in some sciences its shagreen skin is reduced, new problems must be put on the agenda, which, before receiving their final scientific interpretation, should be content with philosophical explanations (this situation will always exist); b) it is possible to modernize the old philosophical ideas, making them relevant to our time (this book is just dedicated to this aspect of the question). We will illustrate the said with some examples, firstly, about the need for philosophy in the development of specific sciences. Let us discuss Strabo (c. 64/63 BC. E. – c. 23/24 AD.), the author of the almost completely preserved “Geography” in 17 books, which serves as the best source for studying the geography of the ancient world. Here is how he imagined the space of the Earth known in his time, which was then called ecumene:

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One ... First of all, I will say that we and our predecessors (one of whom was Hipparch) were right in considering Homer the founder of the science of geography. After all, Homer surpassed all people of the ancient and new times not only with the high merit of his poetry, but, as I think, with knowledge of the conditions of social life. By virtue of this, he not only took care of depicting events, but in order to learn as many facts as possible and tell descendants about them, he sought to understand them with the geography of both individual countries and the entire inhabited world, both land and sea. Otherwise, he could not have reached the extreme limits of the inhabited world, depicting them completely in his description. The fact that the inhabited world is an island can be inferred from the demonstrations of our feelings and from experience. After all, everywhere, where only man can reach the limits of the earth, there is the sea, and we call this sea the Ocean. For example, the eastern part of the inhabited world (Indian) and western (Iberian and Mavrusian) can be completely rounded and continue the journey for a long distance along the northern and eastern regions. Homer knows and accurately describes the most remote parts of the inhabited world and what surrounds it; he is also perfect in the areas of the Mediterranean Sea ...5

From the above passage it becomes clear that the ancient Greeks and Romans knew only a small part of our planet. Their included the range of the Mediterranean Sea and Europe adjoining it from the north, and from the east some lands to India. They considered the round and surrounded by water, which was designated as the Ocean. Strabo calls the source of his conclusions “the expressions of our feelings and experience,” which was extremely progressive for that time, but since this experience extended only to a small part of the planet, the rest was left to the imagination and was a projection of already known geographical facts. Thus, the central part of “Geography” was a more or less authentic description of the territory known to the Greeks and Romans, and everything else was an extrapolation of already known data to still unexplored lands, which 5 The text is cited from: Strabo. GEOGRAPHY in 17 books. Reprint re production of the text of the 1964 edition. M .: Ladomir, 1994. At: http://ancientrome.ru/antlitr/t.htm?a=1260010000 (June 2018). The translation from Russian is mine – A.S.

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were interpreted as a natural extension, similar to already familiar material. All subsequent geography was a study of previously unknown to Europeans territories, a description in which the previous conclusions were gradually given way to the newly established data. This continued until our time, when the planet turned out to be thoroughly studied and where there was no place for the former imaginary geographical philosophy. However, new unexplored areas and, above all that which is called the cosmos, have yet to be mastered and explored. Today, there are quite new philosophical arguments on this subject, still not supported by established experience, which are supposed to be replaced by solid knowledge in the future. And then again new philosophical problems will arise – and so on, ad infinitum, simply because our universe has no boundaries. The following example concerns ideas about the structure of matter and the smallest particle of all things. As you know, Democritus spoke about this, and he introduced the concept of the atom, which means in Greek “indivisible” (that is, it cannot be further divided). With Democritus, an atom is necessarily an indivisible small particle of matter, which, by virtue of its indivisibility, is eternal. The only property of an atom is always to be: after all, it has nothing to disintegrate into. Therefore, the atoms, according to Democritus, are the origin, the world basis, the real reality. However, due to the small size we cannot see them. How is it known about their existence? Thanks to the thought we conjecture that the world consists of a multitude of atoms; they compose what we see, which are things.6

Though the atoms are invisible, because they are very small, they are still material. On this basis representatives of the Soviet Marxist-Leninist ideology declared Democritus the father of materialism, which opposed idealistic philosophy. In fact, this is not true, because the atoms in the teachings of Democritus embodied the idea of the origin. This idea was almost leading in ancient Greek natural philosophy – that was a principle that underlid all things. 6

At: http://eurasialand.ru/txt/gusev/15.htm The translation from Russian is mine – A.S.

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Thales had water as such a source, Anaximenes had air, Anaximander had infinite matter (apeiron), Pythagoras had a number, Heraclitus had “world law” (Logos). In Democritus, by analogy with the aforementioned philosophers, these are invisible atoms that revolve in emptiness, collide and form all that is visible on earth – a typical idealistic construction of a purely mechanistic nature. As subsequent science has shown, atoms are by no means indivisible and are not a part, universal for all other things. Came their scientific description, and purely theoretical construction of Democritus was ordered to disappear. This does not mean that the philosophy on this issue has ended its existence. Based on the study of atoms and its constituent particles, a new philosophy of building and functioning of microparticles, quantum mechanics, appeared, which changed our ideas about the world and replaced the old mechanistic ideas of the ancients with the modern description of the world order. I believe that such a “fate of the Phoenix” is typical for the philosophy of knowledge, and that it will constantly accompany the development of scientific thought. That is, philosophical constructions will be constantly checked by new researches and either confirmed or disproved. In the latter case, the previous statements will be rejected, and new philosophical beginnings will take their place. In continuation of our discussion one could cite many other examples, say, the first theory of diseases (humoral), derived by the ancient Greeks and based on the balance of fluids in the human body. This theory has existed for more than a thousand years and was a theoretical justification of practical medicine in many European countries. In fact, this whole theory and the practice based on it had no real basis and today it is mentioned only as a curious historical episode. All these and similar facts reveal the same content of the corresponding stage in the development of the philosophy of knowledge in ancient Greece: it was no longer religious in the full sense of the word, but also not scientific in the current understanding of today. Most of them were manifestations of the new stage in the development of the theory of knowledge, which was called metaphysical by Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857). This stage no longer rested on religious dogma, but was not yet focused entirely on the purely objective content of the subject of study, revealed by scientific means. This was a transitional stage between the mythological

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(religious) stage of acquiring knowledge and the scientific approach to it. Comte wrote about this stage of cognition: It should be noted that in the metaphysical stage the speculative part is at first extremely exaggerated due to the persistent desire to argue instead of to observe ...7

This stage relies on pure theorizing, which by analogy is derived from things usually observed by simple induction: you see this and that, and therefore, in our case, the same thing happens. Thinking by analogy is necessary for normal human behavior, but the fact is that the very analogy in the definition of natural laws for the ancient Greeks was the most limited and gave very few chances to come to the correct conclusions. They simply knew very little: in the case of geography, knowledge extended to a small territory of their habitat, and in the case of the humoral theory of diseases, they were completely based on pure guesses, since the structure of the human body and the laws of its functioning were not sufficiently studied. Therefore, I call the course of their thinking a simple mechanistic transfer of events known by the eye to new areas of research. Such course of reasoning often dominates the daily practice of communication, but it is absolutely not suitable in science; It was the task of scientists to get rid of it in the transition to truly scientific ways of acquiring knowledge. I will allow myself to cite as a concrete example of ancient Greek philosophizing an excerpt from the work of Plutarch (c. 46 AD – c. 127), entitled “Almost everything about the Moon” or “About the face seen on the disk of the Moon”. Sulla is one of the participants in the conversation, but most of the thoughts belong to the author of the essay: It fits in with my tale, – noted Sulla, – and is borrowed from it. But, of course, if you have something to add to these, all accessible and all told opinions about the face of the moon, then I suppose I will listen to it with pleasure and immediately.” – “Why not add,” I replied, “when the incomprehensibility of these opinions make us turn to the ancients. After all, as with long – term illnesses, people, 7

At: http://rushist.com/index.php/philosophical-articles/2930-filosofiyaogyusta-konta-kratko

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One abandoning ordinary medications and habitual lifestyles, turn to cleansing rites, talismans and dreams, and in intractable, not providing an outcome of research, it is necessary to test new ways, not to look down on them, but just to take the old and in every way seek out the truth. For example, you, of course, immediately see that the absurd assertion that the image seen on the moon is the result of a painful state of vision, which cannot stand due to the weakness of [its] luster, which we call blinding. It does not take into account that such a phenomenon should have occurred rather from the sun, which is acute and burning (for example, Empedocles well points to the difference between the two stars: “Poorly ripe sun and gentle moon,” calling the moon gentle and painless). In addition, it does not explain why those who have poor and weak eyesight do not notice any variety of figure on the moon, and the moon shines for them like a smooth and full disk; on the contrary, those who have a strong and sharp vision, better distinguish the details, understand the facial features and better grasp the diversity. I suppose, on the contrary, it would be obvious that the image should be sharper where the damage is stronger, if only the phenomenon was a painful condition of the eye. The irregularity of [illumination] also speaks against this: the face represents not a continuous, consistent shadow, but, as Agehesianakt aptly put it: The whole [moon] circumference shines with fire, and in the middle It looks like a girl’s eye, dark blue, And smooth brow; which is quite like a face. And, indeed, the shadow spaces that go around all fit under the light ones and, conversely, the latter close to the first, even being cut off from them, and generally intertwine with the others in a way that is similar to a hand – drawn picture. In this circumstance Aristotle, apparently, not without reason, stands against your Clearch. After all, Clearch is “your” because he was a friend of ancient Aristotle, although he perverted many of the provisions of peripatetics.8

It took the work of hundreds of ingenious minds to get rid of such a primitive approach, in order to fully switch to the “positive” 8

At: http://selena-luna.ru/knigi-j-like-vidimom-na-diske-luny

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(by Comte’s definition) experimental research in specific sciences. Only they can give us an objective picture of what lies at the basis of a particular science. Such is the philosophical content of any particular science, which in its development is compelled to feed on philosophical arguments. At any stage of the study we cannot know everything about the subject under study, and then we close these lacunae with philosophical arguments. Philosophical nourishment will be needed at any stage of scientific progress, and it manifests itself in each individual science in its own way. In mathematics, the theory of sets and transfinite numbers of George Cantor (1845 – 1918) arose; and at first it did not fit into the system of former mathematical views. It was opposed by a very serious opposition, which ultimately did not work; and Kantor’s theory won its place in the standard model of modern mathematics. Accordingly, some philosophical constructions concerning purely mathematical problems have changed. The theory of Darwin (1809 – 1882) appeared in biology, which completely changed the entire philosophical landscape of this and related sciences, still, only inside this and the sciences adjoining it. So I call this hypostasis of philosophy a concrete philosophy of knowledge, since it refers only to a limited range of scientific research Along with this kind of philosophy, there is general philosophy of knowledge. It concerns the framework of any cognition and highlights its integral parts in a complete scheme and complete construction. The subject of this book will be just the problems of the general theory of knowledge. The experience of building a general theory from its individual applications is ubiquitous; it is a routine procedure of scientific knowledge. There were, for example, various manifestations of electricity, they were investigated and the basic laws and dimensions of this phenomenon were derived in general (Faraday, James Maxwell et al.). Another example: there are several thousand natural languages in the world and there is no single language for everyone. But studying the characteristics of existing languages and dialects, one can deduce the basic laws of a hypothetical single language and, choosing the most promising variant, try to build an artificial language that could serve everyone. Such an attempt was made by Lazar Zamenhof (1859 – 1917), and

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appeared Esperanto – a very successful and compact language, easy to learn and use. In my scientific baggage, there is also experience of this kind: from branch semiotics (signs in separate sciences and professional occupations) I derived theoretical sources for building “general semiotics”, which I consider my main scientific achievement. I want to do something similar for the general philosophy of cognition, but with one significant amendment. I am not going to recreate the philosophy of knowledge ab initio (from the very beginning), as in the case of writing general semiotics, since the philosophy of knowledge in its original version already exists and is well known. Unfortunally, it is used exclusively in its original form, which I consider to be wrong and outdated – and that is the main reason for the unpopularity of philosophy in the modern scientific community. Therefore, I see my task not as the creation of a philosophical theory of knowledge from zero, but the modernization of the old version for the new conditions of scientific research that have appeared and existed for the last several hundred years. The beginnings of the general theory of knowledge were laid down again by the ancient Greeks. They appeared in the works of Plato, Aristotle, and other philosophers; later they were repeatedly discussed in scientific works throughout the centuries and remained unshakable in their foundations until our time. As far as we know, Plato was the first to proclaim that in creating new knowledge one cannot rely only on obvious, observable facts; the latter should be generalized and treated as a general truth. Only in this case can we predict events that have not yet happened. The thing did not exist, but we can already indicate it as a general scheme of the phenomena under study. And here Plato used the mechanistic thinking common for the ancient Greek philosophy, which forced him to make ideas real. Like Democritus in relation to atoms, Plato spoke of his ideas as prototypes of everything that exists, and even indicated that they were gathered in one place over the heavens, which was called Hyperurania. Plato believes that our thinking spirit goes back to the “ideas”, the eternal prototype of the existing. The world of ideas, according to

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the teachings of Plato, exists independently, separately from the world of things and from human thoughts. Their existence is perpetual calm. The world of ideas resides in a special region of space, separate from the sensible world, supersensible.9

When a person dies, his soul leaves the dead body and goes on a journey through heaven. There it visits Hyperurania and becomes acquainted with the immortal ideas of all things. Having received a new mortal shell, the soul guides the replenishment of our mental baggage: recalling the immortal idea, it gives it to the surrounding objects and events that people face. From here, they say, similar objects and phenomena, similar to all the others like them, appear – the same things performing the same functions. Beautiful and logical, but how far from reality! However, this doctrine gave rise to the whole philosophy of knowledge; it continues the ancient philosophical tradition of mental dominance that has existed from the time immemorial until now. Traditionally it is believed, that it gave rise to that branch of philosophy, which was called idealism. The morals at that time in Ancient Greece were quite tolerant, and many philosophers, co-temporaries of Plato or those who lived after him, allowed themselves to disagree with him. Thus, for example, Epicurus (342/341 BC – 271/270 BC) saw the foundations of cognition in a completely different way: The main and primary criterion of truth Epicurus saw in our sense data. Epicurus was quite definite – thus, in a letter to Herodotus (meaning one of his students, and not the “father of history,” who was a century and a half older than Epicurus. – A. S.), he insisted that “we must hold onto sensations in everything…” Epicurus allows himself to disagree both with Plato and with Aristotle who saw in the mind something other than sensations, the main source of our knowledge of the world. Epicurus does not admit such a second source of human knowledge about the world and about himself. ... all other criteria of knowledge, except sensations, are secondary to him. Old knowledge also resulted not from experience in general, but only from its own experience, allowing us to better navigate the world around us, to recognize objects similar 9

At: http://rushist.com/index.php/philosophical-articles/2214-mir-idej-imir-veshchej-u-platona

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One and different among themselves... Thus, our knowledge supposedly was “anticipated” by knowledge that we had already received from previous sensations: “Knowing in advance” does not mean, as in Plato, that comparing two objects, for example, in length, implies the existence of an overactive idea of equality. “The anticipation was an impression, the source of which had also been sensations.”10

This position of Epicurus later turned into materialism, and in all the following philosophy it constructed the structure, which incarcerated the philosophy of knowledge in a very rigid frame: there is material basis that opposes and precludes its ideal display in our mind. For adherents of idealism, the idea (thought) is decisive and guiding; for the followers of materialistic doctrine, matter is primary. It, and only it, initially and completely subordinates to itself the reflection of matter in the brain. In its extreme terms, this thesis acquires the features of religious worship: “matter is primary, thought is secondary” or “being determines consciousness”. Sometimes it even turns into a brutally ideological slogan like “whoever is not with us is against us”. I hasten to assure the readers that I completely object to the opposition of material vs. ideal as an initial point of reference. The contradiction really exists and it defines the content of human existence. I object only to the naive interpretation of this kind of opposition, against considering it as hostile to each other, and (what is very important) against the primitive for our time understanding of the material world as a single and indivisible entity. About two thousand years have passed since the ancient Greek civilization and for us to continue to consider the material world as one and indissoluble means a death sentence for today’s philosophy of knowledge. What I mean, you will understand from further discussion.

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Chanishev A.N. Course of lectures on ancient and middle-aged philosophy. Moscow, Highschool Publishing House, 1991, pp. 80-81. The translation from Russian is mine – A.S. (ɑɚɧɵɲɟɜ Ⱥ.ɇ. Ʉɭɪɫ ɥɟɤɰɢɣ ɩɨ ɞɪɟɜɧɟɣ ɢ ɫɪɟɞɧɟɜɟɤɨɜɨɣ ɮɢɥɨɫɨɮɢɢ. Ɇɨɫɤɜɚ, «ȼɵɫɲɚɹ ɲɤɨɥɚ», 1991).

TWO WHAT IS ONTOLOGICAL REALITY? HOW IT ORIGINATED AND DEVELOPED?

Naturally, the analysis of ontological reality (that is, our material environment and ourselves) constitutes the first and main stage of this study. Not a single living organism, even the most simple and underdeveloped, can remain indifferent to the surrounding reality. An interesting experiment was invented by an American biologist Smith: A slipper (single cell organism) was placed in a narrow tube with a microscopic section. The tube section was so small that in order to move in it in the direction of the biotic agent (light), this microscopic body had to change its position, hitting the tube walls. At the beginning of the experiment, it took the slipper about 3 – 5 minutes to turn, but if such experiments were repeated many times over 10 – 12 hours, the turn began to be performed much faster, and at the end, it only took 1 – 2 seconds. Thus, under the influence of new conditions, a new “skill” was developed, which proceeded 180 – 200 times faster than the initial reaction.11

And this is in a unicellular organism that does not even have a nervous system and which responds to external stimuli with its entire protoplasm. The creation and complication of the nervous system contributed to the acceleration and fundamental improvement of all species reactions to external stimuli. This process got the best device in humans, where it was crowned with the ability to direct observation and analysis of impressions coming from outside. Moreover, we have long since passed from passive observation and 11

Luria A.R. Lectures on General Phychology. St. Peterburg, “Peter Publishing House”, 2004, p. 38.

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perception to the creation of special conditions for this, that is, to experiment. Apparently, living organisms could be distinguished from non – living objects precisely by the criterion of response to stimuli coming from outside: it is absent with inanimate matter; in living things, starting with plants, it is present. Gradually, the ability of people to observe and analyze the ascertained facts develops into an organized process of learning and knowledge, which is rightly considered to be our main asset. I wrote above that any nation, tribe, people sought to explain how the universe in which they found themselves and lived was conceived and developed. Here are some myths about this, borrowed from S. V. Morozov’s generalizing work, which brought them together for comparison and presentation. In ancient Egypt, it was believed that the Earth was a rectangular valley in the middle of which the Nile flows. The valley is surrounded by mountains. There the Heavenly Nile flows, and the prow of the Sun – god is gliding on it. The flat iron sky rests on four pillars In ancient Babylon (about 1500 BC), the Earth was represented as a convex island floating in the world ocean. The sky descends on the earth’s surface – a solid stone vault to which the stars, planets are attached; the Sun and the Moon move along it. In the morning the sun rises to the sky through one gate, and in the evening descends through the other. The sky separates the lower waters, that is, the ocean surrounding the earth, from the upper, rainwater. The sky itself consists of three floors. The gods live there. The Earth also consists of three layers. At the top – people, on the average – the god of the sea and wisdom Ea, at the bottom – the kingdom of the dead. Due to the combat between the gods, the body of the goddess Tiamat was divided into two parts, and from them the sky and the earth were created. The sun, the moon, the planets, the stars are fortified in the sky Among the ancient Slavs, white light (the world) is born from darkness. In the darkness there appears originally only Rod – the progenitor, the Father of the gods. He gives birth to the kingdom of heaven, and under it – what is down from it. The umbilical cord is cut by a rainbow ... the Ocean – Sea is separated from the heavenly

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waters by a stone firmament; Three vaults are erected in the sky, the light is separated from the darkness, the truth – from the false. Rod then gives birth to Earth, but it falls down into the abyss and is buried in the Ocean. Then the Sun, the Moon and the stars are born; dawns, nights, winds; rain, snow, hail, thunder with lightning. These are all parts of Rod’s body. Next, heavens are born, and all that is lower. Rod is the father and mother of the gods, he was born by himself and will be born again. He is all gods and all of the heavens, what was and what will be, what is born, and what will be born. In other words, Rod is the past, the present, the future, which are simultaneous. In ancient China, the Earth was considered to be a flat rectangle. Above it on the pillars is a round sky. The angry dragon bent the central pillar, the Earth leaned to the east, that is why all rivers flow eastward. And the heavens leaned onto the other side so the glowing stars move from east to west. Chines thought that each day had its own sun; consequently, Day and Sun were marked with one hieroglyph. Much later, on the eve of our era, there appeared a new myth. In the ancient time, the Earth and the Heavens were one chaotic matter. This something (like an egg) split after 18000 years into a light (sky) and dark (earth) halves. Inside the egg was Pangu, a short man dressed in a bear skin. On the head he had two horns. In one hand he held a hammer, and in the other – a chisel. With their help, during 18,000 years he separated heavens from the earth; He created the sun, the moon and the stars. Pangu was the creator of the universe. He himself was generated by chaos and extracted from there by yang and yin.12

Enough is enough. My quotes relate to the mythological perception of the world, peculiar to any people who are in the initial stage of knowledge of the surrounding reality. Subsequently, this kind of reality gained the name of ontological reality – from the Greek words ontos (real, existing) + logos (concept, teaching). As I wrote above, according to Auguste Comte, who is considered to be the 12

Morozov S.V. Volumetric approach to the consideration of models of the Solar system. In: “Reality and Subject”, 2001, vol. 5, no. 4, p. 49-54. Rendering from Russian is mine – A.S. At: https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=swkFW8anOcL3UL_ruK gM&q

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founder of modern sociology, the mythological thinking was the universal first step in the occurrence of human knowledge. It, of course, refers to the pre-scientific stage of development of the spiritual sphere of our being. It is important to note that an undeveloped consciousness was still focused on some important details taken from real life – on the nature of the place where a particular people lived, on the visible Sun, Moon, stars, on their movement in space and on some of the observed and characteristic properties for them. Real objects and events demanded explanations from the seeking human mind, which was relevant to every nation, although the explanations themselves were the fruit of rich human fantasy and were mechanically transferred from some known material to unknown. According to the same Auguste Comte, the human consciousness passed through three successive stages in its development. Investigating the development of the human mind in various fields, Comte derived the law of three stages of its development, or three different theoretical states: theological, metaphysical, and positive. This means that the human mind, due to its nature, uses first theological (religious) thinking, where spontaneously arising functions openly dominate, even having no evidence. Then comes metaphysical (philosophical, abstract – theoretical) thinking, with the usual predominance of abstractions or entities taken as reality. And, finally, a positive (scientific) method of thinking. Each of these three states forms the basis of the entire social organization and permeates all aspects of social life. According to Comte, the state of technology, crafts, industry, etc. also depends on the general state of human knowledge. The law of the three stages of historical development is at the same time the law of the development of all mankind.13

The ancient Greek philosophy, judging by the works of its most prominent representatives, is a typical example of the second stage of Auguste Comte – i.e. metaphysical, when the ontological reality was presented much richer and more diverse than at the mythological stage. It appears not only more reasonable, but also proposed for broad discussion with possible non – coincident results. There is no 13

At: http://www.newsocio.ru/nspgs-539-1.html

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longer a single obligatory perception of the phenomena studied, as at the theological stage; they, accordingly, are presented as problems, and not as matter that is not subject to discussion, with a single – orthodox and categorical – conclusion. At this stage of development of human consciousness, it was already possible to discuss the idea and express different views on it, but the argument remained primitive, borrowed from ordinary life experience, and not from the immanent properties of the material under study. I have already given an example of such an argument in Democritus for the selection of the smallest and further not given to produce material particles – atoms: divide and divide, until you can continue to do this physically. Approximately the same was the course of reasoning in Epicurus considering the theory of Plato’s ideas. He agreed that common for all identical examples ideas existed (many thinkers disagreed with this). Yet he said that they were not in Hyperurania, somewhere above the heavens, as Plato argued: “All objects exist as if in two ways: by themselves, primarily, and, secondly, as the finest real images constantly flowing from them.” The latter were called by him “idols”. Those “idols” existed as objectively as the things that emitted them. Here again, we observe a mechanistic approach: everything happens simply by the example of natural and observable processes. “The idea of communion with other similar objects and phenomena is invisibly present in each individual incarnation, – said Epicurus, – and when a person sees a single copy, this idea invisibly flies to him in his thought.” That is, it exists in material embodiment, and in this modus it moves into our brain – a sort of naive materialism, being characteristic of the whole of ancient Greek philosophy. It is curious that the Pythagoreans, who took numbers as the basis of all things, imagined them quite sensually, having visual formats. Thus, for them unit appeared as a point, two as a line, three, as a plane, four as a body (the first body was a pyramid). The Pythagoreans distinguished linear, flat and solid numbers. The same was with Plato: our soul, which after the death of a person flies in the open and visits Hyperurania, where it gets acquainted with ideas common to a whole class of objects. This is idealism, but with the same primitive filling. There was nothing surprising in this; the Greeks still knew very little and explained,

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relying on what they knew, and what they observed all the time. Nevertheless, it was a decisive step in the advancement from the mythological (religious) era, but, of course, still very far from the current scientific reasoning, when not only problems are highlighted in a new way, but also the approach to their explanation is based on scientific analysis, and not on human speculative ruminations. Another thing is surprising: mankind, who has long mastered scientific approaches to any problem that has arisen, has so far used in philosophy parameters for discussing scientific problems established by the ancient Greeks. In my opinion, this only harms the cause. After all, in our scientific research we have long ago switched to completely different standards. Starting with Roger Bacon, Galileo Galilei and many others, humanity is constantly trying to build a common advanced scientific paradigm, while in philosophy we are still stubbornly using ancient Greek parameters to analyze any problem; parameters that have long been overcome by the achievements of specific sciences. What do I mean? I want to say that the advancement of individual sciences, which build their paradigms each in its own way, no longer fits with the philosophical approach, which was originally intended for the ancient Greek level of knowledge and was quite sufficient for the science of that time. But times have changed, and we have to sing other songs. In fact, I now touch upon the main issue raised in this book. The philosophy of knowledge, in my deepest conviction, must answer three main questions: What exactly are we studying? Why should we study this? and How should we do this? These three questions are relevant for the construction of any science and they are also cardinal for the general philosophy of knowledge. On the basis of the progress of individual sciences, we are obliged to build the general theory of achievements in the field of acquiring and accumulating knowledge in general – for the whole of humanity at this stage of its development. I argue that the paradigms of specific sciences, where more, where less, reflect breakthroughs in the accumulation of knowledge of this particular scientific branch. But the general branch of the theory of knowledge stopped at the level, which ancient Greek offered for it. In relation to the three stages of the attainment of knowledge proposed by Auguste Comte, this can be deciphered as follows. In

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the mythological period, everything rested on the fantasies and imaginations of people who dealt with such issues. There is not and cannot be any gap between the content of the subject and the methods adopted for this at this first period. In the second stage of acquiring knowledge, advanced thinkers suggested that, along with accepted fantasies (they were all of religious origin), they also focused on obvious life manifestations. They, mainly, operated on them in their reasoning – you see and feel this and that and also you see the circumstances that usually accompany them. It means that the first one depends on the second one and it should be considered the cause of the first and the change in it. What natural elements dominate the world? Earth, fire, air, and water – let us lay upon them the function of being the basis of everything and everyone. It was not difficult to defend such a position – there were more than enough examples and there was also enough desire and cunning. After all, it was all wisely, no more. It was enough for several thousand years and would be enough for the same period if, in the course of practical manipulations, people did not reach that stage of argumentation, which was no longer content with simple theorizing. “Why should I blindly believe Aristotle in his description of the human body and the disposition of soul and other objects within it?” – asked Andreas Vesalius, and began secretly dissecting the corpses of animals and people. After years of experience of this kind, he came to know the true structure of the human body and released the first anatomical atlas, becoming the progenitor of modern anatomy. “Why, in fact, should I take Aristotle’s opinion on the belief that the speed of falling objects depends on their weight, and wouldn’t I try to test it by experience?” – thought Galileo and made a series of experiments throwing various objects from a height and measuring the time of their downfall. In this way, he laid the foundation of true mechanics of motion, genuine in the strictly scientific sense of the word. So did scientists in all other sciences. In specially designed experiments, they tracked the manifestations of the phenomena that interested them, built their hypotheses, which, again, were subject to mandatory verification in practice. In this manner humanity has achieved unprecedented success and is constantly moving further. Yet philosophy is marking time, because it is limited by the frame-

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work suitable only for the initial steps of the scientific approach. This is what she says: “What you are researching is material reality. Your thoughts are a necessary idealistic supplement. Their correct ratio will ensure the success of your further progress. Act!” But this is not an operational response, just a calling slogan. Today, this is not enough also because material reality, which was previously perceived as a kind of indissoluble integrity, has become unequal. It consists not only of ontology. In the course of scientific progress, scientists have created semiotic reality and learned how to engage in their studies virtual reality, which was previously unrestricted and subject to any human fantasies and dreams. But, if we take these two new realities into account, doesn’t this change the whole cognitive landscape and will not it give us new resources for scientific planning and organization of all our research activities? Of course, it will, and that is what I shall talk about throughout this book, starting with analysis of the ontological reality in this chapter. So, come on! We will consider as ontological reality our material environment and ourselves. True, the semiotic (sign) reality is also material, but these two incarnations of reality can be easily distinguished from each other by their origin, the topic, which I will discuss below. It seems to me that the above definition of ontological reality should not cause objections. Therefore, the ontological reality is manifested in the form of material objects, phenomena and events around and within us. Appearing in this world, each of us gets in touch with ontological reality and is trying to adapt to it in order to improve self well-being, like the infusorium (slipper) I wrote about above. To adapt to the environment, we are forced to study it and, to the extent possible, not only behave ourselves in accordance with the properties, established in the course of research, but also try to make it most comfortable for our being, that is, to reconstruct it. Take as an example the device of dwellings. Even animals, birds and insects have learned not only to adapt to already prepared shelters from weather and enemies, but also to improve these shelters. Living creatures not only use indentations, burrows and caves to live in them, but also actively improve them. People do it much better; throughout the development of civilization, we have learned to build wonderful homes. The same shifts occur on other fronts of

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adaptation to the reality around us. But this is the second question, and the first one is the question of where did this very ordered reality around us come from? This question has tormented people since ancient times, and the answers that were given sounded differently. In my view, the world in which we live was created by the joint efforts of nature and man. Consider first the first reason.

Nature on Earth before appearance of People In the course of the natural development of the matter, which independently developed on planet Earth before the appearance of living beings on it, it formed itself into some kind of the whole, suitable for normal independent development and birth of more and more intelligent creatures. We are talking about the so-called physical constants, which provide us with normal life on the planet. Such precondition provides us with the rear for a tolerable human habitation on the Earth. It leads to the fact that nature rests on some kind of the immutable laws of its being – they are called the laws of nature and are accessible to human cognition and exposure. It is the knowledge of such laws that allows people to foresee events within certain limits and even partially gives a person the opportunity to change ontological reality. How did this state of affairs arise in the reality around us? The first answer to this question that comes to mind is an appeal to God(s). There are, supposedly, some omnipotent beings who are able to command nature and all life manifestations; they are the ones who share the fate of the planet and everything on it. The undeveloped consciousness initially assumed a multiplicity of gods, then people switched to monotheism and, finally, with the advent of a genuine scientific approach, they prefer to choose a natural causal description of nature and social relations, when analyzing what is happening on Earth and beyond it in space. The standard cosmological model existing today considers development from simple to complex, from subatomic particles to their ever more advanced combinations in various atoms, molecules and in their further material combinations implemented in objects and organisms. The initial particles endowed with certain properties can be grouped into more and more advanced and complex com-

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plexes, which again are endowed with their specific characteristics, and so on – until at first simple living organisms appear, then more and more complex hypostases (from primal to modern homo sapiens). The whole point is that combining simple particles into more complex ones sometimes leads to the option of appearing such combinations, which in turn can be combined into more complex ones, etc. The vast majority of such transitions to the next stage of development end in nothing, only very few combinations remain; and those are capable of further progress and continue the line of existence for such transmutations.

Earth after the appearance of Homo sapiens My initial argument is the postulate that people in this context should be considered as being constantly evolving and evolving. That is, at the beginning of their path on the planet they are not identical to the people in their current form and condition. By the way, the discussion here will be about humanity as a whole, and not about an individual person. An individual person cannot take on the role of God, but humanity can and does. Man appeared in this world as a small and defenseless being, yielding in all respects to many animals that existed at that time and almost helpless before the forces of nature. Only by virtue of his adaptability did he manage to become strong, powerful, and commanding many natural processes. He can hide from rain, hail and snow in houses and buildings created by his hands, wrapped up in warm clothes and protected from natural disasters by other means invented by him, not just invented, but also implemented by him in everyday life. It can move the seas away, dam the rivers and remake the face of the Earth (while in its individual manifestations). He can fly through the air faster and in greater safety than birds, swim in water more comfortable and swifter than fish, bite into the ground faster than any shrew. Finally, today he can fly over to other celestial bodies and dream of populating them. And all this thanks to his work and intelligence. But, for this it took millions of years of constant and ongoing development. The three concept words highlighted here – constant, progressive and development – are decisive for me in this scheme. By tinkering with

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nature, his environment, man also tweaked himself. He mastered the forces of nature, as if pumping them into himself. Everything has changed. The physiology of a person has radically changed – he got up on his feet, his body assumed a vertical position, his hands were released, which turned them into the main tools of labor. The brain grew and improved – the simplest nervous chains turned into ganglia (nerve ganglia), and then into the brain, which found refuge in the human skull. As a result, he began to think (analyze, look ahead and calculate his moves in advance), borrowing the first logical algorithms from what he observed in nature. At the same time, he invented signs and sign systems, through which he established communication and interaction with other people. In this way he learned to command nature (not yet in full scale, but in quite significant), that is, he became God. And the human story began. Without history there is nothing: neither the past, nor the present, nor the future. Scientific thinking differs from the ordinary or religious in that it analyzes historically. Only in a historical perspective, we can ask ourselves the questions “How and why?”, “What happened at the beginning and what became after?” And “What is the reason for the changes?” This is the essence of scientific research in any field of knowledge. Religious consciousness solves such questions simply: “There was nothing in the beginning. God created the world, including man.” The Bible, in the very first chapter, tells how God created man: He did this on the sixth day of creation, before resting on the Sabbath. He created man as a crown, the culmination of the creative process and “in his own image and goodness.” So, even in antiquity, people believed in the divine destiny of man and in his dominant position among other forces of nature. But at the same time religion deprived a person of history. If God created man “in his own image and likeness,” then He did it immediately and in the final form – one cannot become better than God. All problems associated with the development and improvement of man are removed. At the same time, we lose the opportunity to ask our “stupid questions.” Entering a scientific study of the world restores their rights; it is precisely the explanation of the questions formulated above, that is what science has been doing throughout the entire process of its development known to us. Any

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branch of science has its own history, from which it is clear what questions were asked about certain objects being studied earlier, how they were solved and how they are being solved now. That is why the process and methodology of scientific research are fundamentally different from the religious approach, and they cannot be harnessed into the same team, although such attempts are constantly being made. All branches of science, especially those that are directed to the past, refute the religious concept of the world. Geology studies the development of the Earth and makes use of the consistent emergence and construction of geological layers. Archeology, again, divides all the artifacts found according to their historical and, if possible, sequential origin. Anthropology deals with the origin of human types and the development of their communities. Biology investigates the origin of living organisms in their progressive development, using the theory of evolution. And so on and so forth. Finally, I tried to “overturn the origin” of signs and sign systems as the basis of culture and science, exploring their emergence in phylogenetic and ontogenetic aspects. Borrowing from the religion the assertion that man is created in the image and by the will of God, I give it a completely different interpretation. Man was not created, but appeared in the chain of other biological species as one of the links in that chain of development. Possessing unique biological instincts for adaptation to the habitat, he really turned into a likeness of the Creator, learning to take advantage of the forces of nature and partially dominate them. Thus, he fulfills the role of God. Everything said is irrelevant to the question of whether God exists or not. I know that I will be accused by believers of denying His existence, but this is not the case. The question of the existence of God is a prerogative of faith; scientific knowledge is based on completely different principles. The existence or absence of God is not subject to scientific interpretation, the existence of God is unprovable, and there is no need to prove it: you can either believe in it or not. There are people who, according to their mentality and character, believe in God – God bless them! There are people who, according to their mentality and character, do not need this kind of support – they must be given facts and evidence, otherwise they do not perceive the world and do not see an opportunity to explain it. I

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belong to the latter category, although I do not deny from my opponents the right to possess their own point of view. To each belongs his own; it follows that there may be two approaches (or more), and not one.

The Prehistory of Man. Can Nature be God? By nature in this text is meant the Universe and our world, that which is and that which was in historical terms, – the infinite sequence of causes and effects, that which resulted from what was, to what is, and projects on what will be. In other words, the emphasis in our discussion is shifting to constant and ongoing development, and the question of the beginning and end of this process does not enter into the context (it is assumed to be infinite). It is time to say what I mean when I say “to be God” or “to play the role of God.” It means to be a creator, a creator of new, something that was not there before. This does not at all mean the incarnation of the Creator Himself in any image, in the form of man or animal. Even Baruch Spinoza, who first put forward the idea that God was “…the eternal order of Nature” (Treatise on the Improvement of Mind, 1661), said that “to perceive God as a person would mean to make it anthropomorphic. Actually, God does not create something different from himself, being not “an externally acting cause,” but rather “immanent to the thing itself.” It is therefore inseparable from the things that emanate the idea of God. Still, traditional religions always presented God similar to humanoids (either similar to animals or birds – a good example of thinking by analogy). His followers of almost all religions represented the same, and the images of God adopted by them were in most cases truly anthropomorphic (or zoomorphic). My argument is not about what the Lord looks like, but about the fact that He is the Creator, that He can create something from nothing according to a preconceived scheme and plan. When I say that Nature assumes the functions of God, I mean that it creates something new and not from nothing, but from already existing material (and thus I restore the role of history in the act of creation). Yet Nature does this not according to a preconceived pattern (Nature cannot think), while processing new in a random way. Antici-

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pating the further exposition, I want to stress that when a Man takes on the functions of the Constructor, he does this quite consciously, with deliberate plans and intentions. This is the fundamental difference between the two situations, but this is a question for further deliberations. However, when such a question is posed, internal tension immediately arises: how, if there is no predetermined plan, can there be anything out of random effort that, if retrospectively, turns out to be a positive development of the preexisting one. As it turns out, me, you and other people are undoubted proof of that. According to Einstein’s witty remark: “God does not play dice.” Nature, on the contrary, does nothing but always plays what is included in it. It is constantly “rolls the dice in the game”; and as a result of endless repetitions over a huge period of time, a situation may arise in which dices (together with the Darwinian postulate that the fittest survives) show the result with a happy outcome. And then, in the course of numerous random mutations, a sensible entity (in this case, Man) arises, which takes upon himself the formation of further developments in history, that is, takes upon himself the functions of God. Nature ruthlessly treats the matter that it composes; it takes for its experiments a variety of participants and in the most diverse circumstances, but achieves a certain success only in exceptional cases. The fact is that we are the only rational subjects worthy of such definition in the world known to us. The search for other sentient beings in the universe has not yet yielded results, although the hope of finding brothers in mind does not dry up, nor is the hope of success for further attempts. So far it is clear, that Nature only once managed to find a suitable platform for creating some kind of mind by facilitating the transformation of the simplest biological species into more and more complex creatures adapted for further progressive advance. Thus, a Man appears who gradually takes away from the Nature its prerogatives of creating the new, because he does it much better and, more importantly, more purposefully. But, more about that in the next section.

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Man in the role of God Finally, Man appears and gradually becomes the main constructor of the new on Earth, and today in space. Now we live in a world that is almost completely mastered by man and which is fundamentally different from the world left to us by Nature. For whatever you take, everything is to a certain extent created by the thought of man and by his efforts. Here are some of the most recent examples; however, every day brings us new and new facts of the assertion by Man of his right to command and change the world. I take one of the “National Geographic” numbers (January 2007) and find in it an article about the transformations in Dubai, one of the Persian Gulf emirates. In place of a small village on the shores of the bay in less than some fifteen years, a huge city was built with almost a million people, designed according to the type of Manhattan, but much better (precisely because it was planned ahead entirely). There are artificial islands filled with offices and residential skyscrapers, shopping centers and educational institutions, including a university, international financial corporations with billions of dollars, and much more. All this conglomerate lives and actively develops, winning more and more spaces from Nature and building up them feverishly. All this activity, according to the magazine changing the entire region of the Middle East, was initiated and put into practice by the two rulers of tiny Dubai – Sheikh Rashid bin Said Al Maktoum and his younger son and heir Mohammed. In the same magazine I read an article about humpback whales. After making sure that this species nearly came to an end as a result of the total extermination of its representatives, the interested countries concluded in the 60s of the last century a convention that prohibited any hunting for this species of animals. Special reservations have been allocated for their stay, the largest of which is a reserve near the Hawaiian Islands. There scientists conduct research and monitor the lifestyle of humpback whales. As a result of a threeyear survey of humpback whales living nowadays, it turned out that currently there are more than 10,000 of them, that is, their livestock has been almost restored. Dilution of animals occurs at ever increasing rates.

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Recently I have heard on the radio a message about the commissioning of a wastewater treatment plant in Israel. It is known that water in this country is strongly lacking; the major source of its replenishment is sewage waste, which, after cleaning, is used for irrigation in the fields. The under-status of existing systems was poor filtering, which could not isolate the smallest microbes and viruses found in sewage. They fell on grown plants and made them unsuitable for food. The new installation uses nanomaterials that have so small holes that even viruses and microbes do not penetrate through them. And again, the initiators of this undertaking were scientists and enlightened politicians, because nanotechnologies appeared only at the turn of this century. The fruits of human effort are not only local innovations. Globalization has made it possible to implement international projects of the widest scale. A few decades ago, it was believed that the economy of any country is subject to development cycles – “seven fat years” are replaced by “seven lean years”. This has been the custom since the days when Joseph, one of the twelve sons of the biblical patriarch Jacob, came to Egypt. Now, as a result of global trends in the global economy, “skinny” cycles have ceased to threaten us; in any case, such a threat has been largely mitigated and has not manifested itself over the past decades. You never know what else expects the humanity – examples of remaking the world by man can be brought endlessly. It is important to emphasize that people do not begin their transformations without first considering them and planning. They also change their tactics and strategy during the transformations, when they encounter unforeseen obstacles. Even after the completion of projects, people continue to monitor their pros and cons, constantly improving the results already achieved. This is the conscious and rational activity, and it distinguishes Man from Nature in their fulfillment of the divine functions for creating new things. At the same time, people constantly improve themselves: they learn from achievements as well as from their mistakes. Each next enterprise comes in a different quality – and being done by completely different participants. This ensures constant qualitative and quantitative growth of the process of creation and birth of newly qualified personnel in the world comprising a new world as well.

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Some characteristics of ontological reality The following objects can be distinguished in ontological reality: objects, phenomena and events. To unify them, I have chosen the term things and I will talk about things, whenever I want to tell you in general about everything that happens in this kind of reality. Things in my concept are opposed to ideas which denote everything happening in our mind, while we think. Sometimes I will use the word thoughts as a synonym for the term of ideas. That also means that I preserved in my scheme the contrast of material vs. ideal, although I give to their relationship a completely different interpretation, than it is usually done in the works of other philosophers. I will emphasize their interaction and cooperation each time I shall mention them, instead of speaking about their opposition and mutual rejection. Ontological reality originally arose and developed without human participation. This development is observed even today in those segments of it, to which a person has not yet reached. Where people are present, quite new conditions arise – people begin to actively influence the surrounding material environment, changing it significantly. I will call the objective reality, which has remained unchanged under the influence of man, as the first nature, and what has been redone by people – as the second nature. These terms were proposed by the ancient Greeks, and they adequately reflect the two incarnations of ontological reality that exist together and in interaction. Together they constitute what we call ontological reality as such (sometimes I will use the abbreviated term – ontology). The most striking feature of ontology is that the things existing in it do not remain alone, but are combined into systems. That is, although we usually deal with individual things, but they are single manifestations of a whole class of similar objects. Having gained experience in dealing with a separate thing, we get used to handling a whole class of things, and this gives us the possibility of more effective approaches to this category of things in general. Teaching and training are built on this principle – getting to know a few examples is getting used to them and getting the right treatment for them. Such addiction can turn into a professional occupation, when we learn more than other people about any category of things and

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receive monetary or other reward for it. This property of things (to be similar) in the first nature is explained by the fact that in certain similar circumstances the same particles are transformed in a similar way and give the same result. In the end, it all comes down to a small number of particles that interact with each other, limited by the characteristics of their structure when entering into mutual relations. Possible combinations between them can be completed with a positive result, which allows their subsequent development. And so on, in the direction of the transformation of one mutation into another, which becomes the next step in the development of the entire system. In the presence of man (in the second nature) there are several other causes and effects; I wrote about this above. We act by plotting changes for the better, while creating ideas for future facilities and institutions necessary for our more prosperous existence. These ideal ideas are realized in different cultures in different ways, although behind them stands the same thought (the Aristotelian form). I will return to this point in the chapter on virtual reality. There it will become my launching pad for describing a special type of reality – virtual. What I wrote above, concerns only one parameter of the appearance of things. There is another aspect: any concrete thing in nature is represented not individually, but within the framework of some system where it is included. The Earth is part of a larger system called the Solar System; The Solar System is built into the larger scheme of all the celestial bodies that make up the galaxy. Millions of galaxies form our ever-expanding world. A tablespoon is only one of the tools used to move loose and flowing bodies; in a different modification (and on a larger scale) it turns into shovels of various kinds; on an even larger scale – in scoops. All this together makes up the systems that we study and are constantly improving. The same spoon with fork and knife also makes up the cutlery system. Inclusion in different hierarchies allows us to learn things not only as separate and unrelated items, but as part of the corresponding system. We study the properties of individual things and, along with this, their functions within the system. This gives us the opportunity to formulate the laws of development of those things that we study in order to use these laws in all cases when we come across

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them. Without such a method of generalization there would be no science, for it would not have been possible to foresee anything and prepare for a meeting with it. With the discovery of new analogs of things known in nature or things thought up by people, we supplement the corresponding systems with new samples and improve the wording of the laws of nature already known to us. The systemic construction of the things themselves and the fact that they should be included in the systems of a higher organization is the first and fundamental law of nature. Non-systemic things cannot exist; they either simply cannot appear, and if they do, their existence continues for a short time and they usually do not give offspring. We see this in births of people with mutational disabilities. For the most part, people are born normal; if they were born with significant deviations, they would survive for a short time and require assistance and support for the entire life span they have been granted. The system is debugged in advance, and it can function only within acceptable limits for its existence. Copies with clones of such examples cannot exist for long and independently and are doomed to extinction. The same applies to all things, not just living organisms. Non-systemic things exist only in the form of curiosity and cannot serve as patterns for study and multiplying. The second law of the existence of things in ontological reality is that they require a certain amount of energy, giving them the opportunity to be and act. The energy in the system can either decrease, or remain at a constant level or increase due to its influx from the outside. The entropy serves as an indicator of the available energy in the system. In closed-for-current energy systems, entropy shows a gradual disintegration of the system. Therefore, in the ontology all systems must be constantly open to absorb new energy. Otherwise they die. According to this parameter, ontological systems differ significantly from semiotic ones, and even when they are closed, do not require constant energy supply and continue to exist in their previously achieved state. For example, there are several thousand dead languages, and each of them is a system. These languages become dead, because their carriers die out, but the languages themselves, as such, remain. Sometimes this or that language is reborn, as it happened with ancient Greek or with Hebrew (the language of an-

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cient Jews). Then the old written texts are taken, they are modified according to the norms of modern life (that is, fed by new energy), and the language again becomes the current tool of communication. Moreover, in semiotics there are systems that are specifically closed for innovations; These include, in particular, alphabets, which are very reluctant to accept new blood, which gives them more energy in applications. The third law of the existence and development of ontological systems is the fact that, despite the constant supply of energy, all ontological systems eventually grow old and die. This does not contradict the second law, which I mentioned above. If the system is not energized throughout the entire period of its existence, then it dies immediately; and being properly cared she dies in the natural time allotted for her. During this time, the system usually goes through three stages of development: the period of formation, the period of full ripening and apogee, and the final period of withering ending in death. The usual pattern for the existence of things is as follows:

The arrow on the left shows the period of formation: it occurs relatively slowly and requires special energetic feeding. Upon reaching the period of full ripening, development continues, but only within a more or less stable state shown in the diagram in the form of a plateau. This period in normal (non-extreme) conditions is much longer than the other two. Finally, the system reaches the point beyond which comes its withering. This last period is faster than the other two and is marked by gradual loss of the characteristics achieved earlier. At the end of it comes the death of the system. The collapse is inevitable in any system, no matter how eternal it may seem to us. The human race will go away, our planet will go away, the entire solar system and even all of the Universe will perish. According to the standard cosmological model, it again becomes a small point, from which a new universe emerges as a result of the Big Bang.

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The fourth law of the existence of ontological systems is their “matrioshka” arrangement with respect to each other. The tiniest matt is a concrete manifestation of a thing. Then follows a class of the same things, included in the appropriate higher category, and so on. All this is combined into a complete picture of our universe, which seems to us to be a self-contained whole, although in fact it breaks down into millions of different smaller systems that differ from each other. To find in this picture the various components that constitute its essential and homogeneous parts, is one of the main tasks of science, which must be substantiated in epistemology, that is, in the theory of knowledge. Brilliant Auguste Comte, who devoted a lot of space to the classification of sciences in his writings, outlined the correct philosophical approach to solving this problem, but even today it remains urgent and is practically solved on a whim. The interdisciplinary approach in scientific research is very fruitful, but it can be implemented only on the basis of already existing and clearly structured sciences. Meanwhile, the announcement of a topic as an interdisciplinary one often covers the helplessness of a scientist in describing the subject of his research, and not the exact definition of those sciences to which this topic relates. Finally, the last feature of ontological reality, which I will indicate here, is its diversity, which does not allow us to approach the study of this type of reality from the same positions. One should identify three areas that differ in the nature of the perturbations occurring in them: the sphere of available observation with the help of our senses and special instruments; the microcosm, inaccessible for direct observation and functioning according to other laws than in the first sphere, and the macrocosm, which is also inaccessible for direct perception because of its remoteness from our planet. At the beginning of the twentieth century, scientists began to actively explore the atomic and subatomic nature of things and found that it is completely different, than the close world of reality, accessible to direct observation. A whole century has gone into a detailed study of this world, and the matter is still far from complete. It was necessary to radically change the approaches to research, formulate new methods of presenting the phenomena under study and apply other sign systems. Similarly, cosmology, which over the last century

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completely revised its positions, shifted from a static model to a model of an ever expanding universe (Hubble) and to the theory of the Big Bang, black holes and dark matter. In addition to these rather tangible shifts in the theory of knowledge, there is another revolution, less obvious, but no less significant. Ontological reality requires a special approach to its study not only in the three indicated areas, but also in any specific area of its manifestations. To do this, we must resort to special sign systems, special devices and other means of observing and fixing various manifestations of the ontology under study, which in turn implies the specific training of future scientists in a given field of knowledge. Science begins on the student’s bench and in the educational laboratory, where future researchers receive the first knowledge and skills of their future specialty. Therefore, in higher educational institutions one should not only teach the facts already known in this or that science, but also try to impress them to students in the course of laboratory work and experiments. Only in this way can we not only follow the progress already achieved, but lay the foundation for its further progress as well. The creation of such laboratories in higher education institutions is necessary not only as a means to earn money for an educational institution, which in itself is positive, but also as a necessary step in preparing future scientific breakthroughs. In addition, it seems to me necessary to introduce an additional parameter of the ranking of various sciences: general sciences, focusing on various applications in all “applied” sciences, and specific sciences related to specific subjects of study. The first group of sciences I call synthetic, they include philosophy, mathematics, linguistics, logic and computer science. Each of them has sections adapted for use in different areas of practical applications. For instance, mathematics requires special applications in plane cartography, in construction equipment, in cosmology; each time a different math is required. The logic is applied in any life situation, but each time it is different. Language is used for ordinary household applications; different from it – in science, and there are languages specially created for computer programming (the so-called artificial). In addition, all this is superimposed on the fact that each na-

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tional community has its own language. The same applies to computer science. This diversity is resolved in specific practical applications that should be taken into account already at the stage of training future specialists. Yet there is another serious problem. Foci of human civilization emerged autonomously in different parts of the planet, focusing on the local peculiarities of existence and on the available resources required for the implementation of those or other intentions. As a result, the same needs in different territories received their practical applications, which appeared different from each other. In this manner all national cultures were created. Today, when we come to solving the same tasks, enriched by accumulated scientific knowledge and other opportunities in the emerging global scene, we have to do it differently. Let us take, for example, the problem of the value of a product being alienated or sold, that is, the problem of its price. Historically, the first solution to the problem of product cost everywhere was barter. Someone by eye evaluated his goods and goods offered to him and, if the parties agreed, the exchange was made. It was the natural method of determining the value on a whim; it was realized in visual form and was called “barter”. Then insight came in the form of the idea of contacting a material intermediary which would serve as a measure to determine the price of the products exchanged. Such an equivalent of value usually became the most popular product in the territory: somewhere fur, somewhere salt, etc. So there began cultural differences in different countries. Then came the longest stage of monetary circulation. Somewhere (it seems, on the territory of present-day Libya), the idea of a universal equivalent of value in the form of money appeared. At first, people used high-grade coins made of expensive metals, then they guessed using simple metal coins endowed with guaranteed value or bill notes. Behind this was the idea that banknotes secure their nominal value by receiving a guarantee from some solid financial source, a wellknown bank, or even from the state treasury. Alongside developed the circulation of bills. These are the same banknotes, but for the sake of convenience, the largest amounts could be put on a small piece of paper. Convenience of the exchange of documents has become the leading way to realize the

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equivalent of prices. First, bills of exchange were used, then bank transfers made by correspondence between the banks of the parties that concluded the transaction. Today, in the global world, it has become possible to do this on a global scale with the help of a single international system SWIFT. It guarantees the legality of the transaction and approves the international details of its implementation. It seems that money nowadays is becoming a thing of the past. Instead, come agreed upon signs of some money, like cryptocurrencies, into which banknotes of various countries are transferred. Material entities turn into simple virtual signs. This last method serves as an example for me to solve the most diverse problems, related to the unification of many cardinal institutions that have arisen in a divided world, that may require virtual approach to the new global society that is emerging on the planet now. To realize the globalization of the same aspirations, previously resolved on the basis of a specific cultural tradition, it became necessary to combine specific embodiments of the same problem, previously solved on the basis of local approaches. This way of combining various trends into one common course of action became for me a guiding star in two scientific projects. By profession I am an applied linguist (teacher of English in Russian schools and Hebrew in Israeli ulpans). The mentioned idea inspired me to write the book,14 where I tried to bring together the characteristics of individual languages in a single hypothetical tongue. Earlier, I wrote a book on semiotics, which I had been propounding for several decades. In it, I tried to combine all the cardinal positions of the science of signs into a single “Theory of General Semiotics”15. The same must be done in areas of knowledge, where this has not yet been done. In any case, in this book I try to build a theory of general philosophy of knowledge, which would unite the particular theories of knowledge characteristic of individual sciences.

14

Solomonick A. On the Language and Different languages. Moscow, Sputnic+, 2017 (in Russian). 15 Solomonick A. A Theory of General Semiotics. Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015.

THREE WHAT IS SEMIOTIC REALITY? HOW IT ORIGINATED AND DEVELOPED?

A very important factor in the process of cognition is the invention by man of new signs and sign systems and the mastery of the existing ones. It is signs and sign systems that are responsible for the three most important components, without which the process of the development of the world and of man himself could not take place. First, signs provide interpersonal communication, without which there would be no cooperation between people. With the help of signs, people clarify their plans to each other and guarantee this close cooperation in their execution. Secondly, these plans themselves are the result of a projection of what already exists, on something that does not yet exist. Without taking into account what has already been achieved, nothing new can be built, and semiotic projections are first carried out in the human mind, materialized in the form of signs, and then already in reality – outside of man. Thirdly, signs and sign systems transfer the accumulated experience of ancestors to next generations, which ultimately determines the consistent accumulation of the results of the restructuring of the world in different sign sources. The latter circumstance is responsible for the growth and continuity of culture and for the preparation of new participants for its continuation; that is, for their training and further specialization. Due to all these reasons, man gradually becomes the focus of signs and symbols, which gives reason to call him a symbolic animal. This circumstance distinguishes it from all other living beings. The definition of a human being as a symbolic animal belongs to the German philosopher Ernst Cassirer (1874 – 1945). In his writings, this concept received the most fundamental development.

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Here is how this point is described in one of the textbooks on the history of philosophy: Not only the logic of science interests Cassirer. Culture, in his opinion, is based on the symbolic activity of man. Myth, art, language and logic as the fundamental forms of “understanding” are symbolic formations, typical forms of human production. Philosophy is designed to master these fundamental structures as an organic whole. Symbolic forms give shape and meaning to phenomena and organize experience. As “animal symbolicum” (symbolic animal), a person went beyond the limits of the organic world, turning it over. Man cannot disobey these new conditions of existence, which he himself created. Language, myth, art and religion form the symbolic fabric of the universe. Even a small advancement in the field of thinking and experiential learning of the world tightens and tightens these peculiar networks. Without a doubt, it is becoming more and more difficult for a person to come to a meeting with authentic being… It seems,” – continues Cassirer, – “that physical reality is declining, and symbolic is growing.16

For those who read my semiotic works, there is nothing new in these statements. I repeat the same thoughts in almost the same words. In addition, this is a philosophical statement of my main postulate, to which I try to give a concrete and detailed embodiment in the present work: the semiotic component in human development and its role in adapting of man to the surrounding reality changes are difficult to overestimate. It imperiously introduced itself into life and began to cooperate with ontological reality in the production of new knowledge. One of the main theses of this book is as follows: semiotic reality (that is, a set of signs and their systems) is a specific form of being of people, existing along with ontological reality, but having its own sphere of activity and its own laws of development. In my 16

Reale Giovanni and Antiseri Dario. Western philosophy from the beginnings to the present day, vol. IV. “Petropolis Publishing”, St. Petersburg, 1997, p. 281-282.

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opinion, semiotic reality may be and should be considered and analyzed separately from the ontological one, although it arose as a result of studying the latter and as a means of adapting to it. I am convinced that one of the reasons for the slip of philosophy in the modern world is ignoring this circumstance. The approach to the material substance as a single and undifferentiated whole does not allow us to watch the real components of the process of cognition and subsequent restructuring of both the ontology itself and of the people who initiate and carry out all such undertakings. Consideration of new types of reality, first semiotic, and then virtual, is the main content of this book. Let’s start with semiotic reality.

The doctrine of two types of reality In my opinion, semiotics begins there and then, where and when we distinguish between two types of reality: ontological and semiotic ones. The ontological reality is the reality of the phenomenological world around us and of ourselves included in this world (our body, our brain and their activities). Semiotic reality performs our conclusions about the phenomenological world, presented in the form of signs and sign systems. Both types of reality exist objectively, outside of our consciousness. Of course, they manifest themselves in various forms also in our consciousness, when we reflect on them, but they also exist independently, even when we don’t suspect about them. That is why I call them realities. One of them is a reality given to us in sensations and originally created without our participation. I call it ontological. Being born into the world, we are forced to adapt to this type of reality, to know it, and in the process of cognition, we use and often change our environment and ourselves. So far, my reasoning does not go beyond the framework of the opposite concepts adopted in philosophy: “material vs. ideal”. But, in my reasoning, this controversial comparison acquires additional nuances, because in the course of learning and dealing with the ontological reality we are forced to create a new type of reality, a semiotic one. The way we think remains so far beyond exact knowledge, but the results of our reflections appear exclusively in signs, which is an incontestable empirical fact. While the objects and phenomena

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of the surrounding reality appear before us in a syncretic (continuous, unseparated) picture, in the course of cognition we analyze them, divide them and, ultimately, present them in the form of a spatially organized and logically justified character sets. Such a presentation is the only possible for us, because it allows us to arbitrarily stop at any point of the cognitive process, evaluate what has already been done, and present the results in a form that is plausible for discussion. We can come back to them soon and again, changing both the very course of reasoning and the newly formulated conclusions – intermediate or final. The representation in a symbolic form the results of the study of ontological reality makes it possible to draw them in the form of laws of nature and use them for processing all similar cases that may occur in the future. At the same time, signs of the most diverse semiotic content are used, the most effective being the design of the laws of nature with the help of mathematics. The laws of gravity, presented by Newton in the form of several mathematical equations, have become one of the cornerstones of the philosophical picture of the world. The laws of heredity, completed by Gregor Mendel in the numerical ratio of inherited traits, allowed them to become a basic milestone for all future genetics. (For more on the laws of nature, see chapter 5 below.) Thus, in the course of cognition, we move from a chaotic and indivisible ontological picture to its externally and internally organized and discretely presented semiotic designation, and in more difficult cases to semiotic models that play a crucial role in the realization of the following type of reality – a virtual one. First, we create separate signs that substitute ontological objects and phenomena in our minds, then create sign systems from them, and as a result of the total efforts of all mankind throughout its history we produce sign reality plane of a special, different from the ontological reality form. I call this reality semiotic, because it consists of signs and sign systems studied by semiotics. It is especially important to emphasize that this type of reality is no less, so to speak, real than ontological reality. It is objectified in the form of signs and sign systems fixed by the public tradition, studied by people and it constitutes the basis of what is called culture. Semiotic reality not only exists ob-

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jectively outside of our mind, but also develops according to its own laws, different from the laws of development of ontological systems. These realities may differ significantly from one another: they represent the same phenomenon, but even when they observe this phenomenon from the same point of view, the result may not coincide. I will demonstrate this with the simplest example. I had a young grandson, whom I began to teach geography, using for this purpose semiotic models of the representation of geographic reality, maps. I started with the maps of Israel, the country where we live, and where my grandson managed to travel and see a lot. I called him a place and offered to find it on the map. In most cases, the grandson told me: “Grandfather, I know where this place is, I was there,” but he could not find it on the map. The reason for this is clear. Everything that he saw in real life, not only did not help him to solve the task set by me, but actively interfered and hindered him, because the two pictures in his brain did not coincide at all, they were completely different from one another. In semiotic reality, we not only use other images of reality, but also operate with other concepts and their parameters. Therefore, both situations varied significantly and had to be analyzed using corresponding logical algorithms. During the development of human civilization, signs and sign systems, that are used to adapt people to the world around them, have accumulated in huge amount. First of all, these are the results of studies of a multitude of scientific disciplines that have been created by man throughout the entire history. In addition, there are results of the pre-scientific stages of human development – mythological and religious; they also must be taken into consideration. This semiotic reality is constantly passed on to all new generations of people. It is stored in oral traditions, in customs, finally, in the form of books, paintings, films, ceremonial performances and other forms of material culture. At present, we more often learn on ontological reality from these and other similar sources, rather than from direct contact with it. Moreover, developed sciences, which have long come close to the limits of research that cannot be directly perceived, are increasingly forced to resort to discoveries “at the tip of the pen”, that is, to operations with previously established landmark models of ontolog-

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ical reality. The sign reality is no less real than the ontological reality – it objectively exists outside of us; we have to make an effort to master it and fix it in memory. After that, we can use such existing knowledge in further interactions with ontological reality. Thus, a triangle of interactions arises between ontological reality, our consciousness and sign material. Changes in any part of this triangle automatically lead to changes in its other two parts. Creation of sign reality, its preservation, the use of data for the needs of our development, socialization and further adaptation to the environment should, in my opinion, be the subject matter of semiotics, which by its very name (the doctrine of signs), its history and the achieved results is intended for this. It should be emphasized (for in this point lies the key to my understanding of the place of semiotics among all other sciences) that semiotic reality (signs, their systems, as well as the entire totality of semiotic knowledge) does not entirely determine the process of knowledge, although it is a mandatory component. To learn ontological reality, people have learned to use the tools of numerous sciences. They use the methods and the tools of specific sciences to observe the phenomena of reality, to experiment with them, finally, they draw conclusions, applying the conceptual apparatus of various sciences, without going beyond the chosen scientific discipline. The tasks of semiotics, from my point of view, include the generalization of paramount results obtained by other sciences, their analysis by semiotic means and the presentation of the findings for use in any field of knowledge. Semiotics should study a longitudinal slice of the results of cognitive and other types of activity recorded in the form of signs, that is, the whole semiotic reality. In other words, semiotics seems to me to be a secondary science, but not in the sense that it is less significant, but in the fact that it uses the results obtained in other sciences (and not only sciences) in its own semiotic interpretation for human development. The difference between the two kinds of realities is cardinal for us. We should firmly grasp that semiotic reality, despite the fact that it arose as a result of the study of objective reality, has its own laws of cognition.

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The combination of continuous vs. discrete in two kinds of reality In my opinion, the main imbalance between ontological and semiotic realities arises from the fact that they combine the continuous with the constituent discrete parts in different ways. I relate the principle of compatibility of these two principles to the fundamentals of the existence of any matter, but the comparison of one from another in the two indicated manifestations of realities seems to me to depend on their opposite directions. In objective reality, we most often meet with an already existing integral phenomenon, which we have to analyze, to reveal its characteristics and individual discretely located parts. We may be mistaken in our analysis, but in principle such discrete components of the phenomenon or event under study are distinguished rather easily. On the contrary, in semiotic reality, we operate with signs that are always discrete, and we go the exactly opposite way, composing something integral from discrete signs. Here analysis is replaced by synthesis; moreover, we sometimes synthesize at random and quite often do not achieve the desired result. Manipulations with signs, like any other mental operations, are almost unlimited – our thought is free in its manifestations – and we are forced to check our conclusions in ontological practice. Such verification is often very difficult and may be delayed for a long time. In these cases, our findings, obtained in the course of symbolic manipulations, temporarily remain as if suspended in the air, which painfully affects still unconfirmed results. In addition to the above, it should be noted that our thinking tends to run ahead and be seduced by an attractive final result. Then we forget about the intermediate stages of the process and immediately turn to its end. It is worth remembering about the events of the last century, when millions of people immediately, without delay and procrastination, rushed to build bright future, not caring about the means and possibilities of its construction. It took almost a century for people to understand the vainness of their unwarranted expectations.

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More about the discrepancy between continuous and discrete in two types of reality In two realities, even of the same content, not only the matters under study (for example, some territory and its cartographic representation) do not coincide, but also the ways of connecting elements, which are only epistemologically dependent from one another. With signs, they derive from the rules of semiotics, and they do not directly coincide with their ontological content (we often only guess about the latter). Moreover, continuing the example with geography, we can say that the representation of a round globe on the flat surface of maps one-to-one is impossible. We achieve compliance with one another with the help of mathematical models and with our psychological adaptation to them. In these cases, we get only an approximate picture, which, however, turns out to be satisfactory for us in terms of the perception of our senses. The fact is that they (the senses) are actively adapting to an approximate picture of objective reality, making it in our brain “complete and unified”. In psychology they call it sensitivity of our mind. Thus, it was proved that the child’s eyes at first show an inverted picture of the surrounding world, but very soon they adapt to seeing the “real” picture and our “real” position in it. We also perceive the “continuous” movement of objects on the screen, if it is reproduced at a speed of 24 per second discretely located on the tape frame. The discrepancy between the objects of consideration and the direction of our analysis, as I wrote above, in some cases leads to the impossibility of combining them in two parallel planes – the objective world and its semiotic reflection. We try to level this disproportion in various ways, but not always successfully. However, after many efforts, we usually find a way out. Thus, at the beginning of the twentieth century, physicists suffered a fiasco, trying to express the motion of subatomic particles in the mathematical formulas of Newtonian mechanics. Then they invented quantum mechanics and the principle of complementarities, which successfully solved the problem.

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Incompatibility between two types of reality and philosophical paradoxes Our approach to the problem of the incomplete compatibility between the ontology and semiotic reality reflecting it, allows us to solve the riddles of some philosophical paradoxes that have long tormented humanity and were most clearly represented in the aporias of Zeno. Let me remind you of the well-known aporia about Achilles and the tortoise. They compete in running. Achilles gives the turtle a head start and starts to catch up with it. After a period of time, he covers half of the distance separating them, but the tortoise also passes a certain section of the path. Then Achilles once again leaves a half of the distance behind him, and the turtle again moves away from him for a certain interval, and so it can last indefinitely ... But only in mathematics postulating the infinite divisibility of space and time. In life, we see the opposite: Achilles will certainly catch up and leave all kinds of turtles. Why “two such differences”? Because mathematical calculus systems work according to their algorithms, and real events – according to their own. And they constantly have to be customized to each other. However, I hasten to reassure readers – algorithms that establish the maximum correspondence between the two approaches are always found – all that is needed is to find the right solution. Here is what Willy Kramer writes about the philosophical paradoxes: “The long-standing and new paradoxes of Zeno, Russell, Bergson, seemingly inaccessible from the point of view of logical positivism, are meaningless if analyzed by the method of sharing realities. Consider, for example, the B. Russell paradox, which he formulated in the article “Why am I not a Christian?” in the form of the question: “Can God create a stone that he cannot lift?” Here concepts from ontological reality are used: to be able to create, a stone, to lift and the concept of God, to whom the property of omnipotence is theoretically attributed. It is absent in ontology, which makes it possible to attribute it only into semiotic reality. Combining the concepts of the two realities in the question makes the an-

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The conclusion that follows from the above is as follows: arguments about the ontological and the corresponding parts of the semiotic reality often do not coincide with each other and should be made separately using different algorithms. Their confusion leads to serious errors. I will give one more example – the circumnavigation of Magellan. It took place in 1519 - 1522; and it was the first time, sailors traveled around the globe, proving that the Earth is round. They floated to the east, and approached the final (which was also the initial) point from the west. It turned out that the number of days recorded by sailors on the “Victoria” (out of five ships only this sailboat completed the expedition) did not coincide with the number of days on land calendars – it turned out that they saved the whole day. This circumstance put everybody in a dead end; the then science didn’t explain it. Only later, when became clear that the Earth was rotating around its axis, moving from east to west, were people able to get the right idea of the cause of the discrepancy. Daily supplement to the “land” calendar arose due to the displacement of the Earth to the west. The same discrepancy was subsequently used by Jules Verne in his novel “Around the World in 80 Days”. There are quite a lot of such discrepancies between the data in the ontology and their reflection in the products of the semiotic plan, and they should be taken into account in advance if, of course, they are known to the users of the systems. What are the laws of semiotics – the science of signs, sign systems and sign reality in general, the laws that we can already distinguish today?

17

Willy Cramer. Psychology and symbols of the Jewish people (in Russian). At: https://peoples-peace.blogspot.com/2010/07/ .

FOUR PARADIGM OF SEMIOTICS AND LOGICS IN SIGN SYSTEMS

In 1962, Thomas Kuhn’s book, “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”, was published, subsequently translated into Russian and other languages. The central concept of his theory, around which everything else revolves, is the concept of scientific paradigm. It is understood as a holistic view of the world and its structure, giving way to one or another specific conclusions in a particular scientific field. It is the adherence to the same paradigm that allows a group of scientists to speak in the same language, to more or less equally understand the current and more distant problems of their science, to establish joint work, and to prepare personnel for future researchers. Kuhn insists that no branch of knowledge can exist without a universally accepted scientific paradigm. Any branch of knowledge, in his opinion, began from the pre-paradigmatic period, but always ended with the adoption of conceptually unified point of view on the dominant theory underlying this or that science. Otherwise, there will be nothing providing scientists with a basis for studying its subject matter together, a framework which Kuhn calls normal science. He names this unifying conceptual unit scientific paradigm. At some crucial stages in science development a situation may arise, when the collected facts no longer fit into the scheme of the previously adopted paradigm. Then begins the scientific revolution on breaking the old and establishing a new theory. Kuhn’s book is dedicated to the details of such revolutionary cataclysms. A well-known example of such revolution is the revision of views on the structure of the Solar System, adopted before the emergence of the Copernicus theory, and the establishment of the

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foundations of a new approach. Another example is the change of Newton’s vision of the world to statements adopted after the appearance of the theory of relativity by Einstein. Kuhn writes that when new conceptual schemes become incompatible with the old ones, in the light of new theories, people see the world or particular phenomena quite differently. This allows them to set tasks on a different basis than before, and to illuminate more deeply the old seemingly resolved issues. The very process of breaking old views is revolutionary, and Kuhn designates the epoch during which this breaking happens as a crisis for the given science. The scientific revolution is a long and painful process, but it allows you to bring one or another branch of science to a new, higher level of understanding of the subject under study. Such a view on the development of science is opposed to the previous ideas that science is moving along a continuous ascending line by simply accumulating an increasing number of facts and theories explaining them. The appearance of the book by T. Kuhn has caused numerous discussions. Many of his provisions were rightly disputed, while for some others were put forward alternative solutions. The particular perplexity was caused by the fact that the central concept of his theory, around which all conclusions were built, that of scientific paradigm, did not get enough detailed substantiation in the book. It was estimated, that in his book Kuhn defined the paradigm from different positions twenty-two times. And although intuitively it was obvious to every reader what was meant, but clear cut definition of the scientific paradigm in the book was really absent. After much thought on the particulars, I came to the conclusion that the paradigm of any science should include eight segments, schematically shown in the following circle. These eight parts of the paradigm complement each other and develop in parallel, although the first part – the philosophical one – is the initial and starting part for all the others. More or less detailed analysis of the content of the scheme will be given below.

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I think that in order to substantiate any science as a special field of knowledge developed by specific methods, one should first of all choose a subject of study and formulate philosophical approach to it. Then, where it is possible (and perhaps this is far from always, especially at the initial stages of research), axiomatic starting points for this science are determined, which makes it possible to outline its promising directions. Now you can go to the classification of its basic concepts. At the same time, they become accompanied with, so to say, “meat” – with numerous characteristics and distinctive features, which allow considering them separately and/or in different combinations. This process is naturally completed with taxonomies and classifications of the objects of consideration. At the same stage, methods specific to the study of these objects are determined, including the creation of study tools and the rules for their use. In the course of such considerations, the terms necessary for discussing the problems of science are created, and its approximate (it is being constantly updated) thesaurus of terms is compiled. Finally, we create this science meta-language, action algorithms with its concepts, which become more and more strong and clearcut formulated. These rules are a briefing for the practical activities

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of scientists within a given field of knowledge and for those who are preparing to enter this path. Among other things, possible methods of checking the correctness of the results obtained are being created – different for different sciences. (See the whole scale in detail below in the 10th chapter.) It should be emphasized that the paradigm of science does not develop consistently – part by part. All its components, mentioned above, develop in parallel, interacting with each other. The initial link that gives rise to the emergence of a certain area of scientific knowledge is usually presented with general philosophical arguments, but they do not remain unchanged, being constantly refined and specified as this science matures. In addition, they are split into plausible parts, when they are not yet presented by definite science as a whole, but only within its individual components. For example, even today physics is presented in branches (mechanics, optic, electricity, etc.), so each of them gets its own share of specific philosophical justifications. And one more thing. My scheme above can only show the momentary state of the scientific paradigm, yet each part of it is in constant motion and development. It is constantly changing, which leads to some corresponding changes in all other components of the diagram. Following each change, all other parts of the scientific paradigm are modified, formulated and balanced with each other. These are some of the philosophical problems, the influence of which on semiotics I wanted to underline. The next following chapters will be devoted to their elaboration.

Logics in sign systems Logic in my interpretation is not only the science of the correct construction of non-contradictory reasoning, but also the corresponding organization of the following human activity. The purpose of such an organization is to find such action algorithms that would allow different categories of people to achieve their goal in the most rapid and efficient way. This approach allows us to apply logic to any human undertakings and isolate clear sequence of steps that allow us to build a coherent and consistent chain of logically justified acts in any particular circumstances. Within this approach, log-

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ic acts not only as a system of reasoning, but also as a system for planning practical activity with the help of reasoning. In this case, logically constructed consistency of reasoning is considered only as one of the components of specific activity; and it closely ties our mental efforts to how they are transformed in the practical implementation of plans outside of our consciousness afterwards. This chain seems to me in a very approximate form as such: for any enterprise, no matter how simple it may seem, preliminary thinking and the creation of a rational plan for future actions is required. Taking any practical steps without their preliminary mental design is risky, and this approach mostly ends in failure, which is well expressed in the Russian proverb “Without knowing the ford, do not plunge into the water.” At the stage of reflection and planning, we rely on the signs known to us and on their predictive power, which allows us to look ahead and plan the most efficient way of action. Logic is inherent not only in complex system of actions that take shape in a series of consecutive steps into habitual behavior, but also in single steps, which are also subject for preliminary deliberation. Similarly, not only the creation of sign systems is subject to logical reasoning, but also the construction of individual signs. As a result of deliberation, all the upcoming actions are divided into stages that successively replace each other. The strict sequence of stages at this stage plays a crucial role. For each stage, they choose their own ways of implementation and the tools that will be required for this. The tools include human resources, as well as those human capabilities, skills and abilities that are necessary to carry out the proposed steps. Here there is already concrete material with which it is supposed to work, and, consequently, specific methods that should be followed (see below the chapter “The Algorithm of Scientific Investigation”). To create a logical plan of action at this stage requires special knowledge and accompanying prior experience. Also, when creating sign systems for individual contingents of consumers, specialists of a special profile are required: sign systems for biologists should be created by biologists, for mathematicians – mathematicians, etc. At the same time, all of them must adhere to common logical and semiotic principles. My subsequent recommendations

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will deal with just such general principles, since not being a specialist it’s simply not possible for me to consider concrete problems for most practical and research situations. However, I would venture to suggest the logical principles for the construction of sign systems in their general semiotic shell, as an example of the implementation of the theoretical calculations presented above. I emphasize that each system created should take into account the needs of the people who will use it. Depending on this, the methods of analysis and methods of presenting the same material being processed will change, and as a result, it will take a unique form in each particular case. The same material and ways of working with it will be submitted differently for specialists in this field of knowledge, for “dummies”, for the adult public, for youth or children, etc. Among all the types of logic that will be used when planning a scheme of actions, the leading place will always be occupied by the so-called formal logic, the foundations of which were laid by Aristotle. In most cases, it guarantees us the necessary sequence of performing mental operations and is their beginning and foundation. But formal logic is directed and gets its content from what we are talking about. Therefore, I introduce the matching logic (see below) into my system and put it in the first place. First, I note that in any sign system I distinguish not one type of logic, but as many as four. First, I highlight the logic of the matching of the system to that part of reality that the semiotic system is trying to reflect and investigate. Secondly, all our actions taken with the system obey the formal logic of human thinking, which provides us with elementary control over the validity of the conclusions at each stage of the decisions made. Thirdly, these actions depend on the features of the sign system used. I call this type as system logic. The instruments of action have a decisive influence on the course of operations and correspondingly on their result. Let’s compare this with fishing: our goal is to catch as many fish of a certain sort as possible. Accordingly, we use the necessary tools for this. But this instantly cuts off other options for fishing, and we have to adapt to the tools that we use. A similar picture emerges when using one or another sign system, which acts as an instrument of our actions. Finally, the fourth type of logic is the logic of the system applica-

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tion. Depending on it, we interpret our conclusions and results differently for various groups of this system users, or rather, we demonstrate them differently. The presence of four types of logic when working with the sign system is a cardinal deviation from the usual and generalized conclusion, saying “this is illogical.” We have to consider the question of “from which side it is illogical? what kind of logic is violated this time?” Failures of system analysis can be explained by the fact that the off-system guidelines were chosen incorrectly, that the system was processing the wrong objects, or focused on the wrong connections between them. Perhaps, the requirements of the formal logic were violated. Or – the system itself was not used according to its rules and was interpreted incorrectly. In other words, we have to apply multivariate analysis in any case and consider each type of logic separately. The problem is complex and not developed at all, while it focuses in itself the nerve center of our relationship with semiotic reality.

Matching logic The matching logic gives us the main guides of the future sign system, because it shows what we should consider according to the laws of the system and by what vectors. In other words, in the sign system representing one or another slice of reality, we must adequately reflect the real picture as we understand it. Since ancient times, philosophers wondered, what was the reason that the human mind in many cases turns out to be a successful tool in understanding the environment and itself, and gave different answers to this question. Great Plato believed that every thing and its properties have ideal embodiments, gathered in one place somewhere in the sky. This ideal pattern is the starting point for its cloning in earthly life. The human immortal soul, before it is placed in the earthly shell, wanders through the heavens, surveys these ideal forms and then, in the course of its next existence in the body, remembers them. This view has received the name of idealism in philosophy. The opposite, materialistic position believes that man himself decides the secrets of nature in the course of communicating with it and by adapting to its caprices. Our successes in this direction have

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multiplied many times, when people have become familiar with the scientific approach in their attempts to understand natural and social patterns. As for how the matching logic reflects this or that reality, it seeks, as far as possible, to reflect it most closely to what we observe in life or in the laboratory, emphasizing every detail and relationship. However, when observing and perceiving reality, we are limited by the position of observation and the ways of our perception. Observations, of course, can always be expanded, and the findings are deepened and modernized. But in each case, we strive to convey our impressions of the knowable in the most complete way. This applies to any sign systems. It also applies to formal logic, which we will discuss in the next section.

Formal logic At any stage of working with the system of signs, we adhere to formal logic, in particular, the logic of building syllogisms. The scientific foundations of the latter were developed by the ancient Greeks. This is, in essence, the logic of consistent relationships, borrowed from observations of nature. At the dawn of their development, people noticed that some natural processes occur in an unchanged sequence: the seasons went one after another in a certain order, and the day unfolded according to the same scenario. The sun rose in the mornings in the east and set in the evening in the west. One event constantly followed another; The first event began to be called the cause, and the second – a consequence arising from this cause. Thus appeared the rudiments of the logical, that is, the unchanging and conditioned following of a concrete consequence to a particular cause. This principle people moved into their thinking. They no longer waited for actual changes in nature, they could predict them within certain limits. If this and that happens, then after that a completely predictable consequence will arise, something that will bring positive or, on the contrary, negative results. The beginning was made, and Aristotle formalized the relations of consistently conditioned thinking in a special science – the logic of syllogism. Now it was already possible to more accurately assess the mental structure expressed during the discussion or controversy.

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Logic took root and continued to evolve. There was further formalization of the syllogistic system and the abstractness of its signs increased, but the connection between logic and practical behavior and observation of natural processes continued to be felt. People still believed most of all about the testimony of their senses, calling it “common sense.” Only on the threshold of a new scientific era people had to abandon their belief that the Earth is in the center of the universe, and all other celestial bodies revolve around it. Former views on the construction of the universe rested on seemingly obvious observations of the behavior of objects in heaven, and only additional, more and more accurate studies of the movements of the planets and the Sun with the use of appropriate instruments and tools, convinced scientists that the established views were incorrect. The birth of scientific methodology could not but affect the further development of formal logic. The Aristotelian construction of syllogisms was supplemented by new provisions, first of all by Rene Descartes. If the logic of the syllogism concerned the obtaining of a single conclusion from the correctly chosen premises, then Descartes showed how to think in order to combine separate conclusions in a coherent argument. He did this in an essay entitled “Discourse on Method, in order to rightly direct your mind and search for truth in science.” The Discourse was first published in Leiden in 1637. It was enthusiastically accepted in the scientific world and firmly entered the treasury of human wisdom. Briefly, Descartes formulated his statements on correct thinking as follows: The first is to never take anything as true, which I would not admit to people with such obviousness, that would carefully avoid haste and prejudice, and I will include in my judgments only what appears to my mind so clearly and distinctly that will not be able to give rise to doubt. The second is to divide each of the difficulties I have considered into as many parts as necessary in order to better resolve them. The third is to arrange your thoughts in a certain order, starting with the objects of the simplest and easily knowable, and to ascend, little by little, as you go through, to the knowledge of the most complex ones, admitting the existence of order even among those

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It is interesting to note that Descartes’s “Discourse” is not so clearly and rigidly formulated as the Aristotelian provisions on the construction of syllogism, which makes it possible for users of his recommendations to choose alternative ways of presenting the same material. Together the formal logic of Aristotle and the propositions put forward by Descartes provided us with a platform for rational thinking. An important help to this is the fact that people share their initial assumptions with other individuals who, having familiarized themselves with them, make their own amendments and additional suggestions.

Logics of specialized sign systems These are the logics associated with the processing of different matter or the processing of the same matter, but from different points of view. Any specialized subject or consideration requires an individual approach, which needs its own philosophical substantiation and the development of specific methods of analysis, as well as specialized research tools. In practice, this led to some research topics taking shape of separate sciences. Each branch of science develops its own logic of reasoning. It is usually best suited to the appropriate material, and we also have to use it (we usually do not have another logic in each particular case). In this regard, there are various limitations. In any sign system, explanations are given in one of the natural languages, which affect the presentation and specific demonstration of the problem. If we want to use a different language, we have to translate explanations into it, which leads to a partial reformulation of the material in question.

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Rene Descartes. Discourse on Method and Meditations on First Philosophy. Translated by Donald Cress. Indianapolis /Cambridge, 1998, p. 11.

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Fortunately, people have invented such formalized languages that are understandable throughout the world; and they uphold different specialized statements together. These are the languages of mathematics, physical or chemical formulas, and many other codes. Nevertheless, the problem remains – any scientific material requires its own logic of presentation. We use it in addition to the logic of matching and the formal logic. Specialized scientific codes are entirely based on semiotics, since we are talking about sign systems. Therefore, semiotics should take its rightful place in the general system of sciences connected with human knowledge.

Application logics Finally, in preparing this or that text for the presentation, we cannot abstract from the audience to which it will be presented. This is an elementary truth, but its implementation requires considerable efforts, as well as special knowledge and skills. I am convinced that this side of the matter, which is so often ignored, needs specialists with special talent. Let’s call this talent pedagogical. We need specialists who would select the necessary material and transform it into available for the learning of one or another audience. As a result, the scientific material is converted into training instructions. None of the training course repeats entirely its original scientific prototype; each time it becomes different – with the same scientific background, but shown from different angle of view. Sometimes the differences are quite significant.

The full graph of logics in sign systems Each sign system thus receives a special set of logics, that is, their combination, which is not repeated in any other system. I call this set the logical graph of the system. It distinguishes this system from all other schemes of this kind. Above we talked about the four types of logic in sign systems. It should be emphasized that their interdependence rely on the degree of abstractness specific to this or that sign system. According to this parameter, we can formulate the basic rule for the compilation of sign systems: as the degree of abstractness of the system increases, the logical graph shows a de-

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crease in the proportion of the matching logic and the significance of the logic of the system rules increases. In other words, the signs of the system with increasing degree of their abstractness less and less depend on external factors in relation to the system and become more obedient to the laws of the sign system being compiled. These two factors are inversely related to each other. The sign has two opposite foci of attraction: on the one hand, it must comply with what it reflects, on the other – to obey the laws of the system into which it is included. The increasing dependence of the sign on the system is accompanied by its gradual deviation from the phenomenon depicted by it; still this is compensated by the growth of its links with the system. Thousands of cases of everyday use of natural (least abstract) signs do not require their inclusion in the formalized sign system at all – they occur according to the rules of generally accepted human behavior. In iconic (based on images) systems, signs are regulated according to the rules, which, however, are used with large tolerance (painting, ballet, etc.). Language signs are regulated very strictly, but allow some deviations; and formalized mathematical and other systems do not allow any exceptions, that are not stipulated by the rules of their applications. Formal logics and application logic are required for any sign system and are not so dependent on the degree of its abstractness. The notion of abstractness of signs and their systems will be discussed in more detail in the next chapter.

FIVE CLASSIFICATION OF SIGNS THROUGH THEIR SIGN SYSTEMS

In creating a paradigm for any science, great role is played by the classification of objects that it studies with its specific methods. Semiotics is no exception, and all the scientists involved in it tried their hand at creating classifications of objects in semiotic studies, that is, signs. But there are so many signs and they overlap so much that it was not possible to classify them according to certain categories. Charles Pierce, who had devoted several decades to the classification of signs, admitted at the end of his life that he could not do this. As a result, Pierce stopped at one of his proposed classifications. According to it, all signs can be divided into three categories: indexes, images and symbols. This triple scheme is still used today, although many semiotics admit that it is imperfect and does not reflect the diversity of signs; that it is primitive and does not meet the needs of today’s science. Nevertheless, it remains the main classification scheme in practical applications of semiotics even today. I chose the other way and created a classification of signs through the classification of their sign systems. Sign systems are much smaller in number than individual signs, and collecting them into separate, sharply differing groups (types of sign systems), makes it possible to identify those specific signs that lie in their foundation (I called them basic signs for this concrete type of system, or their taxa). Lined up in their sequential order, the types of sign systems make it possible to construct their hierarchy among themselves, building in this way the history of any modern science. In each layer of the hierarchy the same sequence will be repeated – from signs with small degree of abstractness to signs with gradual transition to more and more abstract content. This is easily explained: people in

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ontogenesis and humanity as a whole – in phylogenesis – have ascended from less abstract way of thinking to an increasingly abstract way of reasoning. As a result, I got six types of sign systems, each with its own base taxon: natural systems – with natural signs found everywhere in our vicinity (the first taxon in the classification); iconic systems – with images as their basic signs (the second taxon in the classification hierarchy, which builds on the first); language systems – with words as basic signs in them and the next taxon; notational systems required for designation the achievements of emerging sign systems – their taxon is called grapheme; formalized systems of the first order with symbols of constant value (in chemistry, physics, etc.) as their basic signs; formalized systems of the second order with variable symbols (such as algebraic or logical ones) as their basic signs. Here is as it looks in a diagram:

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If we build all taxa consistently upwards, appears a ladder reflecting the development in the collective consciousness of people and in their personal individual use of those signs and sign systems that together make up their entire scope in semiotic reality and in our mind correspondingly. Perhaps this approach to the classification of signs is not optimal, and it is certainly not finite (this cannot be final, since humanity is constantly developing its mental potential). Nevertheless, in comparison with Pierce’s classification, it demonstrates significant progress. A lot of semioticians, that are guided by my conclusions, cite the scheme proposed above. I want to add that, not knowing this, I completely repeated the same intellectual maneuver that Evariste Galois (1811-1832) used when creating the theory of groups in mathematics: Instead of studying the equations themselves, Galois studied their groups or figuratively speaking their families. Of whatever “objects” the group consisted of: – of numbers, movements, or operations – all of them can be considered as abstract elements that do not have any specific meaning. In order to define a group, it is only necessary to formulate general rules that must be followed in order for a given set of “objects” to be called a group.19

Such groups in my theory of semiotics are the types of sign systems that combine huge numbers of sign systems belonging to the same type. So, you can select any system from the group knowing ahead its main characteristics. The same approach to analysis in two completely different areas of knowledge (in semiotics and mathematics) indicates the validity of this approach and possibility of its occurrence in other sciences.

How our thinking abilities develop along the degree of abstractness of signs First, we discover something that attracts our attention. This is something that can be found in any of the three realms of material or non-material reality that I highlight. It can be located within the 19

Andre Dalma, Evariste Galois: revolutionary and mathematician, Moscow, «Science», 1984, p. 44. (Translation from Russian is mine.)

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ontological reality (thing-event), within the semiotic reality (sign, combination of signs, sign system), as well as in our dreams. Can dreams be real? Yes they can. The undeveloped consciousness completely combines these two categories. Children play imaginary scenes constantly. Adults use fantasy as a launching pad to turn their dreams into real industrialized enterprises, where they acquire quite tangible features of the items used in everyday life. In a word, we draw new from everywhere, regardless of what initial characteristics it possesses. We think about this something, it passes into our consciousness and is fixed in the memory. This something appears time and again, as we encounter it in its various manifestations and comparing among these manifestations. In the emerging range of options, we highlight similar features and differ them from each other. It turns out that in some cases it is possible to place different things in one class of identical (or almost identical) phenomena. The emergence of a class cardinally changes our thinking on approaches to the objects being studied. It becomes possible to analyze and deepen our understanding, both in comparing the properties of a given class with other classes of something similar, as well as differences among the available samples within the same class. The apogee of this approach is the derivation of the laws of the functioning of the elements belonging to this class of objects. The laws of functioning can be mathematically defined, which guarantees that they will repeat again. Unfortunately, not all laws of nature can acquire mathematical support. You can focus on one class of objects under research and study it all your life, or you can go further (or rather, to breadth and depth) and move on to the ranking of different, but similar classes of something we are considering. The culmination of this approach is the class hierarchy, which has classes of a logically justifiable vector and in accordance with one criterion underlying the changes. Such hierarchies cover the subject under study completely, reaching the apogee of the problem in question. A perfect example of this approach is the theory of evolution of living matter by Charles Darwin. It considers the evolution of living matter on Earth and brings it to the point indicated by the term “homo sapiens”. The criterion for the location of classes within the hierarchy created by

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Darwin is the principle of the best adaptability due to survival of the most viable samples of living matter. This is not the only example of such hierarchy, but the most significant of all known to me. It should be noted that hierarchies of this kind exist not only as crown work in this or that science, but in each of its branches. Thus, within the taxon schemes that were propounded by Darwin, there are separate branches based on the same hierarchical principle. Insects get their development ladder, and all types of insects have their own hierarchy. For such intermediate hierarchies, the same criteria are used, as in the main hierarchy. Such “matryoshka”-like construction is common for the arguments of this kind. The construction of hierarchies in this or that science or in one form or another of practical activity is the natural end of the scientific analysis of the subject of study, its long-awaited triumph. The promotion of my classification was also accompanied by the use of absolutely new philosophical ideas about the generally accepted and widespread classifications categories used in today’s philosophy. This kind of innovation referred particularly to taxonomies and classifications applied by me in their mutual relationship. It is important for us that these innovations are founded on semiotic basis.

Signs in taxonomies and classifications Taxonomies in science are forerunners of the classifications developed in them. This position is not new and rests on the views put forward in the middle of the last century. But how this happens, and the fact that the taxa derived in a particular branch of science and the classification symbols resulting from them have a completely different semiotic content, has not been clarified. When specific science only begins to take shape and the concepts presented in it are still in diapers, its main characteristics are vague and blurred. These guiding lines first acquire the character of taxa, which embody extremely indistinct meanings. When in ancient Greece began to appear works related to the description of the terrestrial vegetation, Theophrastus (371 – 287) advanced the very first classification of objects to study in the emerging science of the plant world. He divided it into four categories: grasses, flowers, bushes and trees.

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All people saw examples of these four categories and agreed that they differ from each other and they should be depicted in different terms. It took thousands of years before scientists learned the details about each plant, and figured out how it existed and what parts it consisted of. Only then in botany were introduced genuinely scientific classifications of plants (for example, Linnaeus’), based on completely different traits than those used by any observer or even a scientist at the beginning of developing the issue. Similarly, it happened in semiotics. Of course, Pierce was not a simple observer and he gave his three categories (indexes, images and symbols) a completely scientific explanation, but his classification of signs remained approximate and could not give answers to most specific problems that arose in sign applications. Yes, and also my categories of signs, given above, are fuzzy, because they cannot be more clear-cut, being only taxa and not classification units. Real-life classification units they become later, when field research builds the basis for real-live ascertained data brought from experimental quest. As science progresses and acquires specific knowledge about the subjects in question, taxa will inevitably lead to the isolation of genuine classes. Prior to this, they have very indistinct content, combining in themselves quite diverse groups of objects. So we have a very complicated picture: first, come indistinct and chance classification attempts which little by little accumulate into taxonomic grouping of studied objects; these taxa enter into the science paradigm in order to be investigated later and become real-life categories of analogous classes, each with its own traits and specifics. For example, the taxon “natural signs” includes walking along the tracks, orientation by the stars, symptoms of diseases that are reflected in the most intricate signs, and much more. Each category, for example, symptoms in case of diseases, should be considered separately, breaking it down into specific classifications of medical nature. In the course of detailed study, sections and subsections arise in which signs appear of more and more homogeneous categories with special methods of work for the study of each group. Notational systems combine natural language recordings, musical notations (fixation with notes), and cartographic images. Naturally,

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these are all different signs that require different approaches and analysis. Appeal to each such category requires appropriate classifications, which are already based on very specific and distinct features. For the time being, until their specific properties are established, they exist in the form of taxa. Thus, the first and the third phases are devoted to the creation of classifications in the corresponding branch of science; only during the third phase, classifications are based on the corresponding taxa that makes them properly customized and much more stable. However, another very important conclusion follows from the taxa sequence shown in the diagram above.

Taxa as signs of varying degrees of abstractness If we consistently build in the above diagram taxa one by one, from the below up, then each of them will turn out to have a higher degree of abstractness and generalization than the previous one. The image is more abstract than the natural sign, the word is more abstract than the image, etc. The degree of abstraction is determined by the proximity of the sign to its portrayed referent: natural signs are usually part of the overall picture that is presented (smoke reports a fire, the Polar Star – the direction to the North, etc.). They are closer to their referents than the image, because the image is not a part of the represented phenomenon. The word is farther from the prototype than the image, since it is usually arbitrary, and the image is still somewhat similar to what it depicts, etc. This criterion is the basis of my classification of all signs and sign systems, arranged according to the hierarchical principle of the abstractness of signs. In this, I also see the advantage of my typology over that of Pierce’s one. Pierce simply listed three categories of signs – indices, images and symbols; and I have a logical sequence of them according to the criterion I have chosen for the demonstration. Such construction of the typology of signs and sign systems gives hope for determining in the future their quantitative correlation. Today, it is still impossible to express the degree of abstractness of signs in any measurement units, although the first attempts in this direction have already taken place. Nevertheless, in that way we have received an important operational tool that helps us to

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compare signs and sign systems with each other, even without any numerical indicators. It is widely thought that there are only two ways to characterize certain phenomena – either qualitatively or quantitatively – and that there are no intermediate options. In fact, sometimes a third layer is also found between them – the intermediate one. It is partially qualitative and partially quantitative. I will show what I mean by an example from archeology. Archaeological artifacts are considered signs of extinct cultures and civilizations. Archaeologists do everything possible to as accurately as possible attribute this or that found object, to show its belonging to a particular culture, to the place, and most importantly – to the time when it was used. It is desirable that the desired chronology was absolute, that is, it would be tied to the exact time in our calendar. Then it will be possible to compare the new find with the data already collected earlier, to establish its origin more accurately and, what is important, to establish its connection with the well-known historical events. Yet such binding is not always possible. Sometimes relative chronology comes to the rescue. Thus, if a settlement was found in an excavation, and we cannot determined its chronology; but there are three layers in it, which can be described as belonging to the stone, copper (bronze) and iron ages, then this gives us at least some clue for properly describing the finding. We know the sequence of these epochs in history and can say which layer appeared earlier and which followed on. This method of attribution can be equally applied to both qualitative and quantitative research methods. First, based on the found objects, we determine the qualitative characteristics of the layers: Stone Age, Bronze or Iron. But this circumstance gives us the right to say that the lower layer should belong to the Stone Age, there is a bronze layer above it, and the last layer belongs to the Iron Age. Here we can already determine the layers with the help of ordinal numbers – the first, second and third layer, and these are quantitative indicators. We did not reach the ideal (absolute chronology), but reached an intermediate level of attribution, which also gives us a lot. The same can be said about the levels of abstraction in the types of sign systems I have selected. For the time being, they cannot be characterized by numerical indicators (I believe that this will be

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done in the future), but with a certain degree of confidence one can say about one or another sign system and even a single sign that they are less or more abstract than other signs or their systems. Under certain circumstances, this is sufficient for practical conclusions. For instance, the level systems from my scheme are applied in the article by M.A. Urban for specific conclusions about the solution of arithmetical problems in junior schools, and they seem to me very reasonable.20 However, there is one more indicator proving that the distribution of signs proposed by me in six categories works, and works efficiently. If we arrange the above taxa in the proposed order, we will find that each of them differs from the previous one in increasing the uniqueness of its understanding by the audience for which it is intended, while the audience itself becomes more qualified and homogeneous in the process. Thus, natural signs are usually very personal and intended for, so to speak, individual use. My memories and life path are not repeated in the lives of other people and are represented by signs from my personal biography. Of course, mountains, houses, people and other objects remain mountains, houses and people in the experience of all people, but these are not the same objects, on which my memories rest. The image, following the natural sign, is already much more voluminous in terms of the content included in it, but it is more blurred for perception (perceptually). The image of a person in a race, for example, represents all the people of a given race, but does not give a clear idea of his personal qualities that need to be thought out. The word of the next level of taxa is even more blurred. No wonder that literary texts are illustrated, and the images (say, sculptures) are accompanied by verbal explanations. In the first case, the illustration lowers the word to a specific level of perception, and in the second, the word raises an image that would otherwise be impossible to understand and attribute. The “word” includes the “image” in a more advanced category for thinking. If a chair is painted on the picture, it represents only 20

Urban M.A. Solution of arithmetical problems in junior grades of high schools. The journal “Junior School”, Minsk (Belorussia), 2008. N 11. p. 2-5 (in Russian).

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this type of chairs, that is, a single class of these objects; the word “chair” is a general concept that includes all possible chairs. Grapheme goes even further in this direction. For example, a straight line can depict a wide variety of objects and even relations between them, but in order to understand it in such a quality, abundant verbal comments are required. And the signs of the highest category – mathematical, logical, programming symbols, etc. – are completely abstract. They are understood only by a select few who manage to breathe in their rarefied atmosphere. Counter wise, specific signs of the above categories acquire their qualities, which are directly opposite to the properties of taxa. Any natural sign can be easily explained by resorting to the most diverse means, and there can be a lot of such means – they cannot be enumerated even in the most comprehensive lists. Images (pictures, musical pieces) can be explained in words – verbally and in writing, but they cannot be explained in terms of, say, mathematics. Words are usually explained in other words, pictures or gestures. Their explanation is more complicated than the explanation of images. And it is quite difficult to explain to the uninitiated the essence of formalized signs; Each such sign has only one form that is unequivocally interpreted by those who use them professionally; yet in order to understand them, one should know at least the essentials of the corresponding branch of science. Therefore, mathematical signs are understood in the same way all around the world; languages – within a given culture; images – only after appropriate and sometimes profound clarifications; and certain natural signs after easily done explanations to the person who perceived the object, but did not know its properties. In addition to these very theoretical characteristics, sign systems also have more visible, well-viewed properties, which serve us for their practical classification and analysis. We will talk about these properties below.

SIX STRUCTURALISM AS THE ONLY WAY OF EXTRACTING NEW KNOWLEDGE WITH THE HELP OF SIGNS

Introduction Some months ago, I posted an article “Why are signs so different” on the Academia.edu website, and a discussion on its content immediately began. There were many responses, both positive and critical. Some of them got me thinking and inspired me to write another article expanding my views. This chapter in front of you is my response. Thus, I am establishing a tradition of sequential discussion through several articles on the same digital platform (perhaps such an experience of this kind already exists, but I am not aware of it). This chapter is also the culmination of my many years of discussions about the theory of knowledge and the participation of signs in the process, which are scattered in numerous publications and exhibited on various websites. In this article I try to build a unified and consistent picture based on the previous sketches. For this task I must outline the direction of my approach and clearly define the terminology used. My approach is based on the postulate that human cognition is built on a threefold basis: (a) on ontological reality, including our material environment and ourselves as physical beings; (b) on semiotic (sign) reality, where we need to designate what we think about an object of reasoning; (c) on our thinking, which directs and organizes the cooperation of the two previously mentioned kinds of reality.

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All three designated areas of acquiring knowledge act in unison, helping and supporting each other, but each of them works according to its own laws, which must be coordinated with each other. For this, a special part of our thoughts is allocated, which I call metathinking. I believe that our thinking consists of two parts; one of them is directly devoted to the subject of our reflections, and the second is devoted to logical control over the correct construction of the first part of thinking. For example, I now devote my thoughts to the theory of knowledge in an attempt to briefly outline its content and development, and at the same time I cannot help but ponder how my presentation of the theory must be presented in a logical and demonstrative form. Hence, I must touch upon the laws of each of the three mentioned layers of the process of cognition as well as their coordination with each other. All of these points will be described below. As for terminology, I would like to highlight, first of all, the terms mentioned in the title of this chapter. I have already mentioned that the subject of our study is the ontological reality that surrounds us, into which we ourselves enter. In this case, we act as subjects of cognition, but in some cases also as objects of our own research: medicine deals with our physical condition, and psychology and logic with our mental inclinations and their actual content. We also discover that the phenomena we are investigating appear not only in a chaotic form, but as complex systems built according to strict hierarchies and related regulations. Thus, we reveal that we have to deal with systems describing their structures, their parts, and their interactions. This brings us to structuralisme. The most intriguing matter in this case is not only that we arrange our thoughts systematically, but that the entire world around us is made up of various systems that we are trying to decipher and reform to our advantage. How did it happen that long before the appearance of intelligent beings, the material world was formed in the form of complete and effectively operating systems? In this regard, I will use two terms – structure and system, meaning that the structure can also include unorganized matter, while the system assumes internal organization and the established patterns of its functioning.

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What we find in ontological reality, we reproduce in semiotic reality, arranging signs not chaotically, but in the form of independently existing systems: writing systems, painting systems, etc., and finally, systems of any separate science, reflecting the features of this or that natural phenomenon or social life. We do this simply because the signs in the system must not only denote the objects and events under study, but also their relationships and interdependence. Sign systems, first of all, try to make clear the patterns of development and operations with those parts of ontology or semiotics that we study. Therefore, I call the correct construction of semiotic structures the basis of scientific and, in general, professional knowledge. Only mastering the structure of what we research, we can solve all the problems that we have to face within the framework of our profession. Only mastering structures of what we analyze can we formulate laws, according to which various life phenomena in any of the existing sciences function. The sign systems that we create try to completely reproduce in signs what we observe around and in ourselves. However, in most cases these reproductions do not completely work. An ontological or semiotic phenomenon displayed in signs, more or less complex in structure and content, is so multifaceted and changeable that no sign system can reflect all its hypostases. Therefore, for most of the phenomena, we invent not one, but several systems. Sometimes even this does not help either, since the two faces of the same – the ontological and the semiotic – belong to different systems that develop and change according to their own laws. This is the main problem of the relationship between a phenomenon and the signs that denote it. We will dwell on this problem later in this paper. I would like to add a few more details about terminology. Concerning the third component in the process of cognition, by which I mean human thinking, it sets itself the task of combining what is being studied with the corresponding signs as closely as possible. As a result, a certain symbolic image of the phenomenon under study appears. To do this, we manipulate our thoughts, which gradually turn themselves into an idea. An idea in my view is a thought filled with concrete meaning. In other words, it isn’t used in an absent-minded state, when we have not yet solved the question posed to ourselves, but in a specific embodiment of the designated mode,

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when the signs we propose are already firmly attached to its referent. Only then does an idea appear from thoughts after a long period of signs processing. And one more term that I will use in the article is algorithm. It will be understood as a way of solving some problem with the help of signs. Usually, the algorithm is expressed in the aphoristic, shortest possible form, for example, “A body immersed in a liquidexperiences a buoyant force equal to the weight of the liquid displaced by this body.” I have called this form of algorithm “humansign interface.” Any human-sign interface has its own structure, repeating and explaining the structure of the subject or phenomenon that we are studying. The possibilities of creating an algorithm similar to the real state of the subject of study are different and depend on many factors. The allocation of such factors will be given a lot of space in this work. I will have to introduce a few more terms, which I will explain along the way.

Single signs and signs in the system A single sign is incomparable in its content and meaning with the same sign placed in the system; in the latter case, it gains additional weight and importance. A separate sign can perform only some of the functions that can be fully performed by it when it is in a system. When we pronounce the word “spoon,” we only call some object with this word and evoke, in our imagination, its vague image and associated traits. When we say “teaspoon” and add “a teaspoon is among the items of the cutlery,” we bring up in our mind a much more complete and, most importantly, much more accurate image of what is named, together with all its accompanying associations. The word “spoon” not only calls the object a name assigned to it, but also contains a lot of characteristics introduced into it by the very fact of belonging to the English language system. It also has grammatical, stylistic, and other characteristics, such as: it has two numbers (singular and plural), participates in various grammatical uses, etc. Therefore, every time I mention the word “spoon,” I have to align it with any of the above language categories. Further, I have to reckon with the syntactic whims of some special category

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of words to which the designation I am using belongs: what place this word can take in a sentence, with which other members of the sentence it can be associated, and with which it cannot, etc., etc., etc. I have to reckon with the phonetic features of words, their stylistic properties, and so on. Let’s take an example from another sign system, let’s say, from cartography. For instance, settlements are indicated on physical maps by circles, next to which their names are placed. In other words, in this sign system the name is separated from another sign, which assumes the function of denoting some important properties of the designated object. Most often, settlements are shown on physical maps as circles, reproduced in different sizes, each of which has a special meaning – the larger the circle the more people live in a given place. The number of inhabitants within each circle size is determined in the map legend, which serves as a terminological dictionary of the signs used in it. Other details may appear in the circle, for example, icons depicting the industry that is practiced in a given settlement, such as a triangle representing an oil industry. Another example, this time from one of the most abstract sign systems – mathematics. According to Ohm’s law, current (I) is proportional to voltage (U) and inversely proportional to resistance (R); and power (P) is calculated as the product of voltage and current (P × I). Based on this, the current strength in a certain section of the network is determined by the formula: I = P / U. In this case, the elements included in the formula are initially expressed simply by letter designations of the relevant material categories of the object, and their exact quantities will be calculated in the course of further processing of the formula. The formula (sign system) also includes the guides for such processing: the equal sign (=) and the P / U division sign. It remains for us to measure the voltage and resistance with the appropriate devices, enter the measurement results into the formula, and make the appropriate calculations. This can be done even by an illiterate person who has some skill in working with electrical networks and a calculator; the result will be absolutely accurate, because the main work is done by mechanical tools. The same can generally be entrusted to devices that themselves react to changes in the system and correct its states that go beyond the boundaries of

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the norm. This is the property of abstract systems: they are often guided by the work of devices and mechanisms, which can be performed by us without even knowing the essence of the matter (see below). Thus, we can conclude that the sign in the system performs not only the function of designating and giving certain characteristics to designated object; this is already available to a single sign. In the system, the same signs adapt their designations to the general context of a situation and establish its links with other accompanying signs. Moreover, the use of sign systems allows us to single out analogous situations and apply the same solutions to similar problem. By creating suitable sign systems for similar objects and situations, we find solutions to any practical problem. And yet we are not always able to adapt the chosen system to complete solutions of the problems we face; then we resort to variants of sign systems or we turn to sign systems from other layers of sign abstraction for help. Thus we add illustrations to written texts, and some of them come in handy. For example, illustrations for N. Gogol’s novel “Dead Souls” by A. Agin and E. Bernadsky (1840s) have turned into canonized images of the main characters of the novel. The illustrations by Gustave Doré (1832-1883) to the Bible and to other texts sacred for Christians were equally received. Why can’t we sometimes express an idea completely in the form of signs? This is explained by the fact that ideas arise in the brain, and the objects of these ideas are outside the brain; they are in ontological or in semiotic realities. Both sides of the equation are expressed in the form of systems, but by systems of different origins; to fit them to each other successfully, alas, is sometimes very difficult. This problem is not new, but extremely interesting, and I will devote the next section to it.

The confrontation of systems in the aporias of Zeno from Elea The Greek word “aporia” means the idea of incompatibility between two or more meanings being compared, a kind of natural inconsistency. Zeno of Elea lived in the 4th century BC. He was a

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pupil of Parmenides, who argued that no changes and movements in the world actually occur, and that all this is just our imagination. In support of his teacher, Zeno put forward several aporias that have puzzled philosophers up to our time; they were discussed by such titans of thought like Henri Bergson and Bernard Russell in the twentieth century. One of the most famous is the aporia about the confrontation between Achilles and the tortoise. Both line up for a race standing side by side, but the turtle starts the race earlier than Achilles. It crawls forward, and Achilles begins to catch up. According to Zeno’s reasoning, the matter is as follows: Achilles covers half the distance traveled by the turtle, but during this time the turtle also moved forward. The same movement happens again – Achilles tries to catch up, but there is always some distance between him and the turtle, because there is no limit to find an ever smaller number representing the distance between them, just as there is no upper limit in a natural series of numbers growing larger and larger. Concerning both their division and extension, natural numbers do not have a limit. According to Zeno, Achilles will never catch up with the turtle; there is no movement in nature, it is only in our brain. Zeno’s other aporias reveal similar contradictions. They have been readily discussed by philosophers for centuries, stopping in bewilderment at the fact that Achilles is easily catching up with a turtle in reality. Nothing complicated happens from my position – there is only a mixture of different systems, one of which concerns the facts of life and is easily verified by experience (Achilles catches up with the turtle, which is even easy to calculate), and the second is valid only within a certain sign system (in this case, mathematical). Yet, mathematics provides us with a lot of opportunities to calculate when a person will catch up with a turtle, no matter what advance the turtle might have. This is how this problem is solved, which is within the power of even a fifth-sixth grade schoolchild who begins to study algebra. If, for instance, the speed of Achilles’ movement is given, let’s say 2000 cm/min, and the tortoise moves at 40 cm/min. If the turtle started half an hour before Achilles and managed to crawl 120 cm (40x30), then we must find the time it takes for Achilles to catch up with the turtle. The solution (its algorithm) is shown below. Let us

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denote in minutes the time needed for Achilles to catch up with the turtle with the algebraic symbol “x” and form an equation with one unknown: 2000x = 40x + 120 ĺ 1960x = 120. Divide 1960 by 120 and get the number 16.3... Thus, in about 16.3 minutes Achilles will catch up with the turtle and surpass it, eventually leaving it far behind. So, using a properly selected sign system, we get a real result of what is actually happening. Thus, we solve problems that arise between ontology and semiotics, overcoming the sophisms of ancient and not so ancient philosophers. In the above example nothing amazing happens, since in it we try to match something from ontology (the contest of Achilles and the tortoise) with a property of our mind (manipulating signs in our thinking). Sometimes they are compatible, sometimes not.

Matching systems of reality with their designation systems I will arrange several sequential methods of selecting designation systems in the order of the resistance they encounter from their referents. The order will be as follows: first, there is a simple fitting to the designation of already existing sign systems; then systems of designation demand some kind of accommodation (adaptation); finally, there are notation systems specially created ad hoc for a specific case. Simple fitting This is the most common combination of systems; it most often occurs in day-to-day activities, where the number of options is innumerable. For example, you go to a tailor and ask him to sew a suit for you. The tailor takes measurements of some sides of your figure (which is preparation for creating a notation system). He does not measure all your parameters, but only those that will give him the opportunity to create a whole picture; writes them down and reproduces the desired appearance of the future attire. He uses this appearance while you are absent, checks the initial version, and finishes his work with the last fitting, during which final corrections are made. Your garment is ready. In the process of sewing it, three components can be distinguished: your figure is measured (the on-

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tological component of the process); a symbolic correspondence to your figure is created in the form of measurement numbers and a further drawing for the future suit (sign system then realized in practice); and the tailor thinking over the arising problems throughout the work, in order to connect the first component with the second one. Another example is from naturalistic art, when someone’s portrait or landscape is being painted. An artist goes out into nature; he admires this or that landscape. He makes his sketches and can finish the work on the spot or in the studio, reproducing in his imagination a picture corresponding to the real landscape and transferring it to canvas or cardboard. A talented artist does this by adding his own additions to what he has noticed; then the picture becomes even more beautiful. And again, there are three sides of cognition – ontology, symbolism, plus the artist’s imagination, that is, his thoughts. Finally, another example is science and its applications. In Euclid’s geometry, all the ratios of parts in any geometric figure on a plane are theoretically proved – such as in a triangle, parallelogram, circle, etc. Then a literate person can reproduce these patterns when producing real things. He takes the appropriate formula and makes elementary calculations on it with the help of tools or devices created for this purpose. For example, any builder, erecting a certain structure, constantly uses a meter and a triangle. In this way, he constructs an object according to the drawing he has already done. All land management is based on measuring areas using a rangefinder or the simplest calculation using planks. The sports stadium, including arenas and tracks, carefully planned and measured to the degree of centimeters. Adaptation of sign systems in images The adaptation of sign systems usually occurs when existing systems are applied in a new environment, or when new technologies appear that allow the use of sign systems different from the previous ones. Thus, about two thousand years have passed since the appearance of the plane geometry of Euclid (3rd century BC); and all along, humanity has been using this single human signs geometry interface in practice. Only in the 19th century did alternative

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geometries appear – i.e. those of Lobachevsky and Riemann, developed for spherical surfaces and similar cases, which we still use today. Another, more recent example, is ccartographie, which has existed since ancient times; it aimed to depict the surface of the Earth on maps, as well as other cartographic images. By our time, this task has been completed; and when a person began to send satellites into space, it became possible to add an imaginary line on navigators to find different places of the Earth. Now you can use special satellites to immediately receive the point of your location and from it create a route in the form of a line to any other geographical point that you need to arrive at. The line is ephemeral, it is not found anywhere, except in the navigation gadget, but it will quite confidently lead you to your goal. Moreover, if you still lose your way, it will immediately show you a new path. Today’s self-driving cars drive on roads without a driver, transferring its functions to automatic control. The profession of a simultaneous interpreter is disappearing; it is not needed, if a portable telephone or other electronic device can quickly and adequately translate the foreign speech of your interlocutor into your native language. Not only are the accepted human-sign interfaces changing, but in their wake so are social structures of society. IT specialists come to the fore, bringing about new interfaces for almost any area of life. These examples remind me of the historical incident wherein Blaise Pascal invented the adding machine (1642). Counters became obsolete for business, and there were a huge number of them – in almost any profession. Pascal made his invention in response to watching his father spend hours doing calculations of taxes, which he collected. And then the counters rebelled. Will the same thing threaten us in the near future, or will everyone becomes IT specialist? Sign systems made for extraordinary occasions There are few of such sign systems, and they all represent the cardinal embodiment of some important constructive idea. These are, for example, two successive interfaces about the construction and operation of individual parts of what is today called the Solar

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System. Any human community could have had an idea of how the world came into existence. While they presented fantastic images and grotesque narratives, which were mostly religious, there were numerous ideas. When humans perceived the scientific approach to understanding the world, they became unique and common for all humanity. The first of them described the solar system, led by the Earth, around which all visible celestial bodies revolved. This interface was created by the ancient Greeks, and it lasted until Copernicus (1473-1543), who created the so called “geocentric interface.” Copernicus, Kepler and Galileo changed the former interface to “heliocentric,” according to which the Sun is poised in the center of the system. So, even this kind of extraordinary sign system can change in a revolutionary way. In such systems, one can refer to the idea of space as a whole. It matured by the twentieth century and was reflected in the works of Albert Einstein, in his theories of relativity and compatibility of time and space under conditions of cosmic speeds and interactions. They also include our ideas about the human being, expressed in such aphorisms as “Humans are homo sapiens” or “A man – it sounds proudly!”. The main guides of this or that science also deserve the honor of being perceived as extraordinary interfaces. Evariste Galois, who is called the founder of modern higher algebra, [...] investigated the problem of finding a general solution to an equation of arbitrary degree, that is, the problem of how to express its roots in terms of coefficients, using only arithmetic operations and radii. Niels Abel several years earlier proved that for equations of degree 5 and higher the solution “in radicals” is impossible; however, Galois went much further. He found a necessary and sufficient condition for the roots of the equation to admit expression in terms of radicals. But the most valuable was not even this result, but the methods by which Galois was able to obtain it. Solving these problems, he laid the foundations of modern algebra, came up with such fundamental concepts as a group (Galois was the first to use this term, actively studying

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The examples could be continued, but to the readers, I hope, it is already clear what I mean. In addition, I want to make the next section of this article a kind of my response to some of the views expressed during the discussion of my previous article on Academia.edu. I believe in ... (Mia credo) As I said, the motive for writing this chapter was the discussion of my article “Why are signs so different” posted on Academia.edu. Some participants in the discussion spoke in the spirit of the article being interesting, while claiming its ideas were already known before, in particular, from the works of Charles Sanders Pierce (1839 – 1914). This remark fired me up a little, and I decided to answer it. I have no doubt that it was Charles Pierce who laid the foundations of the modern approach to science, which is now called semiotics. Honor and praise ought to be given to him; but this does not mean that we should stand at attention and not develop his views further. I think that I will not violate the truth if I say that my approach went further than his views. I have enough reasons for this. Proposing the notion of General Semiotics In the early 90s of the last century, I claimed that it is necessary to establish General Semiotics as an independent discipline, different from the semiotics of particular scientific disciplines. Semiotics as a science of signs has existed for a very long time – that is, since people began to talk about signs. As far as we know, medics were the first to do this. Through their writing, Hippocrates in Greece and Galen in ancient Rome identified the concept of symptoms, which has come down to us. They wrote that physicians, for the correct approach, should turn to the symptoms of the malaise that the patient is experiencing. Only after the analysis of such symptoms was it possible to start treatment. There is no doubt that they were 21

At: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Evariste-Galois

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talking about symptoms-signs. The same was done by the ancient mathematicians, who already relied on the word “sign” (“sƝmeion” in Greek), and then the actual existence of semiotics began. Any developing science, and also arts and crafts, cannot avoid a discussion of its professional terminology, which is in fact a private semiotics that belongs to it. However, at the level of the modern theory of knowledge, such an approach turns out to be insufficient; we need to highlight the general foundations of any particular science, so that later we can turn to the description of each of its constituent parts. We do this in the so-called general part of science, in its propaedeutic preface. See, how this happens when training specialists in any field of knowledge. In medical universities in the first year of study, a course of general medicine is taught, and only after that courses of special disciplines are introduced. Linguists first learn a course in general linguistics, lawyers learn a course called “Theory of state and law,” and so on. I tried to do the same for the science called general semiotics, the formation of which is far from over. All my works are organized under the heading of general semiotics: I have written a book called “An Outline of General Semiotics,” which has now been translated into Chinese. In English, the same idea was included in the monograph “A Theory of General Semiotics,” published in Cambridge. Along the way, I gave a new definition of semiotics as a science including the problems of single signs, sign systems, and the problems of semiotic reality. Albeit, this last part takes a slightly different turn, leading from semiotics to the philosophy of knowledge. On the classification of signs by types of sign systems At the beginning of this chapter I tried to show that the systemforming structures are the conductors of meaning for the signs they contain; therefore, I do not see anything reprehensible in laying the basis for the classification of signs according to the types of systems representing them. This is what I did in my classification schema, demonstrated in the discussed article and in many other publications. The pyramid of sign systems has, in a way, become my brand, and it is at the heart of all my other reasoning. Its main advantage is not only that it includes more classification classes

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(which is important in its own way), but also the fact that the proposed classes are not arbitrarily arranged, like in Pierce’s system, yet in a certain hierarchical order. I arranged them according to the criterion of the increasing abstractness of the signs available in their systems, which allows us to determine the order of appearance of various signs both in our common history (in phylogeny) and in the individual consciousness of each of us (in ontogenesis). We also can rank the types of sign systems represented in the pyramid according to the degree of their approximation to the development of the designated phenomenon. This parameter is important, since each situation inevitably changes step by step with our introduction in it of some new details. Imagine that you need to get out of the thick of the forest and beyond, finding the shortest path. Let us begin with a case when you are guided only by the objects around you – you notice striking landmarks and try to find the shortest path along them, or you climb a tall tree to look around and outline a way out of the forest. This is orientation by natural signs – the most imprecise solution to the problem. Let’s say that you have already been in the forest and remember some of its features, which helps you find your way out. It is the use of images that allow you to solve a problem. Next, you talk to a local on your smart-phone, and he explains to you how to escape. This is the use of linguistic sign systems, and it is more effective than the previously mentioned methods of orientation. Another way is that you have a topographic map in your hands and use it to find the itinerary (notation system). Finally, you use the navigator, which is the easiest and most effective means to solve the plight you are in, and the navigator is based on mathematical constructions and advanced technology, including earth satellites. The sequence of moves in this example is borrowed from my pyramid. It is this circumstance that makes the proposed schema practically useful. It’s like the archaeological excavations of former settlements, in which we find masses of all kinds of artifacts. It is difficult to understand the jumble, however, according to their materials, construction, drawings, and other signs archaeologists draw conclusions about them: when the most ancient artifacts appeared, what qualitative changes took place in them (for example, different types of buildings), what production facilities were there, etc. The

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only guideline is the artifact’s belonging to a particular system: “Here is a fragment of a vase, which in such and such period was produced in Thebes” or “This is an image of the Egyptian god Ra, therefore, these people had connections with Egypt.” Thus, I created a system from which one can draw conclusions about the belonging of each sign of the system to a certain category and, therefore, this sign is endowed with systemic properties. The classification criterion of the increasing degree of abstraction and the increasing accuracy of the meanings of signs (from natural to highly formalized) allows specialists of different professions and various scientific inclinations to come to some practical conclusions. I was also convinced of this by the reviews that came to me during more than 30 years after the publication of my first semiotic works.

Some practical applications of my theory implemented in life The first response was presented by culturologists. Leningrad professor A. S. Karmin in the book “Fundamentals of Culturology” wrote in his preface to the chapter “Typology of sign systems of culture”: The description of the typology of sign systems is given (with some changes) from the book: A. Solomonick. Language as a sign system. M., 1992.22

As a result, he describes the periodization of cultures according to my scheme with some alterations. It has come across the works of many other culturologists, who followed his example. Here is the report of N.Yu. Trushkina at a conference in Moscow: “On the possibility of parallelism in describing the evolution of the subject of mathematics in onto- and phylogeny.” She begins her theses as follows: [...] there is an opportunity to draw some parallels between the ontogenetic development of man and the phylogenetic evolution of 22

Karmin A.S. Fundamentals of Culturology (morphology of culture). Petersburg, “Lan,” 1997, p. 59.

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Six mankind. The idea of such a parallel is supported, for example, by the linguist A. Solomonick. His assumption is that the scheme of ontogenetic development of human intelligence, described by J. Piaget, can be applied to analyze the historical development of the subject of any science, including mathematics. The development of intelligence in human ontogenesis, according to Piaget, can be divided into the following stages: sensorimotor stage, figurative stage, symbolic representation of symbolic codes. Within the third stage, following A. Solomonick, the following stages can be distinguished: the stage of linguistic development (or speech, since the development of only oral speech is meant), the stage of writing, the stage of mathematical codes.23

Accordingly, the speaker presents her step-by-step schema for constructing and substantiating a mathematics course for schools. The number of references to my schema can be quoted further, multiplying the number of scientists and professionals who wrote about it. In addition to Russian scientists, we can reveal in this list also foreign names. Professor Ahmad Jaffar from Abu Dhabi was a specialist in programming the so-called computer business processes (we use such programs in banks, referring to the machine, not the clerk, when ordering goods on the internet, etc.). He applied my idea in his doctoral dissertation on evaluating the complexity of such programs for users.24 Each step of the sign hierarchy, which is demonstrated in the hierarchy I proposed, he supplied with a numerical coefficient. Having calculated the sum of all the symbolic designations, he was able (from his point of view) to determine the degree of abstraction of this or that program and also of its comprehension by potential users. Of course, he faced enormous difficulties, since there is a very large amount of sign systems and even more combinations of signs in them, but his attempt earned him a doctorate, and the further development of the method he proposed

23

Trushkina N.Yu. Report at the Faculty of Philosophy of Moscow State University on June 15-16, 2007. The conference: "Philosophy of Mathematics: Actual Problems." Abstracts of the conference reports. 24 Jaffar Ahmad & Shah Hanifa. Semiotic notation principles for business process modeling. At: https://aisel.aisnet.org/ecis2006/61/

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could be productive for the creation of a semiotic taxonomy in general. I will conclude my review by mentioning a very high-level article by Yu. S. Chaplygina, lecturer at the Samara State Economic University. It is called: “On the question of codes: definitions, types, structure” (review article). Codes are understood as systems of signs: “The description of codes (sign systems) reflects not only the development of human culture, but also the evolution of the human race.”

Over the course of several pages, the author analyzes different types of sign systems of the most famous philosophers, such as Bart, Lotman, Zhinkin and others. At the end of the article, she summarizes: “This is not a complete list of codes that have already been described above. It is sometimes impossible to understand all this variety of codes. In our opinion, there is a person who managed to do this – A. Solomonick. Taking Piaget’s schemes as a basis, he created a coherent classification of types of sign systems, in which he identified five types.”

Then she repeats them word for word. She gives the old version of my classification, in which there were five steps in the pyramid. Later, I divided the formalized systems of signs into two categories (with symbols of constant meaning and with symbols of variable meaning). So, now there are six steps in the pyramid. Chaplygina completes her article as follows: “This classification, in our opinion, is the most structured, covering the maximum number of types of sign systems. All the codes that we have mentioned earlier fit easily into Solomonick’s classification.”25

So that’s it. I proposed for the classification of signs a certain system of closely related concepts, based on one criterion, and Charles Pierce put forward three classes of signs, although im25

At: sejournal.ru/articles/issn_1977_2911_2008_1_1_56.pdf

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portant, but not related to each other. Here is what the famous philosopher of the last century Susanne Langer wrote about this: Charles Pierce, who was probably the first person to concern himself seriously with semantics [the term of semiotics was not yet in vogue – A.S.], began by making an inventory of all “symbolsituations,” in the hope that when all possible meanings of “meaning” were herded together, they would show empirical differentia, whereby one could divide the sheep from the goats. But the obstreperous flock, instead of falling neatly into a few classes, each according to its kind, divided and subdivided into the most terrifying order of icons, qualisigns, legisigns, semes, phemes, and delomes, and there is but cold comfort in his assurance that his original 39,049 types can really be boiled down to a mere sixty-six.26

I invite readers to draw their own conclusions.

26

K. Langer. Philosophy in a New Key. USA, N.Y., Mentor books, 1961, p. 55-56

SEVEN IMAGINATION AND RATIONAL MIND

Einstein once said: “The real attribute of intelligence is not knowledge, but imagination.” Imagination for him meant a way to expand the boundaries of the known and penetration into the realm of the unknown. When acquiring initial information about himself and his surroundings, a person, naturally, thinks about the cardinal questions of life: “Why and what do we exist for?” “What is the reality surrounding us?” “How to behave inside this reality so that not to hurt myself?” In other words, we begin to philosophize. Initially, philosophizing takes the form of fantasies – they do not require practically any significant confirmations. At the dawn of civilization, people found the answers to the above questions in the form of fantastical ideas – they did not have sufficient data for the correct answers, nor did they have the skills of logical thinking. In the same way children think, their conclusions in most cases are fantastic. Auguste Comte, exploring the development of human thinking, came to the following conclusion: According to my basic doctrine, all our speculations, both individual and generic, must inevitably pass through three consequent theoretical stages that can be sufficiently defined here with ordinary names: theological, metaphysical, and scientific – at least, for those who will understand their true value well. The first stage, although necessary in all respects, must from now on always be regarded as purely preliminary. The second is, in reality, only a modification of a destructive character, having just a temporary purpose and gradually leading to the third stage. It is this last, the only completely

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Already at the first stage in human thinking arises virtual reality, when people see the reason for what is happening in the intervention of mysterious and inaccessible forces. They base their thinking on their imagination and keep various magic forces for creators of world and human beings. Gradually, they move first to metaphysical, and then to positive thinking (in the terms of Comte). Some people remain at the mythological stage of thinking all their lives even nowadays. The question arises, is this type of thinking completely negative, and is it possible to get rid of it or even to pass it on harmlessly? The answer is unequivocal – no, it is impossible. This type of thinking is immanently inherent in all people, only little by little thanks to education and scientific development the majority of humans gradually turn into the orientation toward the correctly understood ontological reality, surrounding us, and in its semiotic reflection. As, to our thinking, we cannot dispense imagination from our mind, it is not only non-expedient, but harmful. However, the preservation of virtual fantastic ideas as fundamental throughout the entire conscious life is pathology and unacceptable for a normal person. In order to harness our imagination, we are learning all our lives to gradually rebuild our thinking according to objective templates, which should then be used in real life format. Imagination (I also will use another term for it – virtual reality), however, is not only inevitable, it is also necessary as the primary step of human consciousness in general, as the first and obligatory step for the transition to a higher type of thinking. Without it, there would be nothing else. This chapter is devoted to proving this thesis. Greek philosophy was nevertheless preserved until our time, because, along with fantastic ideas, it first raised the question of the combination of material and ideal in the process of acquiring knowledge. In other words, it recognized as essential the presence

27

Auguste Comte. The Course in Positive Philosophy. In: https://libking.ru/books/sci-/sci-philosophy/378471-ogyust-kont-duhpozitivnoy-filosofii.html

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of objective reality and its control over our inner impulses in any of our reasoning and practically applicable businesses. Only their philosophy was presented in very primitive manner, which was characteristic for ancient Greeks: either naively idealistic (ideas of Plato that actually exist) or naively mechanistic Aristotle’s ideas about matter, which cannot appear without form. These were really the very first steps in the right direction, born by imagination in the primitive common sense and later they were ousted by positive science. Naturally, the ancient Greek philosophers did not find the right options for the relationship between the material and the ideal; this turned out to be the progeny of our times. Almost two millennia have passed until grown humanity has been able to put at the head of the theory of knowledge the problem of the relationship between the material and the ideal as emanating from our mind, which gives rise to ideas according to what we consider. For all ideas about the similarities and differences of objects, about their functional features, about their classifications and hierarchies are the fruits of our thoughts, arising in the course of studying things and their symbolic signs. Any science is based only on this basis: all characteristics of the studied material arise in our brain as a result of the perception of those things and events that we encounter. They enter our brain not from Hyperurania (Plato), and not from the object of our study, where they supposedly are present as an integral part of the phenomenon under consideration (Aristotle). They are born in our minds in the process of properly delivered scientific research of the object of analysis. Unfortunately, the characteristics of the relationship between the material and the ideal in the theory of knowledge up to this day have remained at the same level that they had in the Ancient Greece: the material (as a whole and undifferentiated substance) versus the ideal (also undifferentiated) and nothing more. The time has come to discuss new aspects in the interrelationships between these two entities at various stages of scientific research, because philosophical theory of knowledge began to be eclipsed by the successful advances in particular sciences gained during some last centuries. That is why, these sciences started to claim priority in the explanation of basic properties of our life. This, to my opinion, un-

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dermines the very idea of philosophical generalizations. The present book is entirely devoted to this problem. Speaking of generalizations, it should be noted that the human brain has achieved unprecedented success due to the fact, that it divided the human thinking into two categories: thinking about specific objects and events and metathinking, which is concerned with what determines how to think. One side of thinking deals with specific parameters of the problem, and the second all the time regulates the process of thinking itself – its sequence, content and correct use of logic, correspondence of the conclusion to the premises and the evidence presented. I call this controlling segment of our thoughts metathoughts. Both, in the first and in the second case we use the same signs (images, words, symbols), but the techniques and direction of thinking in both cases are seriously different from each other (see also chapter 8). In this approach, I realize the postulate of Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980): “Mind organizes the world by organizing itself.” Neither animals nor machines have such metathinking; therefore, they are doomed for ever to be subordinate to homo sapiens.

Fantasies and imagination in scientific cognition These two categories – fantasy and imagination – fancifully intersect with each other and are inseparable from one another. They are comparable only in their specific ratio: at first, our imagination appears entirely woven of fantasy, but in the continuation some of our dreams are realized in life and become ontological or semiotic facts, moving from virtual reality to another sphere of being. Some of them remain dreams, delighting us only with their aesthetic splendor. As for the fantasies realized in life, they give rise to a new chain of reveries and images that seem to be ephemeral to the utmost, but in fact turn out to be the germs of new practical undertakings. For example, people since ancient times dreamed of flying like birds. At first, they by analogy with what they saw, tried to attach wings to themselves and ... fell, breaking on the ground. In such attempts dreams remained fantasy, but people did not let up, and with the advent of the scientific era, they did rise to the air. First on balloons and gliders, then on primitive planes, and nowa-

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days on rockets. Each new achievement brought about a new dream of more intricate and ever faster and comfortable flights – and it will always be so. In the course of my thoughts here, I touch upon the problems of virtual reality, which I describe in detail in the following chapters. This is, as it were, a preliminary mention concerning the place and role of fantasies and imagination in the creation of new knowledge. They can be pre-defined as virtual reality. This introduction will help me further to introduce a full-scale understanding of this kind of reality. There are three types of interaction between fantasy and imagination within the normal course of scientific research. They are presented below.

Phantasies initiate new discoveries It would not be an exaggeration to say that scientific discoveries are based on their preliminary presentation in the brain, that is, in virtual reality. Random revelations also occur, such as the opening of x-rays by Roentgen, later called Roentgen-rays, or the discovery of penicillin by Fleming. These, however, are exceptions. As a rule, discoveries are thought of and carried out purposefully. This function of virtual reality – to initiate future scientific discoveries – is well represented in the works of Michio Kaku, one of the leading popularizers of science in our time. One of his books – “The Physics of the Impossible” – is specifically devoted to the problem of the emergence of new ideas in thoughts, their gradual maturation, uncertainty about their possible realization and, finally, their happy implementation in practice. The author cites numerous examples when one or other innovative ideas met with hostility, and then turned out to be practically executable. Lord Kelvin, perhaps the most prominent physicist of the Victorian era (he is buried next to Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey), declared that “heavier than air” devices such as the airplane were impossible. He thought X-rays were a hoax and that radio had no future. Lord Rutherford, who discovered the nucleus of the atom, dismissed the possibility of building an atomic bomb, comparing it to “moonshine.” Chemists of the nineteenth century declared the

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Seven search for the philosopher’s stone, a fabled substance that can turn lead into gold, a scientific dead end. Nineteenth-century chemistry was based on the fundamental immutability of the elements, like lead. Yet with today’s atom smashers, we can, in principle, turn lead atoms into gold.28

It should be noted that the imagination and sudden insights often permeate the course of the study itself, when a conclusion from the data obtained comes suddenly and as if by itself. Thus, in the history of science is well known the case, when Friedrich August Kekule created in his mind the scheme of the benzene ring, which played such a large role in organic chemistry. It happened during a trip down London street; and, as usual, he thought about the structure of benzene. By chance, his attention was attracted by a cage with monkeys that were carried somewhere to a circus or menagerie. The monkeys jumped, grappled with each other with their paws, forming random rings, as it were. And right at the moment an association was born in Kekule’s mind: monkeys – carbon atoms, their paws – valences, with which the atoms bond with each other, and their tails – those free carbon valences that are supplemented with hydrogen atoms. The main idea was the same: carbon atoms can form closed circle chains.29

These and numerous other examples of this kind clearly demonstrate the role of human fantasy in obtaining from pure imagination seemingly unbelievable conclusions ultimately leading to the restructuring of existing knowledge. But there are other ways of influencing virtual ideas on the development of human civilization. Here is one of them.

Fantasies contribute to the creation of universal human ideals Human civilization was and is being created often in a random way. The human race, regardless of whether it originated from the 28

Michio Kaku. Physics of the impossible. At: https://yetemonamonew.files.wordpress.com/2012/11 29 At: http://www.poznavayka.org/himiya/istoriya-otkryitiya-benzola/

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same root or from a number of different sources, turned out to be divided into tribes and peoples, each of which developed according to its own laws and its own pace. As a result, by the time when, thanks to scientific advances, the question of building a global society appeared on the agenda, it turned out that not all peoples of the planet are ready to enter into a single organism. Will we be able to create for this a qualitatively homogeneous material? It seems that we can, because all representatives of the human race have common needs, although today they are satisfied in varying degrees and in different ways. We have to coordinate to a certain extent in this direction, but the decisive success factor is the fact that our aspirations already have a single vector and preferences. To such aspirations I attribute the human right to equality among all representatives of homo sapiens, the right to housing, food, education, medicine, labor and other benefits provided by nature and society. Today, social prerequisites have arisen for the universal realization of these natural rights, though the desire for that has existed from time immemorial and in any social association. Only it existed (and still continues to exist in many countries) mainly in virtual reality – as, for instance, the ideas of equality and justice. Occasionally there exited at the level of semiotic reality, for example, in the so-called utopian novels (Thomas More, Tommaso Kampanella, and others). Nowadays, there are already states that have approached ideals of this kind in ontological reality. Unfortunately, most countries on Earth are still dreaming of the advent of the “golden age”. Universal aspirations found way out in myths and legends, in grumbling of disgruntled, in revolts of offended and insulted; today they most often result in demonstrations and declarations. We are still clinging to outdated and anti-democratic traditions, but the course of history is becoming more distinct: to find, finally, longawaited equal rights for all people and to live in a society built on fair game. There are still many hurdles in our way, the path itself is long and full of suffering and struggle, but many of today’s demonstration takes place under such slogans. In the end, we will inevitably come to our aims, because people united by understanding of the purpose and common sense are omnipotent. Then ideas from virtual reality will receive the corresponding semiotic and ontologi-

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cal content and will cease to be just epics and dreams. See more details on the topic in chapter 15.

Research results and virtual reality Finally, virtual reality is also present where positive research results have already been achieved, but where they have not yet received satisfactory confirmation and approval of the scientific community. Many outstanding discoveries (alas!) awaited such fate. Thus, A. Einstein’s general theory of relativity waited for several years for confirmation, until in 1919, when a solar eclipse occurred, it was possible to measure the deviation of light rays from the planet Mercury under the influence of the Sun, predicted by his theory. After receiving the measurements, the theory became a scientific fact and passed from the category of virtual reality to the status of an ontological phenomenon. Gregor Mendel’s outstanding contribution to genetics also did not receive recognition for a long time. “Mendel published the results of his experiments in 1866 in “Versuche über PflanzenHybriden” (“Experiments with plant hybrids”). However, at that time the article did not receive positive reviews and was forgotten. Experiments with peas brought him the title of “father of genetics,” but, unfortunately, only after his death. There are a lot of such cases full of drama and long non-recognition of outstanding scientific breakthroughs. All of them are a consequence of the stagnancy and inertia of existing views, which, nevertheless, are inevitable. In terms of this work, these discoveries are examples of the transfer of scientific data from the realm of virtual reality, via semiotic reality (proclaimed verbally or in writing), into the sphere of their realization in ontological applications. Details on virtual reality can be found in the next chapter.

EIGHT ON VIRTUAL REALITY

I got the first ideas about virtual reality and how it was perceived today, relatively recently, when I joined a group of researchers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology. They invited me to tell them about my semiotic works, and I, while attending their reports, heard repeated references to the terms “virtual reality”, “augmented virtual reality”, “virtual model” and the like. These terms were pronounced without hesitation, taken for granted, as if it was a well-known topic and not subject to doubt. But when I asked “What is virtual reality?” and “How does it relate to the reality of the ontological plane?”, confusion arose, and everyone was silent. The situation made me uneasy and I began to think it over. Since at that point I had already included the semiotic reality together with the ontology into my vision of human existence, I came to the conclusion: virtual reality should also stand on the par with them in the list. Since then, I have got involved into reflections about virtual reality problems. I want to confess, that I am yet not too advanced in my explorations, but am ready to share my views on the subject below.

On the place of virtual reality in metaphysics Metaphysics of today seems to me as follows. Our being consists not of the two components, as philosophy traditionally interprets, starting from Plato and to this day (the material world vs. the ideal world of our ideas), but of the three equally important and interrelated parts + the subjective world of our thoughts. The three parts of the material world are ontology, the complementing it semiotic reality (consisting of signs and sign systems), and the virtual part of our imagination. The virtual reality, being actually ideal by

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origin, appears so much involved into objectified reality, that it becomes its inseparable ingredient, even its leading component, constantly forcing it to become completely integrated into material world. Little by little, the complex of the three mentioned parts moves toward its full realization in the material world, where the virtual part either dissolves itself completely or becomes insignificant. The world of our thoughts is not opposed to the material worlds (at any rate, partially). In fact, it is de facto at the center of the whole picture and conducts the ontology and the corresponding to it signs advance into new incarnations of material entities. Everything that is represented in ontology, I call things, or rather, things-events, because a thing cannot be known without an indication of how it exists. Therefore, a thing is inextricably linked with the mode of its existence, and I comprehensively designate this unit as a thing-event (more often just a thing). In addition, anything (as well as basic units of the remaining parts of being) is also accompanied by the shell of its spatial and temporal dimensions. Unlike Kant, it seems to me that space and time exist objectively, and not only in our consciousness. The huge part of the ontological world is beyond our consciousness, and in it any thing is limited by its parameters of space and time. As soon as they disappear, the being of the thing ceases. Equally, it begins to be a thing for us only after we have established at least its approximate spatial and temporal dimensions. The shell of each thing-event comes into contact with the shells of neighboring things and events; it is in contact and interacts with them, thus constituting a whole world of ontological reality. The basic units of semiotic reality are signs and sign systems composed of them. Things-events in ontological reality arose and began to function even before the appearance of people – by the very fact of their being and interaction with each other. The influence of man on them commenced later. Signs and their systems are, on the contrary, exclusively the product of our consciousness. They appeared and appear in the mind of a person studying his environment and transferring impressions from external influences into his brain in the form of images, which are then supplied with verbal definitions. After their entrenchment in the mind, definitions are

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transmitted outside, beyond our consciousness. There they become the property of other people, enacting interpersonal cooperation. Separate signs are combined into sign systems that help us understand the object of observation and even influence it to the best of our abilities, changing both the ontological reality and its semiotic presentations. By system, I mean such coupling of parts into a single whole, which allows using it to achieve the desired result, in whole or in part. A non-working combination of parts is not a system and remains a simple pile-up of non-interacting things-events. In sign systems each sign receives its hierarchical position and its share of features and characteristics. With the help of sign systems, we to a certain extent realized the space-time of things around us and partially remade the ontological realty. Today, ontological reality consists of two parts – one part is modified and the remaining unaffected. The changed part is called the first nature: and what is not yet available to us, is named the second, remade nature – he names were invented by the ancient Greeks. All useful and working signs and sign systems, gathered together in the treasury of human knowledge, are called by me semiotic reality. Products of semiotic reality (books, notes, drawings, etc.) are no less important for the existence and progress of the human civilization than ontological things. The basic unit of virtual reality is virtual model that is projected into our brain not only on the basis of external influences, but also under the direct impact of human imagination and fantasy. Until recently, virtual reality was based solely on fantastic ideas (dreams, religious doctrines, fairytales and epics, as well as any literary fiction). As a result of the technological and scientific progress of recent times, human thought in the form of fantastic representations gained the possibility of real effect on ontology and on semiotic reality. To do this, we use mathematical methods for modeling reality: When applying quantitative research methods in any field, a mathematical model is always required. When constructing a model of a real phenomenon (in our case, an operation), the latter is inevitably

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simplified, schematized, and this scheme (“model” of a phenomenon) is utilized using one or another of mathematical apparatus.30

How this happens will be described in detail below, for now I’ll give you just a few examples. For example, with the help of special devices, say, special spectacles, we can put ourselves in a different environment than the one in which we are at the moment. On this principle various training simulators are built. This is the simplest example very often applied in practice. Or, another example connected with computers: modern technologies allow us to collect enough data and process it using a computer in such a way that a convincing picture of the behavior of these things difficult to reproduce in tangible form in other ways, is formulated. Thus, a virtual model appears, sufficient to begin its actual implementation in the form of things or signs. When it turns into things or signs, it moves from virtual reality to ontological or semiotic, and we can practically use the received things or signs for our needs. Manages all these metamorphoses human thought. Thoughts arise as a result of exposure to one or more of the above-described realities. They can arise from direct contact of a person with the surrounding material environment. It may occur when reading and familiarizing with the views of other people, that is, with the semiotic reality. Very often they appear under the influence of human fantasy. However, thoughts are not only the result of the influences experienced, but also a piston pushing a person towards innovations and inventions. Arises creative process of interaction of thought with material objects, during which thought consciously (and sometimes semi-consciously) chooses a source, from which it will draw inspiration and continuation. In this way occurred, as if from nowhere, very important discoveries. Mendeleev tirelessly worked with the cards, where he wrote names of all chemical elements known in the middle of the XIX century until, either in a dream or in a special state of mind, he imagined a clear picture of the periodic table of elements, that turned chemistry upward down. Kekule, as noted 30

Ventzel E.S. Searching the Operatins. 2nd ed., Moscow, “Science publishing”, 1988, p. 20 (in Russian)

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above, accepted the idea of a benzene ring molecule during a trip along a street in London from the sight of a cage with frolicking monkeys. This virtual model has completely revolutionized organic chemistry. In most cases, however, thought independently and consciously chooses for itself the building elements of further development. The schema here presents how I imagine the place of thought in the overall picture of human existence:

Paradigm of Human Being

THINGS METATHOUGHTS

SIGNS

VIRTUAL MODELS

For greater clarity, I chose the familiar model of the solar system, placing the thought in the center of the scheme as its main element, choosing important blocks for it from revolving around the spheres of a particular reality. In order to exit from its virtual status it first becomes the form of a virtual model. As new facts are obtained in the process of cognizing the object of investigation, it gains its more and more real form, till at last, it can be included into ontology or semiotic reality for its implementation. There it is fixed in its complete form, accessible for perception, and processed in the right direction. Such is the general background of the problems that occupy us in this work. It is important to emphasize that thought interacts with three material types of reality, cooperates with them, and is not their adversary or opponent. Attempts to present thoughts as something hostile and incompatible with material substances is

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product of the mechanistic views of ancient philosophers, brought to the point of absurdity in the philosophy of the Marxism, where it was declared the main problem of philosophy. The reasons for which I chose to show the model of the solar system are interesting. Such a model arose as a result of studying the movements of the planets around the Sun, that is, it was copied from nature. Its secondary reproduction as a role model took place at the beginning of the 20th century, when scientists tried to understand how an atom works. Then she replaced the vague notions that arose during the research of Rutherford and others and played a huge role in understanding the intra-atomic processes. It was used by Niels Bohr in order to visualize his ideas about the transfer of electrons from one orbit to another and the following changes and transmutations of chemical elements. In his Nobel speech (1922), Bohr noted: In the structure of the atom, we notice a deep analogy with the planetary system, such as, for example, our solar system. And as the movements and interrelationships in solar system take place in the Universe, so the structure of the atom determines the properties of the elements that make up our Earth, its inhabitants and the Universe itself.31

In this example I want to show, how my three spheres of Being interact with each other in the process of scientific research. I would like to underline that such interactions are possible only under the influence of our thinking. I am not the first philosopher to object to primitivism, which exists in explaining the interaction between the material and the ideal in cognition. As early as the 18th century, Johann Georg Hamann (1730 – 1788) held the same point of view. On this issue, one of the leading philosophers of the Soviet era wrote: Hamann regarded the opposition of materialism and idealism not as the opposition of incompatible and antagonistic theoretical systems, but as the opposition of various personal relationships to a single real and holistic being He expressed the deep idea about the 31

At: https://www.britannica.com/science/Bohr-model

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unity of all kinds of oppositions and considered it as a general law.32

This citation clearly shows an alien for me view on the composition of these two areas – the material world and the area of ideas, feelings and thoughts. This is all the more wrong, because the whole layer of material substance (virtual reality) has as its direct source the world of our dreams and imagination, which is so indestructible and so naturally manifests itself in human consciousness.

Why did I decide to break the conventional wisdom? First of all, because I had the impression that the old philosophic paradigm, in which the world of human ideas is opposed to the material world, has exhausted itself and no longer works. Many professional philosophers, as well as scientists of other nonphilosophical specialties, hold this view today, which I wrote about in detail in the introduction to this book. I am deeply convinced that the philosophical paradigm borrowed by us from the ancient Greeks, at the present stage of development of the natural and social sciences, has ceased to meet the requirements set for philosophy to give an adequate explanation of the new facts obtained by science and thus stimulate its further progress. But, it is precisely science of our time that is the most important factor in the progressive development of mankind. Therefore, I decided to change the standard philosophical paradigm to one that would correspond to the views adopted today on the organization of the process of knowledge. In this regard, I formulated a vision of a new philosophical paradigm, described briefly in the previous section. I came to it during the development of the theory of general semiotics. When I had to analyze the world of semiotic reality, it was difficult not to conclude that it (the semiotic reality) should take its rightful place in philosophical epistemology, that today this type of reality is equivalent to the reality of the ontological plane and that it is not inferior to ontology in our search of knowledge. 32

Hamann Johann Georg. Russian Philosophic Dictionary, Moscow, 1991, p.80

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Yes, semiotic reality arose during the study of ontology; it appeared later, but immediately it began to exert on the process of cognition the same decisive influence as the ontological reality itself. The fact that semiotic reality arose much later than ontology, explains to us why the philosophical paradigm, taken mainly from the ancient Greeks, did not recognize its equivalence to ontology. It developed gradually, constantly increasing its significance and value for the scientific organization of knowledge receipt. Today there is no doubt that the semiotic reality cannot be ignored in any scheme of human development and, therefore, its absence in such constructions negatively affects the validity of most philosophical conclusions, especially in the sphere of epistemology. After the inclusion of semiotic reality as an independent category in the scheme of the material world, we had to agree that there is also room for virtual reality, especially since it has been already recognized de facto in many sciences and practices. This was clear for me and I gradually came to the above scheme, although the detailed description of the characteristics of virtual reality does not yet exist. I must confess that this kind of work turned out to be quite difficult, since before that I had not participated in such developments and only watched them from the side. However, “the first step is the hardest.” Does it mean that the incompleteness of our mental constructions and their focus on our imagination should prevent their practical use? In no case. Just as the insufficient knowledge of the ancients did not prevent them from using the first geographical maps of the then-known, poor knowledge of the celestial cartography of our time cannot prevent our missions in space and the subsequent correction of existing ideas about the world space around us. Everything has its time. The desire of the mind to quickly fill the existing flaws in knowledge only helps us in their early future improvement. It is important to understand that the notions of being will never become final, and that all of them will include in some measure virtual reality. At the same time, being a necessary weapon in the knowledge of the matter unknown to us and willingly responding to any of our mental effort, thoughts are very insidious and elusive material for logical analysis, easy to lead us astray. They are less durable and

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stable than things in ontology or signs in semiotic reality. The latter give much greater confidence in their constructions than thoughts, which quickly come in and just as readily yield place to other thoughts. In order to become reliable material for creating virtual objects, that can be relied on in real practice, thoughts need to be placed in some framework of logical constraints that would prevent them from breaking through the boundaries set by logic. Therefore, thoughts that open the way to virtual events, being the most ancient instrument of human reasoning, became our reliable assistant in this matter only in very last time, when three factors were combined: A. People have built fairly solid foundation for proper logical generalizations. B. Humanity already has in its arsenal a great multitude of ontological and semiotic products, initiated and created with the participation of human imagination. All these events came to live from purely virtual reality, from mental thoughts, and then became objects of the ontological and semiotic world. B. People invented such mechanic tools that were supposed to do most of the work people had performed earlier in the research process (first of all, I mean the computer). This work kept us busy for years. Nowadays computer does it in no time. Everything that it can do to preserve and process information is unparalleled. Let us consider the above-mentioned factors using the example of a single project with virtual reality. I want to dwell on the invention and implementation of crypto-currency, called bit-coin. Nobody denies its virtual essence, but before the appearance of such a “coin”, humanity had to go a long way to realize what a universal equivalent of value is. Determining the price of things, service, or remuneration began with barter. Later, people came to the need to choose and use the equivalent of value when exchanging goods. For example, in some locality there was a lot of salt or fur. The trades were developed respectively – salt and furs became equivalent to the value of everything that needed to be acquired. It can be said that the abovementioned forms of exchange corresponded to natural phase of signs that were involved in the process. Then people came to the conclusion, that pieces of precious metals can serve as the equivalent of value. Thanks to their small

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size and the material from which they were made, they became a convenient means of calculation. Then came turn of money – first coins of precious metals, then of some other metal, common in the particular area (for example, copper money), and, finally, paper money. By themselves, the papers did not cost anything, but they were promissory notes, for which solid financial centers (banks or government treasuries) vouched. According to the semiotic classification, money can be designated as signs of figurative meaning (images). Here, you have a bill of three dollars – it is equivalent to the value of everything that can be bought for three dollars in a given place and at a given time. Already, in our time, money began to give way to cashless settlements – by means of checks, credit cards, on the Internet, etc. Now, relatively recently, people invented a virtual coin, which really does not exist, but is comparable to any other money at the exchange rate. You have a certain amount in bitcoins, and you can dispose of it in the same way as you manage other money at the rate set for today for all currencies, real or virtual. This ensures the ability of bit-coins to be in motion at any place on the globe and at any time. In addition, we do not have to go to any organization regulating currency exchange, that is, we still save on commission fees. Settlements are made via the Internet, the creditworthiness of the counterparty in the transaction is also determined, and payment is made. It should be noted that using bit-coins one-on-one with our counterparty, we also bypass the tedious procedure of transferring money from one bank to another, using, for example, the SWIFT program. This example confirms the theoretical calculations above: A. Humanity has come a long and difficult way of experimenting with various means of compensation for goods purchased, services rendered and remuneration for their work. We have understood such cardinal concepts as price, cost, form of payment (their speed, convenience, cheapness, confidence in the fact that the transaction is completed). This is our preliminary experience. B. We tried various forms of financial compensation for the cost of goods and services, understood their advantages and disadvantages and learned how to handle different currencies in a complex way, which today, alas, do not facilitate easy settlement of goods and

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services within the global world. The single currency has become an ideal solution to all these problems, although it is inherently virtual, and there can be no other. Crypto-currency has got all the chances to become universal means of payment, precisely because it exists only in our thoughts, not having a material incarnation, which is more likely to individuality than to community and collectivity. But in order to understand this, humanity had to go the way of, so to speak, a “substantive experiment” with duration of several thousand years. C. Mass transition to a crypto-currency can take place only with the help of modern information technologies, which make it possible to instantly establish communication between people living at a distance from each other, find out their financial position and in accordance with this – conclude a deal with its immediate implementation. In the light of the experience gained by mankind, we can now come up with a mental construction of everything that happens when calculating transactions and make them without addressing intermediaries – directly, using all imaginable realities for this. In other words, we mentally return to the starting point of all our value experiments, but we return, enriched with the experience of previous efforts, and thus we introduce virtual reality into everyday practice. Above are listed the positive aspects of our appeal to virtual reality to create new models of it, operating in the conditions of ontological or semiotic reality, but there are also embarrassing moments. The introduction of crypto-currency is constantly accompanied by doubts that it will ultimately break down. It is often compared with the financial pyramid, which will certainly collapse, and really it can happen any time. These consents are not without foundation: the crypto-currency is held on the absolute belief that the transaction will take place, with in full confidence in the counterparties with whom you have to deal; otherwise people would not buy bit-coins in exchange for their real savings. But the participants of the financial pyramids were confident in their reliability until the very last moment, after which the crisis began. This indicates that the material used to create the phenomena of virtual reality (thoughts and beliefs) is not as reliable as the ma-

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terial for creating samples of the two other types of reality. In the case of doubt, the experiment convincing everyone is not available to us and we have to resort to other methods and evidence of the viability of plans for using crypto-currency. For the time being, it continues to strengthen: the rates are fantastic; virtual currency gets higher and higher and some countries have adopted it officially trying to guaranty its safety.

Basic unit of virtual reality The main way of asserting the stability of our virtual projects is the basic unit of this type of reality. In it, we always start with a virtual model. Unlike ontological practice, where at first we usually deal with specific single things-events, and in contrast to semiotic reality, where single signs can be used, virtual reality rests solely on virtual models. The virtual model assumes the presence of several parts in it, which are combined into a single structure that operates in certain direction according to the previously established rules. Appeal to single manifestations in virtual visuality is excluded – everything happens at the stage of mental utilization of parts that are stable in their construction, which work in accordance with the planned outlines for the entire structure. Its components are already tested things and phenomena, that have already established their suitability in practice. This is the fundamental difference of virtual reality, giving it the opportunity to exist. This is also the main factor in asserting reliability for each project of developing and implementing virtual reality. The usual procedure for the implementation of such projects is as follows: we offer some reasonable construction consisting of components that have already been tested in practice; we designate what it is for; and we attach to this strategy and tactics of processing the model in the computer according to the program again compiled by ourselves. If this kind of computer processing is successful, we implement our structure either in ontology or in semiotic reality. By this criterion – the influence from ontology or from sign reality – we can designate some categories of virtual reality that is already working today.

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Augmented virtual reality in the ontological environment It is created, when in ontological practice it is impossible to act by direct methods. An example is the display of data on the patient’s condition during surgery. In this case, the surgeon requires indications of changes occurring in the patient’s body at any given moment: blood pressure, temperature fluctuations, and some others. In theory, they can be obtained by familiar means – a monometer, a thermometer, etc., but the latter are inconvenient to use and the duration of measurements is very long. Therefore, special devices are created, that work throughout the operation with output of the data on screen. That allows the surgeon to observe all the necessary indicators online, without interrupting the operation underway. Similarly, data on the speed of movement and other circumstances requiring attention (the presence of gasoline, brake fluid, etc.) are displayed on the driver’s plate of the car. And this is also an additional virtual reality, derived on the ontological level.

Participation of augmented virtual reality in semiotic constructions In this case, I mean constructs of semiotic content, in which virtual reality complements the blank spaces that remain unfilled. A classic example of such constructions is the theory of the evolution of living matter, proposed by Charles Darwin and continued by his followers. It was visually represented by the German naturalist Ernst Haeckel (1834 – 1919) in the form of a genealogical tree.33 It showed the genealogical history of living creature up to the emergence of human race – from the dawn to the present. Throughout the entire length of this visual history, the stages that our ancestors went through in their development are shown. Each stage receives its name and its distinctive features. But some stages are justified only hypothetically, since there are not enough anthropological artifacts that would confirm the possibility of their existence. 33

The genealogical tree is also called the presentation of ascending or descending genealogies and genealogical tables in general – all of this is done within the science of genealogy.

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The hypothetical filling of the “white spots” is needed for the connection between the stages that received scientifically substantiated confirmation in this theory. Logically, these white spots could be justified, but no actual material for such an excuse existed yet. As a result, all subsequent anthropological finds were also evaluated according to the extent to which they corresponded to earlier assumptions in Darwin’s theory. If they coincided with them, then everything was in order. If they did not correspond to them, the hypothetical constructions had to be changed. I call this process a combination of semiotic and virtual realities in scientific research. Virtual reality is based here on ontological data, on their semiotic reflection and on our reasoning, which may have logical basis, and may be simply assumptions rather than grounded facts. In this case, the virtual reality in scientific papers fills in the as yet unproved assertions about the material under study to more or less acceptable predictions that are important for establishing further parameters of our research. If the predictions are subsequently not confirmed, then the hypothesis is discarded. If they are confirmed, then the considered phenomenon goes from virtual reality to semiotic and to its ontological applications. Explanations of virtual reality of this kind are confirmed in the book of the Russian philosopher Ivan Lapshin “The Philosophy of Invention and Invention in Philosophy”, published in 1922. In it, the author constantly returns to the idea that very important discoveries in science are made with the help of fantasmas of scientific imagination (here and below all the words in italics in quotations were underlined by Lapshin. – A.S.). In my understanding, the phantasms indicated by him are nothing more than a kind of virtual reality, which, together with semiotics, constitutes the flesh and blood of a single paradigm, providing for decades, and even centuries, the direction of scientific research in any field of knowledge. Lapshin defines phantasms as follows: Scientific phantasms are such that, in the mind of a scientist, they do not correspond completely in their content to reality, but in a hypothetical form and in the most crude and approximate terms correctly capture the known objective relationships between phenomena. It should be borne in mind that in the process of the

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formation of scientific phantasms, not only the imagination of the inventor plays a role, but also objective data, often amenable to quantitative calculation within certain limits. In biology, we find phantasms depicted presumably by the now not existing intermediate forms of the plant and animal kingdoms (for example, at Haeckel), as well as the re-creation of whole specimens from which the skeleton or part of the skeleton is preserved. The latter brilliantly carried out by Cuvier due to the correlation existing between all parts of the body. Based on the analogy with heuristic fictions in mathematics, Comte proposes to introduce into biology the images of fictitious organisms, that should be inserted between typical samples of known organisms. Such organisms are artificially constructed by the scientist’s imagination in order to simplify the process of comparing organisms. In this way we make the known biological series more homogeneous and continuous, in short, more regular. Of these fictitious organisms, many, perhaps, will later be existing in nature in a more or less accurate form from among the organisms unknown to us so far.34

Actually, we are talking about the following. Most of the fundamental theories are advanced on the basis of some “breakthrough” discoveries that do not fit into the framework of previous scientific paradigms. They serve as the basis for the birth of new paradigms, in line with which scientific activity will continue to develop in the affected areas of knowledge. But, since the initial discovery is only the first step in a new direction, the whole conjectural theory, built up behind it, is reinterpreting the world in a new way, which will gradually include, as it is discovered, ontological or semiotic facts that support it, and also will serve as virtual guide for further research predicting their intended results. Thus, the corpus of new revelations will necessarily include both empirical facts and virtual links, which predict the discovery of facts yet unknown, but logically consistent with the indisputable points in the theory.

34

Lapshin Ivan. The Philosophy of Invention and Invention in Philosophy. Ɇoscow, “Republics”, 1999, p. 103-105. (Translation from Russian is mine)

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Creating instruments and tools for moving us in virtual environment This branch of virtual reality is the most understandable and received in our time a lot of attention and the most practical applications. We massively create such adaptations that take us into virtual reality environment within ontological or semiotic realities. I mean primarily variety of simulators. Fitness clubs are very popular, where such simulators are easily accessible. For example, the runway represents the virtual length, along which we have to go faster or slower to train our feet. Special glasses make the environment around us such that it requires us to perform the actions necessary for some kind of activity. Then we carry out the actions required of us, preparing ourselves in the laboratory conditions for the realities of future events in actual circumstances. In all these cases we use the “fake” reality, while remaining in the reality of ordinary being; but we can, however, at any moment stop our stay in the virtual reality and “return home”. Today, in theory, all virtual reality is reduced only to “fake” one. If you open the Internet and enter the tags “virtual reality”, “virtual environment”, “virtual model” there, you will receive answers reflecting this very version of it. No other variant of virtual reality has yet received theoretical justification, and this work, in particular, is aimed at correcting this shortcoming.

Virtual reality for introduction of human values This is what I tried to describe above using the example of crypto-currency. From the very beginning, homo sapiens sought to satisfy their needs, at first the most necessary ones – in order to simply survive, and then in order to ensure comfortable living conditions for themselves. These aspirations are described in our history throughout the existence of mankind. Different stages of implementation of such intentions have been completed – from the most elementary to the more advanced and ubiquitous. Ultimately, the realization of human needs in our time led to the active use of virtual reality and its transformation into the reality of the material plane.

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And the path was the same everywhere – from the first naive and seemingly obvious actions to more and more sophisticated and abstract ones; from actions of purely ontological nature to semiotic reality, and then to virtual one, in order to fully implement our plans into the practice of life. Here are some augmented examples. The first of these refers human languages, necessary for the expression of thoughts and the establishment of communication, first with the nearest and then with continuously expanding environment. At the dawn of human development, intuitively feeling such a need, people invented primitive languages that were spread within their tribe. Gradually, the area of this language use spread over the territory of the tribe’s migration and into the conquered spaces. At the same time, changes took place in the languages themselves. Words – basic signs of languages – gradually transformed from proper names into notions, combining meanings for many homogeneous objects of the designated phenomena, and with the development of science, the same words were selected for definitions of scientific concepts. People also invented writing to convey their wisdom to others, both at a distance and in time. Writing provided the creation of culture – first national, then, slowly, internationally, common to all humanity. Linguistic diversity prevented the spread of culture, and then people set themselves the task of inventing a single language for all. The virtual nature of such a universal language, inspired by the experience of living languages, was in the air and became an allconsuming idea. Many projects of the international language were proposed – Esperanto turned out to be the most successful. But, it for several reasons stopped at a very high stage of its development, and did not become a universal language. Now we have rapidly progressing English – at present the language of the most advanced culture and technical achievements. Today, there is hardly a country where English is not taught in schools. It also dominates at international meetings and in most international organizations. In a word, it is rapidly approaching to turn the virtual idea of universal languages into an actually working entity. The second example concerns the idea of universal legal regulation. From time immemorial, people have sought to morally justified justice and dreamed of establishing a world order, where such

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an idea would have been practically implemented. This is evidenced by the utopian works of philosophical and educational plan. The Englishman Thomas More in 1516 published a book, which was called “The Golden Book, as useful as it is fun, about the best structure of the state and about the new island of Utopia.” In 1602, the Italian Tommaso Campanella wrote his Utopia “The City of the Sun” in the dungeons of the Inquisition. In these and other books, the best representatives of the human race described how best to build a society with the most humane and well-organized justice. Gradually, the idea of a law-governed state became universally dominant, and each country embodied its own ideas about crimes and retribution for them in its national legal norms. With the advent of the global world, the codes of individual countries, which were built on national traditions and different approaches to law, have become insufficient to punish numerous criminals who have violated moral norms on an international scale. The Nuremberg trial of the former leaders of Nazi Germany, which took place in 19451946, is particularly indicative in this regard. To this end, the four states of the war allies established the International Military Tribunal. On August 8, 1945, three months after the victory over the fascist Germany, the governments of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France concluded an agreement on organizing the trial of the main war criminals. This decision provoked an approving response throughout the world: it was necessary to give a stern lesson to the authors and performers of the cannibal plans for world domination, mass terror and murder, sinister ideas of racial superiority, genocide, monstrous destruction, plunder of vast territories. Later, 19 more states officially joined the agreement, and the Tribunal with the full right became the Court of Nations. The Nuremberg process acquired world-historic significance as the first and to this day the largest legal act of the United Nations. The peoples of the world, united in their rejection of violence against man and the state, have proved that they can successfully resist universal evil and administer fair justice. The organization and jurisdiction of the International Military Tribunal were determined by its Charter, which was an integral part of the London Agreement of

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1945. According to the Charter, the tribunal had the right to judge and punish individuals who, acting in the interests of their countries, axis or individually as members of the organization, committed crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. The process was built on a combination of the procedural orders of all the states represented in the tribunal. Decisions were made by majority vote.35

It was the first such tribunal created ad hoc (on a particular occasion). But any court operates on the basis of the procedural code of a particular state. Outstanding lawyers participated in the Nuremberg trials which have not become adept at the legal regulations of particular states; their task was to bring the diverse legal norms into a single whole according to some common notions of justice for all people. And this is the typical virtual reality of the mental plane, which de jure does not yet exist. After that, the creation of special courts was repeated several times – recall the International Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, established by Security Council resolution 827 (1993) of May 25, 1993, to resolve in court proceedings about serious violations of international humanitarian law in Yugoslavia. It was recently officially closed, but for more than two decades, it has been convicting former leaders of Serbia and other Balkan countries for their crimes against humanity. And it judged, again, not only on the basis of certain legal norms enshrined in international law, but also on the basis of people’s virtual representation of law and justice. Presumably, over time, the international community will create such a court on an ongoing basis and write special laws for it, according to which it will work. So far, there is no such court, and it is created ad hoc every time. Organizing it will not be easy, compiling common understanding of very vague concept of justice, meanwhile dispersed throughout the national community; but after adopting single formulations, it will move from virtual reality into the world of ontological and semiotic reality. Finally, my third example of using virtual reality concerns cartography. Cartography arose much later than practical geography, when ancient scholars considered it an obligation to visit it person35

At: https://genproc.gov.ru/history/nuremberg/

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ally to describe a place. Geography of this kind we find in the writings of Strabo, about whom I wrote above. At some stage maps appeared that served the orientation of people even in those places where they had not been before. Instead of real pictures, the insertions of a general nature were placed in unknown places for the cartographer: a desert or some exotic animal. It was a virtual filling of still unexplored spaces. Gradually, the earth cartography was fulfilled with maps of valid and verified details, and they turned into a full-fledged semiotic product. Already at the end of the last century, geo-information systems (GIS) technology was established in cartography, when computer could show a geographical object to be turned and presented to the viewer from different spatial angles and at different times of the year. This is an augmented virtual image based on existing terrain maps and on verified data, that is, in semiotic reality. At the beginning of our century, we got navigators for a completely new orientation in space. Now it is difficult to imagine a trip in a car without a navigator, providing us with line of advancement, which we automatically follow. Such line is an absolutely new virtual object, which is not present either in ontology or semiotics. Semiotics assumes the presence of a referent for a sign in real environment, and there is no such referent for a navigation route in nature (the line appears only as a result of computer calculations). So, having overcome “white spots” that existed earlier, which arose due to a lack of knowledge, the earth cartography has been replenished today with augmented virtual details, which, along with the usual semiotic signs, work effectively in practice.

Conclusion These are some considerations about virtual reality, which, together with the realities of ontological and semiotic planes, constitutes the content of our entire life. This chapter is one of the first descriptions of virtual reality, including many details never before mentioned. Of course, my description can and should be supplemented and corrected where it turns out to be incorrect. But finally, I have no doubt that the time has come to turn to the achievements

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of modern science and practice, which insistently require modernizing philosophical ideas about being, borrowed from the distant past.

NINE ON METATHINKING

Reason organizes the world, organizing itself. —Jean Piaget

For years, I was haunted by the desire to understand what Jean Piaget (1896 – 1980) had in mind in the above quote. Finally, it seems to me that I grasped the very essence of his statement. I suggest that all our thoughts be divided into two categories: thoughts concerning the practice of our behavior, and thoughts regarding how thoughts of the first category should be organized. Thoughts on thoughts I want to call metathoughts, and the process of this kind of thinking is metathinking. This idea is new í below I will try to understand the features of metathought as I understand it at the moment, and its adoption can entail a wide variety of practical and very important conclusions.

How thoughts are divided into two categories According to my design, human being includes three interacting parts: ontological, semiotic and virtual realities. Ontological reality includes everything that happens in nature and in our body; semiotic reality consists of signs and sign systems that encode everything we reason about; virtual reality appears in our brain and contains innovations that can someday be realized and included in ontology or semiotic reality. Initially, virtual reality contains only fantasies and dreams. For example, in ancient times, people looked at birds and dreamed of taking to the air. They imagined mythical people using wings for flight and flying almost to the Sun. Subsequently, these dreams came true, and today we fly on devices with and without wings: on airplanes, airships, helicopters and rockets. Today,

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this is no longer a dream, but ontology, indicated by corresponding signs. However, some fantasies and dreams have not yet been realized and continue to attract our mind, while still in the virtual realm. There are other thoughts that do not relate to the direct content of the three mentioned types of reality. These are thoughts about how we should determine these three layers, how to present the phenomena of any reality, how to develop our ideas and bring them to life. Although they are based on the same ideas that later find their embodiment, and we use the same signs in them, but in essence they are different. These thoughts teach us to think correctly, act consistently and carefully check every step that we take in practice. I define them as metathoughts. All this is shown in the diagram placed on page 103. It presents three planes revolving around our metathoughts. One plane denotes ontology, where “things” are the basic element í they represent all objects, phenomena and events that exist in the ontological world. Another plane designated by the word “signs” shows semiotic reality, while “virtual models” demonstrate the main element of virtual reality. Metathoughts are conducting the whole construction. In the human mind it is they which are responsible for thinking about what to do with each reality, what detail from this or that reality as to connect to our enterprise, how to assemble them and in what quality and quantity. In a word, the driving force in this whole process is metaththinking. It can be initiated by any reality í ontological (say, professional activity), semiotic (for example, by the analysis of a document) or virtual (for example, by reading a fantastic story). But in any case, the initiative is picked up by metathoughts and in the future they lead the entire process of reflection, experimentation or professional effort to study and use the problem in question.

Some characteristics of metathinking that I managed to single out Metathinking is inherent only to man: neither animals, nor, moreover, machines do not possess and cannot possess it. Animals show signs of rational behavior and the beginnings of communica-

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tion, some even exchange information with the help of sounds, but none of them have metathoughts and cannot arrange signs in the form of connected sequences. Human children begin to do this already in the second year of life, and at maturity, many of us come to an elegantly built, convincing speech (or letter) testifying to powerful metathinking. Machines operate according to the algorithm, programmed in them, and cannot make a single sidestep; while people discuss each new action and its rational execution at any stage of their plans implementation. As a result, we can change the algorithm of actions outlined earlier at any moment of its realization. The second feature of metathoughts is connected with its previously mentioned one: two lines of thought í about the essence of the problem and about the correct implementation of the actions associated with its solution, occur simultaneously. We do not leave for later discussions on how to express our thoughts, but we do this in parallel with the time of reflection about them. Thus, an artist painting the picture is thinking about how to put a smear exactly at the time of its application. Concerns about the composition of details also appear not after the deed, but are applied at the same moment as thoughts about the content of the product. So both aspects of our thoughts go side by side, combining and complementing each other. Finally, the third characteristic of metathoughts is the fact that it manifests itself at all, even the most insignificant levels of reflection. If we take as an example the creation of a paragraph in writing, we begin to think about its place and compatibility with other paragraphs before we even begin to implement it. At the level of writing sentences, metahoughts about their significance and location do not leave us all the time, when we really come up with them. The same goes for spelling words, for compiling sentence, their components, and even the letters that make up relevant words. All these things happen to us constantly in any project that we undertake. None of our actions can do without metathoughts, and the strange fact is that no one has revealed the existence of this phenomenon before. It seems, however, that this statement is not entirely correct í many spoke out, but did not bring their arguments to the final wording. For example, discussions of syntax in linguis-

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tic structures are related to metathinking, because they do not speak about the content of what we are talking or writing, but about how to do it. I wrote an entire book, “Syntax in Sign Systems”, which dealt with metathinking, expressed in the syntax for construction of different sign systems. And yet this is not what I write about in this work. My book dealt with the formalization of the construction of sign systems; here I am talking about any thought of any scale í even the smallest. I affirm that any of our thoughts has two sides: one on the merits of the case, the second on how to make it, that is, on metathoughts. Even such a simple action as a walk along the sidewalk consists of two parts í thoughts on the essence of the matter (where are we going and why, do we fit in time?) and the thought on the process of walking itself (how not to stumble, or not to fall, how not to collide with other passers-by, not to step on anything inappropriate, etc.). Actually, both parts of thinking merge into a single process of ruminations.

Some thoughts on possible practical applications of the idea The first and most important conclusion is the idea that man is destined to be the smartest of all living beings and command everything in the universe, including robots and other mechanical devices. It is hardly possible to create such a program for machines, which, in addition to actions on the merits, would also include metathoughts discussed in this work. The second conclusion concerns the definition of philosophy as a science. There are dozens, if not hundreds of different definitions that coincide only in the fact that philosophy, supposedly, considers the most cardinal and significant problems of the world. But it is not clear what to recognize as the most important in this sense. Say, physics or biology, economics and political sciences also solve vital and very important problems. If we accept the definition, by which philosophy discusses the problems of metathoughts for any ontological, semiotic, and virtual phenomena, then it will turn out to be much preferable than other rather vague definitions.

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The third and most specific conclusion is that in any textbook, training manual or instruction for any science and practice, authors should pay attention not only to issues that are considered in essence, but also to how and in what order they, these problems, are solved. This actually happens in the sciences, which are initially focused on how, not on what. I mean, first of all, languages and mathematics. In them, questions of metathoughts are given the dominant place. In languages, we single out vocabulary, that we need to memorize, and the grammar, that defines how this vocabulary should be used. Mathematics, by definition, is the science of quantitative problems solved by calculations. It announces in advance that mathematics is applicable to any calculus, regardless of its nature. I want to say that questions of metathinking should be discussed, along with questions about the essence of the matter, also in all other sciences.

TEN THE ALGORITHM OF SCIENTIFIC INVESTIGATION

Some philosophical underpinnings of the subject Today, every scientific endeavor relies on certain established and well-founded philosophical premises. The first and foremost of these is that science enables us to discover accurate, stable rules that govern the behavior of the objects we are investigating, and that we humans can, as a result of our discoveries, explain and, in some way, influence this behavior to our advantage. In this light, we can describe science as the search for natural and social laws. Science is imbued with the notion that ontological reality, which exists around us and within our bodies, is built not on an accretion of chance occurrences, but on a systematically organized and ultimately predictable foundation. As our scientific investigations progress in deciphering these organized constructions, we can use the knowledge we gain to affect our environment in one of two ways: either to cooperate with the laws we have found, or to attempt to mitigate their detrimental consequences. Admittedly, the natural laws we discover are brought into existence by something external to us and upon which we have no influence, while the social laws are established solely by humans. Still, the course followed by scientific inquiries in both spheres is similar, and therefore, when I discuss scientific research in this paper, I intend my comments to refer to investigations in both of these spheres. Our conviction that scientific investigations relate to an organized system distinguishes the scientific method from other approaches to explaining our world. Before science arrived at this realization, it was immersed in the belief in magical or religious caus-

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es of observed effects. It took humanity thousands of years to eradicate such explanations and come to the conclusion that we can rely on human investigation alone to decipher the natural and social laws that form the foundations of our existence. In fact, it is this very conviction that allows us to treat a small number of clearly formulated precepts as the bases of our scientific approach. The magical and religious conceptions that preceded the development of the scientific approach lacked this option – they all relied on beliefs and not on positively established facts that are supported by logic. That is why I will leave all matters of magical and religious intervention outside the scope of my reasoning in this chapter. The next premise of science today is that the discovery and explication of natural and social laws follows a sequence of steps, each of which contains specific content and relies on established methods of investigation. It is these steps that constitute the usual algorithm of scientific research, and they are embodied in the ladder of scientific investigation, which I present at the end of this chapter. Some scientific enterprises cannot reach the last steps of the ladder, for various reasons, but they all comply with the logic of these stages and follow their sequence.

Discoveries and their primary evaluation Some scientific discoveries occur by chance, while others are achieved intentionally. Indeed, in any new discovery, there is likely to be a certain amount of each, though their proportions vary greatly from one case to another. Alexander Fleming discovered penicillin quite by chance: Returning from holiday on September 3, 1928, Fleming began to sort through Petri dishes containing colonies of Staphylococcus, bacteria that cause boils, sore throats and abscesses. He noticed something unusual on one dish. It was dotted with colonies, save for one area where a blob of mold was growing. The zone immediately around the mold ௅ later identified as a rare strain of Penicillium notatum ௅ was clear, as if the mold had secreted something that inhibited bacterial growth. Fleming found that his “mold juice”

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was capable of killing a wide range of harmful bacteria, such as streptococcus, meningococcus and the diphtheria bacillus.36

Was Fleming’s discovery chance or intentional? After all, he was looking for a remedy for infectious diseases! At the other end of the spectrum are the experiments of Gregor Mendel, which are an example of consistent and exacting efforts geared towards reaching a goal that was in fact achieved: Gregor Mendel, through his work on pea plants, discovered the fundamental laws of inheritance. He deduced that genes come in pairs and are inherited as distinct units, one from each parent. Mendel tracked the segregation of parental genes and their appearance in the offspring as dominant or recessive traits. He recognized the mathematical pattern of inheritance from one generation to the next

The genetic experiments Mendel did with pea plants took him eight years (1850 – 1863) and he published his results in 1865. Mendel grew over 10,000 pea plants, keeping track of progeny number and type. Mendel’s work and his laws of inheritance were not appreciated in his time. It wasn’t until 1900, after the rediscovery of his laws, that his experimental results were understood.37

The definitive nature of a discovery is not as important for its future as its interpretation by the researcher and by his/her contemporaries. The interpretation may vary from a complete misunderstanding of the new data to a clear and full deciphering of its content and importance. Let us consider a number of cases in which the contemporary interpretation of a discovery had a significant impact on its influence at the time. As the description above shows, because of their novelty and the complete lack of any analogous precedents, Gregor Mendel’s laws of inheritance were not understood by his colleagues. More than forty years passed before the rediscovery of his laws brought about 36

At: https://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/education/whatischemistry/ landmarks/flemingpenicillin.html 37 At: http://www.dnaftb.org/1/bio.html

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their recognition by the scientific community. Mendel himself did not even recognize their real importance and implications, and was in doubt about the consistency of his conclusions. To verify them, he decided to continue his research with another plant, the hawkweed, but this time he failed to achieve the results he sought. As a result, he was in despair, and died in mental turmoil. Only later on did it become clear that his conclusions from the experiment with pea plants were quite correct, while his choice of the hawkweed for his second test case was unfortunate, because hawkweed is an exceptional plant that is subject to very different laws of inheritance than most living things. Let us take another example, this time from immunology. In the Middle Ages, one of the worst ills faced by humanity was smallpox. According to Voltaire (1694 – 1778), in his day, 60% of the population contracted smallpox, and 1/3 of them died from it.38 Many people sought a cure to eradicate this scourge. Among them was a physician from England named Edward Jenner (1749 – 1823): Noting the common observation that milkmaids were generally immune to smallpox, Jenner postulated that the pus in the blisters that milkmaids received from cowpox (a disease similar to smallpox, but much less virulent) protected them from smallpox. On 14 May 1796, Jenner tested his hypothesis by inoculating James Phipps, an eight-year-old boy who was the son of Jenner’s gardener. He scraped pus from cowpox blisters on the hands of Sarah Nelmes, a milkmaid who had caught cowpox from a cow called Blossom, whose hide now hangs on the wall of the St George’s medical school library (now in Tooting). Phipps was the 17th case described in Jenner’s first paper on vaccination. Jenner inoculated Phipps in both arms that day, subsequently producing in Phipps a fever and some uneasiness, but no full-blown in-

38

Voltaire, “On Inoculation.” In Letters on the English or Lettres Philosophiques, c. 1778. At: http://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1778voltairelettres.asp#Letter%20XI

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fection. Later, he injected Phipps with variolous material, the routine method of immunization at that time. No disease followed.39

Jenner was consequently esteemed as a savior of humanity and received his fair share of fame, but the true value of his discovery was not even conjectured at the time – his innovation was considered relevant only as a means to avoid smallpox, and nothing more. The real importance of it only became clear later on, with the work of Louis Pasteur (1822-1895). It was then that genuine immunology was born as a full-fledged branch of science: Pasteur was responsible for disproving the doctrine of spontaneous generation. He performed experiments that showed that without contamination, microorganisms could not develop. Under the auspices of the French Academy of Sciences, he demonstrated that in sterilized and sealed flasks nothing ever developed, and in sterilized but open flasks microorganisms could grow. Although Pasteur was not the first to propose the germ theory, his experiments indicated its correctness and convinced most of Europe that it was true. Today, he is often regarded as one of the fathers of germ theory.40

Naming After the first evaluation of the discovery we begin to deal with it, the initial step being usually its naming. The endowment of the name concerns, first of all, the things that exist in ontology. With the help of our senses, we single out this or that thing-event and name it. In this way we create a sign with the help of which we can later argue about this thing and transfer our reasoning to other people – both to our contemporaries and future generations. This sign will exist all the time as long as there is a thing designated by it, and even after the destruction of this object, it will be possible to tell about it all the time while it is remembered. In our brain all the information that we know about the called thing is being collected and classified. The process of naming, as I said, depends on the na39

At: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/pmc1200696/ At: https://www.britannica.com/biography/louis-pasteur/vaccinedevelopment

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ture of the named – whether it will be a natural thing, a sign or an object of virtual reality. Things from ontological plane, endowed with proper names People at birth receive names that are known in linguistics as proper names. They differ in that they call only one particular object. Proper names are assigned not only people, animals, or plants, that is, objects of wildlife, but also to inanimate objects, such as mountains, rivers, settlements, sights and other unique thingsevents. For example, “Big Bertha” named the cannon, which fired at huge distances (for that period) with heavy projectiles which Germans used during the First World War (1914 – 1918). A peculiarity of proper names is the fact that they are unique in their content, as they strive to single out only some obvious thing according to the principle “one thing – one name”. Yet there are exceptions, for example, “Big Berta” also had several modifications and was repeated in serial form. This name actually belonged to a whole series of objects of the same content, to differentiate this class as a unit from other things of the same purpose, equipped with their own proper names. Titles of books also belong to proper names, though each one of them may be printed in any number of copies. Proper names in many languages begin with capital letters; in that they are singled out from notions. Such exceptions occur, because names are usually expressed by linguistic signs – words; and there should not be so many words in the language used to refer to certain things of analogous nature. Our memory requires limitations in the number of titles for those things that are included in numerous classes of identical objects. Imagine that there would be a rule to name each member of a numerous community differently from each other, as it is done for people. What memory load it would be! Even with people, similar names are assigned to many members of the same community. Not every name is accompanied at first by concrete definitions, until the time when we better know the nature and construction of the named item. In this case, the name is chosen as if tentatively and with the appropriate undertones, sufficient for the initial characteristics of its carrier. For example, the name of a newborn is as-

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signed absolutely arbitrarily, although it is usually chosen from a certain source, consecrated by custom. In tsarist Russia, the name was usually chosen from the calendar and assigned according to the name of the saint, the celebration of which was on the birthday of the child. In Soviet Russia, this custom was replaced by the fashion of giving names by leading revolutionary figures or by events idealized by the Bolsheviks – for example, the names of “Lenina” or “Cominterna” (for girls). Even from the list of completely conventional names, one often chooses those which, as it were, elevate the person or the place that wear it. Thus, Victor is translated from Latin as “winner”, and Sophia – from Greek as “wisdom.” Therefore, these names are often assigned to infants, giving them an appropriate halo, if only in the eyes of their parents. Because parents do not know what qualities will develop in the future with their baby, they give it a name at random. Some peoples have a more reasonable custom: as children grow up, they are assigned new nominations – more suitable and “speaking” than the previous name. For example, among American Indians, it was customary to change the name of a member of a tribe with the appearance of certain qualities. Distinguished in the hunt or in battle was given a new name that spoke of his exploits, say, Wanbli Vashte – “good eagle” or Gehej – “main, chief”. But this custom is rare, and the name given at birth usually remains with a person for life. For some, as we grow up, each of us becomes additional characteristics, expressed, for example, with marks in the passport: family and social status, home address, etc. Then the name is joined additional definitions for more accurate identification of the person. Gradually, all preliminary and following definitions merge into one, more accurate and complete picture. Augmented definitions are usually modified and added, when meaningful for the bearer events occur, – for instance, at the time of marriage, when women usually change their family names. Still, less important circumstances may also lead to alterations of real names. When a person is represented in a narrow circle, he is content most often with his first name. A more thorough identification requires documentary evidence and additional definitions to the first name: therefore, the family name is added to it, and in Russia there is also a middle name.

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The main gnoseological characteristic of things that, by their nature, remain unique and solitary throughout their existence, is the clarification of events occurring with these things. For an individual, this means that as changes occur with him, we simply add to his original description a reference to these main transformations: here he entered into marriage, now he had children, now he graduated from such and such educational institution, and so on. In relation to other unique objects, we do the same: Moscow originated there and then, such changes occurred to it, and it developed in this and that way. There can be a lot of such changes and descriptions, but they never go beyond the limits of transformations of the thing uniqueness. You can call them a special set of space-time qualities, peculiar only to this thing. This complex cannot develop into a generalized image of a number of similar things – it always remains a unique image and a unique display for them. The development of such complexes all the time remains focused on the thing being studied, supplemented by new facts and clarifications. However, in addition to unique things, there are also such, the main characteristic of which is their repeatability. Most things can be repeated in an unlimited number of copies, where all of them are interchangeable. Then, in their cognition, it becomes possible to study individual instances of one or another set to ascertain the general properties and qualities of all the objects in a given set. The role of images in the initial stages of the process of discovery Regardless of the meaning we ascribe to a new discovery, when we first encounter it, we frame a first impression of it. Our first impressions primarily take the form of one or more images that we transport into our minds. The role of these images is decisive, because at this point of investigation, images are the chief means we have for transporting external impressions into our minds. We cannot incorporate this input into the domain of our thoughts in any other form – neither in the material form they have outside of our brains, nor in the guise of verbal explanations. In the outside world, there are no words; we just activate words in our minds, which is where we store words we

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have previously acquired through our learning of a particular language. From the outside world, we can only receive impressions in the form of images. We have no choice but to transplant these images into our brains as vague and unstructured reflections; only once they are there inside our minds can they become explanations that are supported by words and other means of interpretation that we already have in our minds. One basic notion that underlies this paper relates to two central processes of human cognition: the constant flux of impressions from the outside world into our brains and the internal reconstruction of these impressions that makes them coherent to our minds. I believe that these two processes complement one another. In this, I differ with the view I have encountered in most philosophical works, which sees these processes as competing with and opposing one another. Of course, they are different processes, but, nonetheless, I believe that they collaborate in the course of human cognition. This collaboration varies from one stage of cognition to another, as I will explain below. But the idea of this cooperation always lies behind my argumentation. The first steps in cultivating the images received by our minds As soon as a new image is transported into our mind, it receives its required mental treatment there. This begins with two initial steps: assigning a name to it and adding a rough definition to this name. During the first step, we attach a name to the new phenomenon that appeared in our thinking mechanisms. We do this in order to distinguish it from all the other thoughts that already abide in our mind and to enable us to discuss it as a separate topic. The process of giving a name is mostly arbitrary. We either choose one from among the names we are already using, or we invent a completely new term. The main goal when selecting a name is to construct a clear and easily understood label. In addition, when social matters are involved, it is also important that the name comply with the currently accepted trends. Thus, when we give a name to a newborn baby, we are likely to follow a national tradition, alt-

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hough the degree to which we find it necessary to do so greatly depends on how strong our personal connection to that tradition is. Yet, there is a great rift between giving names to unique objects as compared with naming objects that belong to a class of similar items. Whereas for objects of the first kind we try to choose a specific and unique representation, for objects of the second kind we do not restrict ourselves to such names. From the point of view of linguistics, we can explain this distinction by saying that objects of the first kind are assigned a type of name called a proper name, while those of the second kind receive a name that is considered a collective noun. This distinction has some linguistic implications; for instance, in most modern languages, proper names are capitalized, while collective nouns are not. But the main distinction between the two types is more inherent: they reflect the difference between our experiences of singularity and of collectivity. This distinction is very basic to our thought processes, because our minds engage with objects of each kind differently. Objects of the first kind are associated with concrete facts, although the details may vary as they progress through various stages of their existence. For those of the second kind, by contrast, we formulate laws that describe the distinctive behavior of objects that belong to their particular group. If I describe a person’s life, I include concrete facts about his or her biography. If I describe celestial bodies, I divide them into groups of objects with similar attributes and investigate the patterns of behavior that are representative of the members of each group. The fact that we approach the naming of individuals in each category differently means that we are already laying the foundations of our future treatment of those objects when we give them their names. Still, giving a name is not enough, even at this stage of investigation. We have to supply some sort of definition to go with each name, even if this definition is necessarily oblique and generalized at this initial stage of our mental processing. We just do not know enough to give the phenomenon a more detailed definition. This problem is obvious even when it comes to proper names. In some North American Indian tribes, the first name, which was given immediately after birth, was later replaced with a new name that more properly reflected the person’s character – Eagle Eye, Bear Hunter,

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and the like. Yet, with proper names, this is the exception rather than the rule; we do not usually find it necessary to change a proper name as we get to know its object better. When it comes to names of objects of the second kind, the preliminary definitions are gradually expanded, becoming more and more detailed and exact, as additional traits and qualities that are shared by all the members of the group come to light. This growing body of knowledge is reflected in the difference between a taxonomy, which is a preliminary kind of classification, and a more mature, full-fledged classification (see below). I call the first kind of definition primary or fundamental, because in spite of being deficient in its details, it nevertheless concerns the fundamental nature of the object. Usually, it simply states that the object belongs to a particular category and mentions one or two of its known qualities. For example, the discovery of a new celestial body may be presented in this way: “A new satellite of Jupiter was discovered. It was called…” This definition comprises the name of the object and the fact that it is included in the group of satellites orbiting Jupiter – the largest planet in the solar system. This kind of definition has been called a species-genus definition, in which satellite is the species, and Jupiter is the genus. We will discuss this kind of definition later in this paper. For now, it is just important to underscore that a fundamental definition like this will be augmented with greater detail as research into the phenomenon evolves in the future. The next stage: further investigation into a newly discovered phenomenon After the previous phase, which took place primarily in our brain, we return to the world that is outside of our mind, where we continue to delve into the real nature of the newly discovered object. During this phase, we consolidate the previously observed facts, learn more about various characteristics of the phenomenon, and revisit the question of which branch of science should handle the investigation. This stage can take a long time; in fact, it may even require many generations of scientists engaging in carefully orchestrated research to bring it to completion. One of the main at-

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tributes of this phase is that other scientists become attracted to the newly born and yet practically unknown field of knowledge, and begin to dedicate their own efforts towards moving the investigation forward. Thus, little by little, the hidden qualities of the discovery, its theoretical and practical potential, are revealed, until it acquires a more or less complete scientific paradigm. Here is a description of one example of this process – the discovery of x-rays: Roentgen’s experiments at Würzburg focused on light phenomena and other emissions generated by discharging electrical current in so-called “Crookes tubes,” glass bulbs with positive and negative electrodes, evacuated of air, which display a fluorescent glow when a high voltage current is passed through it. He was particularly interested in cathode rays and in assessing their range outside of charged tubes. On November 8, 1895, Roentgen noticed that when he shielded the tube with heavy black cardboard, the green fluorescent light caused a platinobarium screen nine feet away to glow – too far away to be reacting to the cathode rays as he understood them. He determined the fluorescence was caused by invisible rays originating from the Crookes tube he was using to study cathode rays (later recognized as electrons), which penetrated the opaque black paper wrapped around the tube. Further experiments revealed that this new type of ray was capable of passing through most substances, including the soft tissues of the body, but left bones and metals visible. One of his earliest photographic plates from his experiments was a film of his wife Bertha’s hand, with her wedding ring clearly visible. To test his observations and enhance his scientific data, Roentgen plunged into seven weeks of meticulous planned and executed experiments. On December 28, he submitted his first “provisional” communication, “On a New Kind of Rays,” in the Proceedings of the Würzburg Physico-Medical Society. In January 1896 he made his first public presentation before the same society, following his lecture with a demonstration: he made a plate of the hand of an attending anatomist, who proposed the new discovery be named “Roentgen’s Rays.” The news spread rapidly throughout the world. Thomas Edison was among those eager to perfect Roentgen’s discovery, developing a

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handheld fluoroscope, although he failed to make a commercial “Xray lamp” for domestic use. The apparatus for producing X-rays was soon widely available, and studios opened to take “bone portraits”, further fueling public interest and imagination.41

In this description, we can see all the main characteristics of the stages of scientific discovery I have mentioned. Was it a chance breakthrough or an intentional one? It has elements of both. To be sure, Roentgen did not expect to discover anything of the kind he found; but without the equipment he had set up to help him uncover new information about fluorescent light, he could not have discovered this new kind of emanation. The crux of the matter lies in Roentgen’s quick and eager response to the sudden and unexpected revelation. At first, he identified and confirmed some prominent traits of the phenomenon he discovered, gave it a name (“x-rays”), and formulated a rough definition (“it is a kind of yet unknown radiation with some hidden qualities”). Then he published information about his finding in a scientific paper. The paper aroused public curiosity and motivated many scientists, and even laymen, to become involved in further investigation. Gradually, x-rays came to be understood as a kind of electromagnetic radiation of specific wavelengths, and it became clear that it was this feature that distinguished them from other types of radiation. They were brought into medicine, crystallography, cosmic radiation, and a number of other fields of scientific research. In each of these fields, they came to be associated with specific functions, obtained their own paradigms of study, and were employed for particular applications. As for Roentgen himself, he won the first Nobel Prize for physics, which was awarded to him in 1901. In the course of time, each of the discoveries we have looked at so far ripened into a full-fledged enterprise that allowed scientists to formulate natural laws concerning its inherent qualities and the behavior of its components.

41

At: https://www.aps.org/publications/apsnews/200111/history.cfm

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Logical handling of different aspects of an innovation through words In parallel with our studies of a specific phenomenon in the world around us, we humans internalize the knowledge we gain by processing it in our minds. We do this with the help of linguistic terms. Whatever progress we make in investigating a phenomenon, it must be expressed in words that we use to explain it. Good research differs from bad research in that it includes descriptions in words of every step of the process – even the tiniest steps. For me, the wonder of Mendel’s investigation of biological heredity lies not only in his final conclusions, but also in his detailed records about the more than ten thousand peas he observed individually through his magnifying glass. Successful research follows Mendel’s example, clearly reporting every observation, even the most apparently trifling, by means of language. Though researchers may also use other means to explain themselves, like drawings, diagrams, and mathematical formulas, the core of all explanation consists of words. Different types of words are used in scientific compositions. I divide the words used in the language of science into three classes: proper nouns, notions, and concepts. Each of these categories reflects a distinct aspect of scientific observation: proper nouns represent definite, unique referents; notions are objects that denote an entire class of referents; concepts are derived from notions and denote central points in a particular field of knowledge. These three classes of words compose the whole of scientific texts, clearly identifying their logical points. They also give us instruments for classifying objects under investigation (which is a topic I will return to later on). When we understand the distinctions between the three classes of words, we can infer the various logical ties connecting the objects being studied. The thing is, when we mentally explain something from the world outside ourselves, we create knowledge that must be stored in our memory in a way that allows us to find it quickly, and in its correct context, when we need it. This demands a very strict and precise classification of the knowledge stored in the brain. Just as we try to preserve different objects at home in special receptacles, and we meticulously organize and catalogue books and other publica-

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tions we store in libraries, we also systematically arrange every bit of knowledge we plant into our minds. Everything concerning a specific topic is deposited together in our memory, and when one of these things is retrieved from our memory, the knowledge that was stored with it is also retrieved. Moreover, at every moment during the research process, our mind reorganizes all of the details related to the project into a single, unified structure. Each addition to the pieces of knowledge that are already stored makes us reconstruct the complete whole, and it is to the latest version of this structure that we refer at any particular moment. Words in each of the three classes develop differently and have distinct uses. Proper nouns evolve by having actual facts about them, incidents that affect them, and any transformations they have undergone over time, added to their definitions. Notions are collected into special subclasses, and we view any changes they undergo primarily through the histories of their subclasses as a whole. When concepts change, the changes directly impact upon the process of investigation, and are treated accordingly. Proper nouns are defined by pointing out facts about their actual situations: Paris is the capital of France. It is situated on the river Seine… Notions are defined through the categories to which they belong: A fork is an implement with two or more prongs used for lifting food to the mouth or holding it when cutting. Concepts are defined by including them in a set of other, related concepts that together constitute a clear-cut map of a particular scientific enterprise. I call such a map a conceptual grid. The diagram below is an example of such a grid, for the concept of jurisprudence. All the squares in this conceptual grid are filled with concepts that are related to jurisprudence. With the help of this set of concepts, we can easily locate the concept we are concerned with, and learn about its position and stature vis-à-vis the other concepts in the group. For jurisprudence, most of the concepts in the conceptual grid are associated with legal codes:

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Our current discussion actually relates to the topic of classification, and I have really been describing different types of classifications we apply to our mental images. This is one of the main functions our brain serves in its handling of our thoughts, before it stores them in our minds: it ensures that the thoughts are organized properly so that, once they are stored, they will still be available for logical manipulation. Classification is the process of doing this. Yet classification itself depends not only on the kind of material being classified, but also on the stage of investigation, we are involved in at the time. In the early stages, we do not have enough material to enable us to apply an exact and diversified classification, and we can only create taxonomies. Later on in the investigation, when we have gathered additional information, we can transform these taxonomies into classifications. The concept of a taxonomy was first introduced after the publication of Darwin’s theory of the evolution of living organisms. Darwin delineated a consistent and all-embracing theory, in which many slots were left open for clarification in subsequent research. Since the theory purported to explain the entire path of development from primitive organisms to man, it included a number of unknown steps in the ladder of evolution; for these steps it only offered some vague images, whose qualities were predicted through logic. These images were called taxons, and the whole scheme was named a taxonomy. (This ingenious design proves my contention

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that our mind does not accept completely indeterminate constructions and tends to provide them with artificial components that are not yet verified.) All of the research in biology that followed in the wake of Darwin’s innovation tried to fill in these open stretches in the chain. In fact, this process continues even in our time. The impact of every new paleontological discovery is evaluated to see if it either validates the previously proposed taxon or forces us to redraw the taxon table. The tree of biological evolution is a very extensive and prolonged instance of the process of honing a taxonomy. Many less complicated schemes have been validated faster. When the validation process is completed, the taxonomies become classifications with clearly designed and delineated classes and subclasses. These classifications constitute a very prominent feature of every scientific paradigm.

Choosing a virtual model for a natural or social law When the classification system of a science is successfully completed, research in the field begins to move on to a new, advanced phase, in which we begin to look for rules that underlie the process we are investigating. For this purpose, we need to build a virtual model of the process. The model is called virtual because it appears first in our thoughts, and we construct it based on the data we have already collected about the phenomenon.42 To construct a virtual model, we must separate the main features of the process from those that are less important and only serve to accommodate and help the principle ones. This demands very hard and meticulous work, which is the core of the process immediately preceding the construction of the virtual model. As an example of the process of creating a virtual model, consider the calculation of electric circuit constants and their interaction, which was worked out by Georg Ohm (1789 –1854). Ohm’s 42

Other types of models may develop from the virtual model; it may later be converted into a written model, and then into a material model, each of which must comply with the original, virtual model. But, I am only dealing with virtual models in this discussion.

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law states that the amount of current flowing in a circuit made up of only resistors is related to the voltage on the circuit and the total resistance of the circuit. The law is usually expressed by the formula V=IR…, where I is the current in amperes, V is voltage (in volts), and R is the resistance in ohms. He sought a functional relationship between the decrease in the electromagnetic force exerted by a current-carrying wire and the length of the wire. A brief discussion of his procedure is necessary to understand his results and their implications for his further work. From the zinc and copper poles of a voltaic pile he ran two wires, A and B, the free ends of which terminated in small mercury-filled cups, M and N; between M and another cup, O, he ran a third wire, C. Together A, B, and C formed what he called the “invariable conductor,” to distinguish it from one of the seven wires of different lengths that, when placed in the circuit between O and N, constituted the “variable conductor.” Among the latter was one “very thick” wire, four inches long, and six thinner ones, 0.3 line (.025Ǝ) in diameter, ranging in length from one foot to seventy-five feet. Finally, over wire C hung the magnetic needle of a Coulomb torsion balance, which served to measure the electromagnetic force exerted when one of the variable conductors completed the circuit. 43

It is worthwhile to add that in order to formulate his law in very simple terms, Ohm had to perform innumerable experiments with the help of some ingenious appliances he invented himself. Even so, when he published a paper and then a monograph describing his law, it was not accepted immediately; he had to wait many years before he received proper recognition for his work. Another important point to bear in mind is that most recently discovered laws, especially laws of nature, are presented by means of mathematic formulas. Most social laws, though, are formulated predominantly in words, with some illustrations in drawings, diagrams, and the like. The problem of formulating scientific laws has another, historical, parameter. People only began to seek out these laws at a very late stage in human development, when they had begun to develop 43

At: https://www.thoughtco.com/georg-simon-ohm-4072871

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the technical abilities to test even the most complex hypotheses. Of course, laws purporting to explain various phenomena and processes had been proposed before this era, but they were all based on nonscientific assumptions – mostly mystical and religious ones. Only when human technological abilities were advanced enough to verify their hypotheses, could people herald in a new, purely scientific strategy for advancing their ventures. This happened during the time period known as the Age of Enlightenment or the Renaissance. Two propositions form the basis of this new, modern approach: 1. Every truly scientific project must start from observation of the matter being studied, and not from beliefs received from tradition, however esteemed this tradition may be. 2. The final result of a scientific investigation must be validated by means of a specially organized experiment, and only after it is verified in this way can it be endorsed. This new approach to science brought about a cardinal rift between the older “scientific endeavors” and the new ones. As a result, it was met with opposition and even enmity. One well-known example of this counter-assault is the sustained attack on the new paradigm of our solar system that was proposed by Copernicus and his followers. Another classic case was the opposition to Vesalius’ dissection of animal carcasses and human cadavers, which he performed in order to see for himself how these bodies are constructed. There were, of course, many other cases of resistance of this sort. Only in light of the success of the new scientific approach was the opposition mitigated, so that it has now almost completely disappeared. Today, we are undergoing another period in which virtual models are gaining in importance, thanks to the inventions of computers and of the Internet. These two innovations together allow us to organize the process of formulating and approving new scientific laws much more easily and quickly than we ever could before. Computers have given us access to collections of knowledge that were entirely impossible to find in the not-so-distant past. We now have at our disposal multiple kinds of encyclopedias, providing a range of facts and opinions in response to every request we make for

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knowledge. Answers can be found quickly and are easy to verify, and their sources can be modified if any doubt about their accuracy arises. All of this means that, at present, the creation of new virtual models is surging.

Confirmation of a new law and its acceptance by the scientific community Once a virtual model of a new fact or theory is completed, its authors can begin to disseminate the new knowledge they have acquired, in print or orally. As soon as they do so, it immediately becomes common property. I do not mean by this that the authors are deprived of any rights to their invention; their rights are protected by copyrights, patents, and other assurances. I just want to underscore the point that once a new fact or theory has been seen or heard about, it is introduced into the minds of those who receive the information and cannot be removed from them afterwards. It is “glued” to the previously existing knowledge they have and cannot be separated from it by any means. Some of these recipients of the new development may even decide to check its validity themselves. They can then either repeat the experiments of the originators, or invent their own ways for testing the innovation. If these other people succeed in confirming the discovery, they publish their results as well, and also join the ranks of its supporters. When the discovery achieves some critical mass of approval, it little by little comes to be included in the bulk of scientific knowledge. Its final badge of approval is its inclusion in encyclopedias and various teachers’ guides. The process of achieving acceptance of this sort may be tortuous and long, like it was in the cases of Mendel and Ohm presented above. Alternatively, the discovery may become a quick sensation and be accepted unexpectedly quickly, as occurred with Roentgen’s discovery of xrays. But one way or another, this level of verification must occur in order for a new discovery to become an accepted part of human knowledge. Even Einstein’s theory of relativity had to wait for validation before it was recognized by the scientific community and the public at large.

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The Ladder of Scientific Investigation Now that we have reviewed the entire process through which new ideas come to be accepted as part of the body of human knowledge, we can depict the stages of the process in graphic form in the following diagram:

This diagram summarizes my presentation in this paper of the standard process through which new knowledge is distilled. The formulaic presentation can also help us organize future projects properly, as well as serving as a concise image upon which to build a detailed theory of the human endeavor to learn new things and use them to better human lives.

Addendum The theory presented above may also be expressed in semiotic terms, in the following way: People began to develop their inquisi-

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tiveness when they noticed different features of their surroundings and drew conclusions about the preceding conditions that led to the existence of these features. This led them to conceive of the preceding conditions as markers for the results that they brought about. These were the first type of signs, which I call natural signs. Later on, people thought about these markers in their minds; for this purpose, they created images of the material objects they were pondering. One cannot transfer material objects into the brain, which is why these objects were represented by images. But these images were clumsy and oblique, so people invented names for objects. Little by little, they constructed languages from these names. By doing so, they introduced thoughts, which logically supported processes for explaining things they came across. With the help of languages, humans could think properly and express themselves to other people. Moreover, they also invented writing and other means of communication, which enabled them to build receptacles for the knowledge they had amassed, and to transmit their thoughts over time and space. In this manner, they accumulated knowledge about specific phenomena, and by using abstract formalized signs, they learned to discover fundamental forces that lie behind natural and social laws. This whole process matches the history of how different types of signs appeared in our civilization: natural signs led to images, then to languages, to notations, and, finally, to mathematical and formalized signs. This ontogenesis of Homo sapiens repeats itself in the development of each individual human being, and, in a somewhat corrupted form, in the way we have structured school and higher education.

ELEVEN “CONTINUITY ļ DISCRETENESS” IN ONTOLOGY AND IN RELATED TO IT SEMIOTIC REALITY

This chapter aims to draw attention to the fact that the ontological and reflecting it semiotic reality do not completely coincide either in content or in nature. These are different types of reality, cooperating with each other, but rarely reaching full alignment. It takes place only in the most elementary cases, say, in the expression: “There are only three books here”. In more complex situations we have to be content with only a partial coincidence of one with the other, which will be discussed below. The basis of this discrepancy lies in their different origin and the resulting unequal distribution of the dyad “continuity ļ discreteness” in these spheres of reality, since this reason is responsible (along with the dyad of “space and time”) for the content and meaning of anything, that takes place in our being.

What is the meaning of the relationship between ontological and semiotic realities The ontological reality is all that surrounds us, and we ourselves as material objects. All objects of our environment, phenomena and events occurring in it, belong to that side of being, which we designate as ontological reality. I call a separate unit of this reality a thing-event (or, in short, a thing). All things with which we encounter and which we know exist objectively and realistically; we will not return to disputes about whether they exist outside our consciousness, considering these disputes to be finally resolved, i.e. we will proceed from the fact that things really are. This forces us to

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take them into account, which, in turn, leads to the need to study them, to understand how they are arranged and either adapt to them, or even change them to our advantage. The knowledge of ontological reality led to the emergence of the science and crafts, and as a result a certain dominance over the laws of nature was achieved. In the process of studying ontology, semiotic reality arises. We encounter some unfamiliar thing and begin to study it. First of all, we “transfer it to the brain”. Yet it is impossible to transfer the thing itself to the brain, that’s why we transfer its image there, the image that we had achieved in contact with the thing. It can be very imperfect or even erroneous, but we need to reason, and for this purpose we create an image of the thing in consciousness. Again, this image undergoes changes in the process of its removal into the brain: the sensory organs with which we are endowed, are by no means perfect, like the neural pathways along which our impressions enter the mental apparatus. Also in the brain itself, the image is transformed in the process of obtaining new knowledge about the subject and its preservation in thoughts. Nevertheless, judging by the conclusions from our reasoning, we are generally able to adequately understand the knowledge gained and formulate the correct conclusions about its content, form and possible functions. In formulating conclusions about the subject of study, we create signs, and in more complex cases systems of signs, that reflect not only the things themselves, but also their appearance and development, their connections and the ability to clarify some object or phenomenon for an individual and for the humanity as a whole. In this way, a new material environment of human existence is created í sign reality, which includes all signs and sign systems created by people. This type of reality is constantly replenished, modified and spreads in time and space. An increasing number of people are joining it; it also constitutes the content of the training of new generations in all spheres of life: in daily practice, in the family, in various educational institutions, etc. I call semiotic reality material because it exists not only in the minds, but also in books and textbooks, in films and pictures, in lectures and in computer materials. It serves as the main component of human culture and the main means of introducing new generations to the practice of life.

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It is assumed, that signs adequately reflect that part of the ontological reality for which they were created. Thus, the word “chair” should reflect exactly what it defines; the number “3” tells us about three objects (no more and no less), and the sign “zebra” on the pavement serves to indicate a cross of the street. In all these cases, the mark and its referent fully coincide in volume and content. But such cases are simple and usually quite satisfactory, so people who know the meaning of the sign correctly understand and use it. The situation is worse with things-events complex in their structure and connections in ontological reality. In these cases, we are not talking about the designation of individual signs, but about the creation and use of sign systems. I will bring about a few examples. People use a time zone grid to determine local time. Due to the rotation of the Earth, days on its surface of the Earth begin and continue not simultaneously, but with a lag at different points on the planet. The idea came up to coordinate the time differences in a grid that includes the entire globe. It randomly selects the beginning of the countdown (the corresponding meridian) and the subsequent onset of each moment of the day with the unit of reckoning obligatory for all (an hour that divides a full day into 24 consecutive parts). The sign system of time zones was debugged for a long time, while all states agreed on the need for its introduction and the same interpretation. If its ideal embodiment became possible, it would be possible to say that this sign system fully reflects the sphere of ontology for the expression of which it was invented. But “it was smooth on paper, yet it was about ravines.” It turned out that the strictly geometric drawing of the borders of one or another belt violates the normal existence of people in the same territory. In many cases, the border of the zones divides the settlements into two parts, in which different times occur. This circumstance prevents the introduction of exact geographic time in such geographic locations. Sometimes we are talking not only about individual settlements, but also about entire economically and politically homogeneous territories; as a result, the belts are pushed to the borders of the given state. For example, in Argentina, which, according to a strict model, was supposed to fall into the fourth and fifth time zones, a single time has been introduced that completely falls into the third time zone (this seems more convenient for the

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citizens of Argentina). There are many such deviations, in particular in Russia, where, at the whim of the supreme rulers, the borders of the belts are constantly being adjusted and changed, after which their location often contradicts mathematical calculations. Take a different, larger scale sign system í the calendar. Any calendar is designed to determine the course of time throughout the year. According to this parameter, calendars are divided into solar and lunar; in them the year is determined by the moment of the next hit of the Earth at the same place in relation to the Sun or to the Moon. After that, the year is divided by the some number of months, and the months by the number of days in them. “Days” serve as the basic signs in the system; they, in turn, are divided into “parts” (“morning”, “midday”, etc.) and “hours”, for which a sixdecimal number system is adopted (an hour is divided into 60 minutes and a minute into 60 seconds). All this ultimately comes down to a calendar that helps streamline both our plans and everyday proceedings. The history of calendars is varied and instructive: it turns out that not a single of the calendars can be precisely accommodated with the real current time. This happens because the actual revolution of the Earth around the Sun in solar calendars, and even more so, the revolution of the Moon around the Earth in lunar calendars, does not end with a complete division without remainders into one or more number of days. There remains a certain number of hours and in the long while days that, over time, accumulate into shift time by days and months in relation to the orientation of the system to the Sun or Moon. It becomes necessary to adjust the adopted calendars from time to time, because as a result of their inconsistencies, holidays and other dates significant for people are shifted. In fact, the value of a calendar depends on the frequency and size of its adjustment. Thus, the Gregorian solar calendar, adopted in most countries of the world, requires the addition of one day in February every four years (a leap year); and, say, the lunar-solar calendar, adopted by Jews in antiquity and used even today in Israel, is being adjusted due to the additional lunar month, added seven times in 19 years (i.e., seven leap years appear in the 19-year cycle). It is clear which calendar is more preferable, but religious considerations prevent the Israelis

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from completely abandoning the old calendar, and their life is regulated by two parallel sign systems at the same time. Another very revealing example, although it is due to other reasons, and not the lack of the ability to combine the sign system with its ontological prototype. I mean physical maps in geography. They are created in order to show this or that territory in the most complete and understandable way and to help users navigate within. Any physical map reflects both the territory itself and its most important features. Since the Earth is a sphere, its basic spatial dimensions are easily drawn on globes, but globes are very inconvenient to carry, and therefore cartography was mainly implemented on planar surfaces (on skin, papyrus and paper). Another very revealing example, although it is due to other reasons, and not the lack of the ability to combine the sign system with its ontological prototype. I mean physical maps in geography. They are created in order to show this or that territory in the most complete and understandable way and to help users navigate within. Any physical map reflects both the territory itself and its most important features. Since the Earth is a sphere, its basic spatial dimensions are easily drawn on globes, but globes are very inconvenient to carry, and therefore cartography was mainly implemented on planar surfaces (on skin, papyrus and paper). Initially, all maps were drawn like topographic images, which on a small scale looked acceptable, but when moving to large scales, bulky territories had to be distorted. Only in the works of Gerard Merkator (1512 – 1594) did the maps acquire their present form. He applied an equal-angled cylindrical projection, which made it possible to minimize distortion when displaying spherical spaces on a plane. After that, the idea of Mercator was improved and many projections appeared that made it possible to transfer the geometry of curved spaces to the plane without any special losses. Normal vision easily adapts to such tricks, which helps us to relate to imaginary identity without any special complaints. The above examples give reason to argue that: A. Ontological and semiotic realities are not the same thing; they differ, first of all, by their origin. Ontology is the product of natural forces, and semiotics is entirely and completely the result of human thoughts. Therefore, it is very difficult to change ontological

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manifestations, but it is entirely in our power to change and improve the signs. B. Although signs and sign systems have arisen as a result of the knowledge of ontological reality and have as their goal to reflect it, in many cases it turns out to be impossible to do this one hundred percent adequately. We have to put up with inconsistencies between these two spheres (forms, layers) of reality and eliminate the contradictions that arise. C. The contradictions between the two forms of reality are of different nature. Sometimes we encounter fundamental impossibility to eliminate the discrepancy and resort to palliatives that allow us to overcome the existing antagonisms. At the same time, we use acceptable tolerances to cover the gaps. We usually choose the best environment (usually mathematical) for iconic images. We also use mechanical and other devices to correct the situation (say, we use special glasses to represent a suitable environment for certain phenomena, such as Clear View Night Glasses, which allow you to see the road and road signs in the dark and not to get blind from the counter going cars). One of the reasons for the discrepancy between the two layers of reality is, in my opinion, the mismatch in both areas (in the ontology and in the signs used for it) of the dyad “continuity ļ discreteness”. I will devote to it my further exposition.

Interpretation of the dyad “continuity ļ discreteness” in classical philosophy The problem of opposite categories of “continuity” ļ “discreteness” occupied the minds of philosophers from the moment when philosophy began to take shape as a science. The philosophers of ancient Greece paid it great attention. Moreover, Aristotle formulated its characteristics that have survived to our time. In the essay “Categories”, he identified such signs of things and sign systems that, in his opinion, characterize any things-events that take place in the world. Chapter six, which he called “Quantity”, is precisely devoted to the characterization of “continuity ļ discreteness”. It begins as follows:

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As for quantity, one is separate, the other is continuous, and one consists of parts having a certain position in relation to each other, and the other í of parts that do not have such a position. Separate, for example, number and word, continuous í line, surface, body, and in addition, time and place.44

In “Metaphysics” Aristotle first gives a general definition of quantity: “Quantity is what is divisible into components, each of which, whether there are two or more, is by nature something one and certain something.” Then he explains it and divides the quantity in half: Every quantity is a set if it is countable, and a quantity if it is measurable. By the same token, what is called possible is divisible into parts that are not continuous.45

These definitions of Aristotle are truly classical. Later, many philosophers dealt with this problem, introducing more and more nuances into the basic definitions by Aristotle. In the interpretation of these two fundamental categories of reality, I follow in the footsteps of Leibniz, but with different conclusions from his correct premises, in my opinion. “Leibniz breeds continuity and discreteness in different ontological areas.” I also breed the unity of these concepts, but not “in different ontological areas”, yet in different areas of reality, in which the realities of ontological, semiotic and thought planes are combined. In other words, I present the background of all existential perturbations as consisting of three parts, only one of which is ontology. In these three parts, our dyad (continuous vs. discrete) is discernible in two areas í ontology and semiotic realities, and human thinking serves this interaction as a conducting and connecting medium. More about my vision later and now we return to the position of Leibniz. I present the views of Aristotle and Leibniz as a continuation of the same topic about “continuity ļ discreteness”. Aristotle gave an initial exposure of its existence, and Leibniz deepened his consider44

In: https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/aristotle-metaphysics/ In: http://sci-book.com/osnovyi-filosofii/momentyi-kolichestvadiskretnoe-64659.html

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ations, indicating that this pair works differently in “different ontological areas”, which implies the need to compare them. I continue this line, but I affirm that the difference between them should be sought not in one (ontological), but in two different spheres of reality í ontological and semiotic. This position seems fundamental and important to me, because it explains why the contradiction arises and how it can be leveled or at least reduced to an acceptable one. Since the ontology, as has already been noted, is a product of natural forces, our attempts to change it are difficult and not always lead to the desired result. Signs are created by people and are easily changed and improved. Today I can attribute territory “N” to a definite time zone, tomorrow to another. There is no unconditional attachment of the ontological thing-event to the semiotic decision, once and for all accepted. Nowadays, the decimal number system is mainly used. And once they used other systems with other bases: six-decimal (in Babylon), twelve-decimal (Inca) and others. Only later, when people learned about the existence of various systems and began to compare them, they were able to come to the conclusions about the advantages and disadvantages of each of them and switch to a more efficient scheme. This shows tendency of an inevitable and gradual transition to global and basically unified society of all people on the planet, using the same notions and their definitions. However, from the correct premise of the need to separate the decision on the relationship between continuous and discrete in two spheres, Leibniz draws conclusions directly opposite to those to which I come. He writes: In the representations given in the mode of space and time, the whole precedes the parts into which this whole can be infinitely divided. The world of continuous is not the world of actual being (sic! – A.S.), but the world of only possible relations. Continuous are space, time and movement. Moreover, the principle of continuity is one of the fundamental principles of existence.46

I would formulate this in a completely different way: 46

At: https://gtmarket.ru/concepts/7044

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Ontological reality is primary to us as continuity, while the corresponding semiotic reality appears initially in the form of discrete signs, which are immediately connected into a system that works according to certain rules, that is, they (signs!) become continuous.47

Therefore, we continually divide continuous ontology into those components that can be connected into a system (that is, by analysis we come to the synthesis of our conclusions), and we create relevant sign systems, going from specific discrete parts to a seamless synthesis in the sign system. In other words, in both cases the line of reasoning seems to be directly opposite. For example, we are in nature and look around. What do we see? We see a whole and undivided picture: here is a field; a grove adjoins it, beyond which a pond is visible, etc. We begin to analyze this whole (continuous) picture: it is easier to cross the field this way; the grove is very beautiful and consists mainly of deciduous trees; and in the pond, perhaps, it would be nice to swim or just relax near it. Yet another analysis is possible, so to say, of a scientific plan. Let us say, we need to log what we saw on the map. We do this according to the established rules of cartography, a science that is designed to show in sign systems what we observe on the ground. Here is one of the descriptions of mapping from the point of view of the dyad “continuous ļ discrete”: Discrete data, which is sometimes called thematic, categorical or non-continuous, is most often used to represent objects in both vector and raster data storage systems. Discrete objects have been known as definable with boundaries: it is easy to determine exactly where such an object begins and where it ends. A lake is a discrete object surrounded by a landscape. The place, where water ends and land begins, can be clearly defined. Other discrete objects include buildings, roads, and land. Discrete objects are usually indicated by nouns. A continuous surface represents a phenomenon in which each surface point is a measure of density, a measure of atti47

Actually, I understand the dyad “continuity ļ discreteness” as wholeness and unity that cannot be separated, but more on that below. Here we are talking about from what point of view to consider this dyad, whether to focus on its continuous component or on the discrete component.

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tude to a fixed point in space, or a relation to a point of origin. Continuous data is also called fields, non-discrete data, or surface data. One type of continuous surface is calculated based on characteristics that define the surface at which each point in space is calculated relative to a fixed registration point. This includes altitude (fixed point í sea level) and exposure (fixed point í one of the directions: north, east, south, west).48

The given example concerns the transfer of spatial ontological data to the data of the cartographic plan, where discrete characters are connected into a character system. It should be noted that in both forms this data appears as an indivisible dyad, only the course of discussion about this dyad in nature goes from general to particular (from continuity to discreteness í from the whole picture to its details), and in cartography í from particular to general (from discreteness to continuity í from individual characters to the map). Apparently, this is a general conclusion for the study of this philosophical category in its private applications. Consider another specific example of the application of our dyad í the creation of different alphabets. Writing is an example of notational systems. It is used to record oral speech with written characters on some surface from which it can then be read. Writing systems had a long and very interesting history even before the invention of the alphabet. The first alphabet is considered to be the one, that has survived to the present day among the Jews, and it records oral speech in Hebrew. From Jews the alphabetical notation passed to the Greeks, from the Greeks to the Latins and to the Slavs, and now it is used by most peoples on the planet. As a matter of fact, the principle of writing was transferred from nation to nation í to depict in separate letters the sounds of a particular language according to the rule “one and only one letter for each individual sound in the language.” This ideal is hardly maintained in any written system, but, nevertheless, in most countries it is the alphabetic system of notation that dominates. 48

Discrete and continuous data. At: http://desktop.arcgis.com/en/arcmap/10.3/manage-data/raster-andimages/discrete-and-continuous-data.htm.

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From the point of view of the dyad which interests us, each nation introduced alphabetical writing in exactly the same way that was described in the previous example with regard to cartography. Oral speech is taken in its continuity and discrete sounds stand out in it, which should be imprinted in the letters of the emerging alphabet. Which is done by the creators of the alphabet, where all the letters are combined, producing a solid sign system from discrete particles (letters). When creating an alphabet from discrete letters, a system that is continuous in form and content appears which works in accordance with its inherent rules. Letters are carried in different categories (vowels, consonants, and these last are voiced, deaf, etc.); they are pronounced differently in different sound environments — they are doubled, sounded differently, transferred from category to category, etc. That is, an alphabet made up of discrete parts immediately turns into continuity, which again can be scattered into different discrete categories turning them into the opposite part of the dyad.

The role of virtual reality in creating balance between ontology and signs In the previous section, characterizing Leibniz’s views on the dyad “continuity ļ discreteness”, I promised to return to the problem of the three spheres of reality, which I am actively developing and promoting at the present time. These three areas constitute our being, they are inseparable and act together and in coordination. An example of such coordination is the endowment of the ontological and corresponding semiotic reality with close and direct connections by combining continuously discrete relationships in them. We do this first in our thoughts (virtually), then we put our thoughts into practice and later evaluate whether they receive confirmation in this case í in full or partial. Without connecting thoughts to this process, we would not have succeeded, and with logical and consistent thinking a positive result may be achieved. Asserting that mental ideas take place in the formulation and application of the laws of nature and thinking, I transfer them to the sphere to which they really belong. I call this sphere the realm of virtual reality. Its place and purpose is most easily ex-

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plained with the help of the so-called diagrams (or circles) of Euler (1707 - 1783), which graphically represent the relations between the subsets. Here is how it will look in our case.

Interaction of ontological, semiotic and virtual realities Thoughts on the problem in question

Semiotic reality

Ontological reality Metathinking (logic of presentation)

Being represented by a large circle (more precisely, an ellipse) the scheme includes: a) ontology, b) signs corresponding to it, and c) our thoughts about combining these two types of reality. In the following presentation, instead of synonyms of the “form”, “sphere” and “stratum” of reality, I will use the general term “form of reality”. Forms of reality are correlated according to the principle of their greatest correspondence to each other. Where possible, they coincide completely, that is, their circles completely cover each other. In many cases, full alignment is fundamentally impossible (calendar) or practically uncomfortable (time zone grid). Then, that is, with incomplete combination, inconsistencies arise between the ontological and semiotic representations. In such cases, we figure out how to close the gap between these types of reality in the most convincing and effective way. It should be borne in mind that inconsistencies can be corrected by replacing the previously used sign system with a new one that is more suitable for this case, or by partial correction of the system, by palliatives, in which it does not disappear completely, but simply becomes better tuned. In formal logic, the ratio of the three concepts is included in a large circle (ontology, symbolic reality and thoughts) is characterized as the ratio of opposite concepts.

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Concepts are in opposition in the event that they denote some mutually exclusive signs, extreme states of something, between which, however, there is always a certain middle, transitional variant. For example, the concepts of a tall person and a low person are opposite (the third or transitional option between them will be the concept of a person of average height).49

In Euler’s diagram, the relation of the opposite is depicted by two non-touching circles, which are, as it were, at different “poles”. In the above scheme, the ontological and semiotic forms of realities are represented by small circles, not in contact with each other, inside a large circle. They have a joint exit to the third intermediate category, which represents our thoughts in two guises. Thoughts that help to build a sign system, and then adjust it, eliminating inconsistencies found in it, are divided according to my concept into two categories: thoughts concerning the content of the process under study (its components, their distribution into different categories, their endowment with names and so forth), and thoughts regarding the logical presentation of all these categories. In the second case, I call this kind of thinking “metathinking”, it concerns the correct and logical expression of thoughts reflecting the gist of the problem (see chapter 9 of this book). Thus, in the proposed method thoughts are divided into a continuous sequence in their representation of the object in question and the discreteness of the reasoning used in them. The intervention of the third force in the interpretation of the dyad “continuity ļ discreteness” should always be taken into account. I will present my final understanding of this dyad in the next section.

Additional considerations on the “continuous ļ discrete” problem Bearing in mind the foregoing, I understand “continuity ļ discreteness” as an indissoluble philosophical dyad that is applied in all three forms of being: in ontology, semiotic and virtual realities. Its birthplace is virtual reality, that is, our thoughts. It serves us as a 49

Gusev D.A. Logics (teaching aid). At: https://www.litmir.me/br/?b=589221&p=5

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means of positioning and evaluating everything that we encounter with in the reality surrounding us and in ourselves as material objects. It also helps us to create a semiotic shell for everything that is simultaneously constructed in the form of signs for understanding ontological things-events. We cannot think without creating for this a world that is continuous-discrete in space, which is the place for things (ontology) and for signs that describe them (semiotic space). In this sense, the category of “continuous ļ discrete” corresponds to other philosophical categories, such as space and time. There are space and time in their real sense, and there are time and space as philosophical categories that we need to consider and evaluate everything we deal with in the practice of life. From thoughts, this philosophical dyad goes over to concrete manifestations of existing things and signs, immediately assigning them the status of continuity and discreteness at the same time. The difference is manifested only in what series we choose for analysis at the moment, whether we are interested in one or the other side of the matter. A funny question has been around for a long time: what precedes in “chicken ļ egg” pair? This question is meaningless: you want to discuss chicken í then put it in the foreground; if you want to discuss an egg, then you push it to the forefront, artificially breaking the dualistic nature of their primary connection. But right there, for each member of the dyad, a new cycle of joining the ranks of “continuous ļ discrete” begins. You can discuss eggs as a discrete object in a continuous series of discussions about how much they cost in a store and / or in the market. Or you can discuss chicken as a discrete material object in comparison with other birds (again, a continuous discussion context). This formula is inextricably two-fold: that in one row looks like continuous, in another it can appear in the form of discrete particles. Most often, two hypostasis of the same phenomenon are combined in its different perturbations, such as, for example, in a light ray, in the dyad of a person ļ human race, in the dyad of culture ļ its separate manifestations, etc. Not a single thing-event in the ontological realities and not a single sign or sign system passes this fate. The shell of “continuity ļ discreteness”, as well as the categories of place and time, accompany their joint consideration in each particular context.

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The example of “chicken ļ eggs” may seem inappropriate in a scientific text, but it very sharply outlines the problem that interests us. I have cited examples that are more acceptable: “man ļ the human race”, “culture ļ its individual manifestations”, bearing in mind other existential constructs. They reflect the most important aspects of our existence, but at the same time they repeat the essence of the dyad “chicken ļ egg”. Many scholars are inclined to characterize a person as a carrier of genes necessary for reproduction of the genus, and indeed this is in the context of discussions on the topic “Why do I exist?” Outside of this purely philosophical context, other, more humanistic reasons for the existence of a separate (discrete) individual are given, that is, the concept of “man” is included in other series of thoughts. But any reasoning is the thought processes needed to analyze things and events that occur around us, as well as the signs that reflect them. It remains to answer the question of how, in my opinion, the concepts of “discrete unit” and “continuous row” should be understood. There may be a lot of judgments on this subject that are true for specific cognitive situations, but the essence of the matter is clear even on an intuitive level. A discrete unit can be recognized as any single thing-event in ontology or any single sign in semiotics. This unit always has boundaries separating it from other similar units or from the rest of the continuous series. Its second important attribute is the ability to enter a more complex structure. Then it, retaining all its individual characteristics, turns into part of this design and therefore acquires additional properties. A number in the natural row of numbers has boundaries separating it from all other numbers, and finds its place in this series. The number “5” is written separately and its content reflects the number of more than four and less than six. Speaking at different positions in certain numbers, say, in the decimal number system, this figure can mean five dozen or five hundred, etc. At the same time, it does not lose its place in the order in which she entered. This is characteristic of all signs, which by their nature begin with the compilation of a homogeneous continuous series in which each individual unit acquires its significance and from which it comes to determine things in ontology.

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In ontological reality, the picture changes í it usually appears as a continuity in which often unknown and in no way defined separate things-events stand out. These things-events should be understood by us and defined both individually and as part of the system where they are included in. For example, an association called the European Union appeared in the world, which included Great Britain. It happened that subjects of the British Crown advocated withdrawal from the Union. This new event puzzled the whole world and became the subject of proceedings both in the world and in England. We had nowhere to take the characteristics for its definition, although it got its name í Brexit and a specific explanation of this term (“UK exit from the European Union”). This is not a definition of the essence of the event, but only its statement. Right now, with great difficulty, Brexit characteristic features are being clarified, which in the event of their repetition can be applied by analogy to new similar incarnations. Returning to the question from which I began the chapter (how different continuities and their individual components combine in two material forms of being í in ontology and semiotics) I can say the following. They are bound by their material comparability and our mind. In cases of disagreement with one another, we come up with some palliatives or deliberately close our eyes to inconsistency, if they come down to trifles that do not interfere with approximate applications of compatible systems. Thus, corrections are applied to calendars, leveling the accumulated discrepancies in time between the calendar and the really current time. Belt time, which is applied by orders from above, interferes, but somehow we adapt to this. The change of national scripting variants greatly hinders only the generation that already perceived the abruptly canceled previous system, but one has to put up with it. In Azerbaijan over the past century, three writing systems have changed: until 1922, Azerbaijanis used Arabic script with additional characters characteristic of the Turkic languages; then, in the Azerbaijan SSR, the Arabic alphabet began to be used in parallel with the Latin, and in November 1939 a new, Cyrillic alphabet was officially approved. All this perturbations occurred within the life of one generation, which courageously survived it. In 1991, after the collapse of the USSR and Azerbaijan’s independence from Russia,

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the alphabet was again translated into the Latin, which is still used today. The greatest distortions between the phenomenon in ontology and its semiotic reflection occur because at the beginning of the study of this or that phenomenon: we simply know little about it and do not know about possible deviations in the laws established by us. The great round-the-world voyage of Magellan began in November 1519. Of the five vessels that set sail, only one managed to return to Spain, Magellan himself was killed during the voyage, and out of more than 250 sailors, only 18 returned home (another 18 returned from captivity later in their ship “Victoria”). Magellan’s intention was not going to make a round-the-world trip to prove the sphericity of the Earth; he wanted to reach the Asian countries, sailing to them from Europe to the west. Some of the surviving sailors kept diaries in which daily events were recorded. Imagine their surprise when they found out that they had “lost one day” during the voyage: The ships sailed west, following the movement of the Sun across the sky as if catching it. Therefore, if the sailors had a modern timepiece or a simple watch, the sailors would have noticed that their day is slightly longer than the usual 24 hours, and their local noon more and more lags behind their usual Spanish calendar. But, since there were no chronometers in those days, this lag was imperceptible. Sailors used hourglasses (from this the fleet had a count of time according to the so called “flasks”). The daily time was counted from the local noon corresponding to the meridian on which the ship was at that moment. As a result, when the sailors returned to their native Europe, it turned out that their ship calendar was behind the calendar of the homeland for whole days.50

50

At: https://educontest.net/ru/417149/%D1%80%D0%B5%D1%84%D0%B5% D1%80%D0%B0%D1%82-%D0%B7%D0%BD%D0%B0%D1%87%D0 %B5%D0%BD%D0%B8%D1%8F-%D0%BF%D1%83%D1%82%D0 %B5%D1%88%D0%B5%D1%81%D1%82%D0%B2%D0%B8%D1%8F -%D1%84%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%BD%D0%B0%D0%BD/

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Later, when people clarified the structure of the Solar system and the laws of the Earth’s rotation around the Sun, they learned to take into account deviations in the time of day, fixed on clocks or other mechanisms in different places of the planet, and take them into account. Initial ignorance of the laws of nature constantly revealing itself, manifests also on a larger scale. At the beginning of the twentieth century, scientists began to work on the laws of mechanics of the atomic and subatomic world. They were completely at a loss, when they tried to utilize for it Newton’s laws. They had to change everything and invented quantum mechanics. The approaches to the laws of the macrocosm have also changed. There you have to resort to speed and pressure, unlike their counterparts in the world where we live. Einstein’s theories, expressed at the beginning of the twentieth century, speak of four parameters of the state of an object that has fallen into the macrocosm. The parameter of relative time is added to the three parameters of measuring place, time and mass, and the resulting values obey completely different rules for their derivation. Time for the studied object there flows differently than under ordinary conditions, the spatial dimensions and mass of the object itself change. But all these changes for new things-events are introduced after we try to apply by analogy the laws known earlier. Only, when their inconsistency with really occurring events is detected, we change our approaches to them. That is the time, where the intervention of the human mind manifests itself in establishing balance between ontology and the signs that accompany it.

TWELVE COLLABORATION OF THE THREE LAYERS OF BEING

It should be noted that any of the indicated realities with time changes, first of all, by its specific gravity in the totality of human life. Ontological reality dominated the first steps of human civilization: people adapted themselves to their environment and, to a very small extent, tried to adapt it to their needs. Over time, having learned some natural laws, people already with greater dexterity began to influence the environment, inventing new and more advanced tools and devices for this. They created not only hardware, but also improved skills in working with these tools, as well as methods of collective and coordinated work. They invented languages and still use them as the main means of communication among themselves and a way of designating any objects and their characteristics in all three areas of reality. Languages are sign systems. In addition to language, people invented other signs, denoting with them things from ontology and phenomena in constantly emerging sign realities. Thus came semiotic reality; it strengthened and pushed ontology, conquering living space for itself. Man gradually became a “symbolic being,” as Ernst Cassirer called him. This stage of development of civilization continued until our time, when virtual reality embodied in computers and other electronic gadgets began to come to the fore. Look around í on the street or in transport í almost every second person holds a phone or other gadget in their hands and works with it. This trend will constantly increase. Virtual reality comes forward, and with its arrival, we people are being changed. Today we are at the epicenter of change: many professions and everyday activities disappear or radically mutate. I start my day by

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opening the computer. In it I find news that interest me; I no longer need newspapers and magazines. Almost all of my mail is transferred to the computer, although in the mailbox I still find accounts and some official notices. It seems, that with the improvement of state institutions, banks and other services, even these items will no longer be sent by regular mail. I don’t have to spend money on cinema tickets anymore, as I watch new films at home. There is no need to visit libraries, since you can download any books for free or at the lowest price. There is no need to go to travel agencies to buy tickets for airplanes, trains, and even intercity buses. I can buy them in advance using a computer. Even products in stores I can order by electronic means of communication. The same goes for other needs. Orientation in space on a car or when traveling on foot underwent cardinal changes when navigators appeared. Digitization of terrestrial spaces allows you to correctly plan the construction of huge structures: bridges, pipelines, railways, cities and towns. The planning technique has also changed í ordinary drawings have been replaced by computer graphics. The learning process is moving from schools and other educational institutions to electronic gadgets today. There you will find much more sources of information than in any textbook. In addition, there is a lot of reliable knowledge presented in a very different settings í choose to taste. The foregoing decisively changes the previously adopted approaches to teaching and creating teaching aids. Let me give you just one example, which I know very well from my own experience. For several decades I was engaged in lexicography í composed dictionaries of different kinds. I have compiled more than a dozen of them, so I know this matter in detail. Google Translate appeared on Google, and almost all of our previous products, especially traditional word for word dictionaries, turned out to be unnecessary. Now there is one dictionary in your computer that allows you to get a translation of words from any language into any other without getting up from the chair, giving examples of the use of these words in various expressions, including idiomatic ones. Moreover, it is constantly being improved, and not only linguists and lexicographers take part in the work. Dictionaries can be replenished by any user of any language on the Earth. User’s suggestions are consid-

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ered by a commission of specialists, and decisions are made about their introduction into the already existing variant. This is a genuine revolution in lexicography, changing traditional approaches from “a” to “z”. Similar revolutions are taking place in other areas of human existence, asserting the influence of previously unnoticeable virtual reality in the life of modern man. “But what does virtual reality have to do with it?” í asks the perplexed reader. “After all, we are talking about a completely visible and semiotic reality written down in black and white, albeit placed on a computer?” The fact of the matter is that the Google translator is a typical virtual idea, transferred today to the material semiotic plane. For many centuries to overcome the barrier of multilingualism, we used interpreters and dragomen, as well as recorded dictionaries of various kinds. In the end, humanity invented a tool (computer), which made it possible to bring all the dictionaries in one place and in the most complete way. Based on previous experience, specialists compiled the backbone of such a common dictionary and enabled users to introduce changes and additions to it. Thus, another dream of mankind was realized, which made it possible to transfer the idea from virtual reality to semiotic one. By the way, I have no doubt that over time, devices will be invented that can simultaneously translate oral speech into any foreign language, and as a result, simultaneous interpreters will be left without work. I would like to highlight three main trends of modern life that will allow us to see and understand our era, and give examples of each of them.

Mass appeal to non-verbal information This circumstance is noticeable in communication, in education, and in their various practical applications. Complaints that young people do not read, that they cannot be torn off from computer games and films on electronic gadgets, are heard from all sides, and this is, indeed, the disease of our time. It is called the disease for good reason í the virtual reality, into which our children plunge, creates a dependency that is akin to narcotic, and, like any addiction, it leads to degradation í intellectual, spiritual and physical. Instead of chasing a ball with peers, your child sits huddled in a

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chair above a smart-phone. At the same time, the content of the absorbed material is significantly reduced in quality and speaks less to consumers than, for example, the printed word of periodicals, not to mention fiction. The word as a sign, on average, is much more abstract than the image, and refers to more developed mental structures. But the image is endowed with a greater emotional charge, which, apparently, attracts young people. I have no doubt that the predominant appeal to figurative structures is a temporary phenomenon, but the fact remains í the planet’s population nowadays prefers figurative filling of cognitive structures over the verbal, and this has to be taken into account. Yet there is also something positive in craving for figurative í it allows you to involve the masses of people who were previously cut off from global communication in an active exchange of views. Their first steps in this direction often look ridiculous, but in the end, there will be gradual progress that will expand the circle of communication and improve the quality of materials placed in electronic media. However, under some circumstances, a figurative representation can substantially complement the verbal one. I want to talk about some of these cases here. The first being that having in mind the abovementioned trends, I decided to offer a version of the scientific bibliography, where images would play a very important role. Instead of a scanty list, based on strictly established rules, where we compose bibliography including dozens, and sometimes hundreds of works, but where each of them is given a line or two, I propose creating a selective bibliography, that would reflect only the main works of the scientist, reflecting in sufficient details and including elements of a figurative nature í diagrams, illustrations and covers of published works. Such bibliography is proposed for placement in computer, where the volume of bibliographic information can take up a lot of space. Why, in principle, do we need a bibliography? – mostly, to show the importance of the scientist through his/her achievements. Traditionally constructed bibliographies contribute little to this. It seems, that my version gives much clearer and deeper image of the scientist, than dry listing of the technical details of his/her published books, which is accepted today.

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Here I demonstrate two slides from my Illustrated Bibliography in order to give impression of how it presents some of the most important books of mine. Besides, these two entries show the books, which comprise the two predecessors of the book you are reading now. Together they compose the complete trilogy of my philosophical contextures. Slide 14 of the batch A Theory of General Semiotics

(Newcastle upon Tyne, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015, 399 p.: ill.)

This book is devoted to the topic of general semiotics. It formulates some of the central laws and parameters of the paradigm of general semiotics, and illustrates them with various examples from branch semiotics, i.e. from the systems of semiotics that are already in use in particular fields of endeavor. These laws and illustrations

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will prove useful for every distinct instance of branch semiotics, both those that are already well-established and those that will appear in the future. Slide 15 of the batch From Semiotics towards Philosophical Metaphysics

(Cambridge Scholars publication, 2017, 304 p.) This book introduces new approaches to semiotics and metaphysical philosophy, innovations that show how mature semiotics naturally leads to new vistas in philosophical thinking. It also demonstrates how researchers change their initial formulations over the course of their research, arriving at fresh results that sometimes conflict with their original interpretations.

Constant modification of existing signs and sign systems Since signs are created by people, they are much more accessible for changes than things in ontology; therefore they are constantly being improved and changed. Rooted traditions have a negative effect on changes in sign systems, but they can be overcome, if necessary. For instance, though national alphabets change extremely rarely and with great reluctance (in traditional and conservative societies they are considered almost sacred), but with social upheaval they are available for influence. Recollect at least the change in the Russian alphabet made by the Bolsheviks in 1919, when three letters were removed from the former pattern. In the era of Stalinist tyranny, the Azerbaijani alphabet changed three times, and

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three times the Azerbaijanis were forced to painfully rebuild their language habits. Each time they silently obeyed. As for other sign systems that are not so significant for public consciousness, they are always open to accept new requirements, changing mainly in the direction of increasing the abstractness of the signs included in them. This is one of the main laws of the development of sign systems. For example, the idea of the solar system in the teachings of Ptolemy was based solely on direct observations of the sun and other celestial bodies available at that time. The observations were supplemented by logical connectives, but the theory gradually changed as a result of new data. When such data looked overwhelming, it came into conflict with the previous picture of the world, it had to be completely replaced with a new paradigm, presented by Copernicus. This time, scientists were no longer content with simple observation. They supplemented it with mathematical calculations, which made it possible not only to explain what was seen, but also to predict quite accurately some astronomical phenomena, for instance, the dates of solar and lunar eclipses. Replacement of previous signs with more accurate ones, obeying clearly defined laws of designation, is happening also in our time. I will give an example from linguistics, which is well-known to me from professional studies, to show that even in the matter that, it would seem, has long been established, changes occur constantly. I mean the theory of indirect communication, preached by V.V. Dementiev, a linguist from Saratov on the river Volga in Russia. He proceeds from the fact that ordinary speech communication does not exhaust all possibilities of languages. Any language is able to use words not only for their most intended purpose í to transmit information, but, using additional syntactic, intonational and other language models, to change the old meaning of words to another, sometimes directly opposite to their usual denotation. There is nothing new in such stand; this property of the language in everyday communication is used by its speakers both consciously and intuitively. The innovation is that V.V. Dementiev detailed his arguments and presented his theory in a completely finished version. Here is what he writes on this subject:

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One more area of modern communicative and anthropological linguistics should be noted, which is significant for the problem of indirect use of speech signs that we are considering, í the theory of speech genres… The theory of speech genres is one of the few practical communication models that take into account such important parameters as the situation and the sphere of communication, style, intentional factor, form of speech, including ways of designing the beginning and end of speech, transferring initiative in dialogue, and also communication strategies and tactics. The theory of speech genres is implemented to solve the most difficult problem in linguistics of speech í to find a single path for the systematic analysis of the most chaotic material in linguistics, based on the model of the speech genre formulated by M.M. Bakhtin.51

V.V. Dementiev emphasizes the following principles of his theory: 1. All human communication is carried out within the framework of genres defined as indirectly communicational… Indirect communication, like communication as a whole, is manifold; and all genres have common characteristic properties. 2. IC (indirect communication) is a source of variability in communication… In general terms variability can be understood as a set of optional meanings allowed by the rules of the genre. Such meanings, that distinguish variation from the canonical use, are most often of stylistic and tonal nature. They, with few exceptions, cannot be expressed by means of usual canonical language, although communicants usually quite clearly feel the tone of their remarks and those of their interlocutor. 3. Speech genres (SG), representing communicative attractors, are a means of reducing the degree of “indirectness” in communication. SG, because of its compositional certainty, imposes restrictions on the interpretation of speech utterances, thereby making the interpretation more standard and reducing the degree of its “indirectness”. 51

Bakhtin M.M. The Problem of Speech Genres. From archival records to the work “The Problems of Text”. Bakhtin M.M. Collection of works in 5 vols. M., Languages of Russian Culture, 1996. v. 5., p.159-206.

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One of the most important functions of SG is to serve recognition of real addressee intentions. Genres take an active part in organizing and interpreting the semantics of a communicative situation. 4. Genre is not only a means of reducing the “indirectness” of communication, but also a means of increasing it in the form of a large amount of implicit information that “fits in” on the linguistic content of the expression, relying on the fact that it belongs to a certain genre. Genres are a source of typical implications, presuppositions, presumptions and background knowledge, actualized in a communication situation. 5. Indirect communication stems from the phenomenon of reaccentuation and supplementary genres, developing as indirect (written, institutional) spheres of culture. One of the sections of indirect communication is designated by M.M. Bakhtin as secondary speech genre. Secondary SGs are included in the field structure of communication and are the sources of indirect communication of several types. Indirect communication is the use of means unusual for a common genre. In this case, two cases are possible: a) the genre remains of itself, only carried out by indirect means; b) appears a new genre, which is an indirect communication in relation to the original one. In the latter case, there is place for re-accentuation of the genre, while changing the sphere of its use/style. This group consists entirely of secondary speech genres.52

Transfer of cognitive functions to “smart” machines Today, the role of smart gadgets is clearly visible. People on the streets of big cities are absorbed in watching these unique electronic devices; they either simply look at the programs available in them, or use them to solve practical problems. Never before have machines taken such a place in our lives as they are now, and their role is becoming ever more significant every day. This trend has received many names: the information revolution, intelligent information systems and many other notations. The revolution began 52

Dementiev V.V. Indirect communication. Moscow, “Gnosis”, 2006 (in Russian).

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with the creation of a universal computing machine (computer) and captured the imagination of people over the next decades. The question arose on the agenda í can machines become as smart as people, will their intellect be equal to human and which of them will win the competition in the struggle of intellects í machines or people? Meanwhile we do not have to be afraid í human intelligence is much richer and more sophisticated than the machine “intelligence”, which we ourselves put in them. Artificial intelligence is limited to those algorithms that are provided by their creators. Machines only carry out the step-by-step commands, that they possess, and respond to them as provided in the work program. They cannot backtrack one iota, otherwise the planned program does not work, and the step-by-step procedure has to be repeated from the very start along the well-worn path of the same algorithm. The human mind is much stronger: before each succeeding action, it is able to evaluate the current situation and make the most appropriate decision how to proceed. If we see that we made the wrong decision, we do not stop, as the machines do, but correct the steps already taken, until we achieve smooth continuation, leading the whole chain of actions to successful conclusion. What will happen over time? Whether we are able to collect such databases in the machine, which will be enough to carry out the activities of the human imagination, remains so far within the limits of virtual reality, that is, in the realm of fantasy and human dreams. But, as we have seen, a lot of ideas that once seemed unrealistic and unrealizable, received practical implementation over time. Perhaps, the task of creating machines with human intellect will be successfully solved, and we will get machines that will faithfully serve and help us in many aspects of life.

Human-signs interaction with formalized systems Separately should be highlighted the interaction of people with formalized systems. They consist of signs with such degree of abstractness, which allows you to think in advance of a logically justified and fairly formalized scheme for working with them. This, in particular, explains why I chose the name “formalized systems” for

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them. The use of such systems (mathematical, logical, in programming, etc.) is characterized by the following peculiarities of humansigns interface: A. Abundance of variable signs, which sometimes are found in other sign groups, but are specifically provided as mandatory only in symbolic systems. Variable signs are already found in natural situations. For example, on the graves of the recently deceased, a cardboard tablet with the name and surname of the deceased is preinstalled. Then it is replaced by a tombstone í a stone stele or a slab. Artists prepare sketches of future compositions or images for epic paintings; then they come together in a single picture. For large literary works, the same is done in the form of preparatory outline notes. But all this can be dispensed with, while mathematical transformations lose all meaning without variables in algebraic equations. B. If, when processing signs of low degree of abstractness, you can jump over some distinctly representable moves, then in algorithms for working with symbolic signs this is strictly forbidden. The fact is, that the results of formalized systems are built taking into account their use not only by people, but also by machines. Yet, “what is allowed to Jupiter is not allowed to a bull.” The human mind copes with chance and zigzag strips of thoughts, and the machine is not capable of it (at least for now). Results of processing formalized systems are so unambiguous that they are suitable not only for theoretical analysis by humans, but also as an algorithm for the action of mechanical devices. It is possible to give this thesis an even harsher formulation: mathematical calculations today are usually implemented in machine form. For example, the speed of driving a car and other vehicles can be shown exclusively on the speedometer; it is not possible to express it in any other way. Moreover, this applies to all measuring instruments. Thus, the processing of symbolic transformations is calculated in advance for their machine application. C. Transformation of mathematical and logical reasoning takes place in the form of strictly sequential symbolic strains of digits and symbolic signs rarely interspersed with word-connectives. These conversions can be tabulated with ordinal numbers, which usually happens. Thus, the first step is followed by the second, etc.,

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until we reach some final conclusion. All calculations are identical with each other, which is expressed by the sign of equality. Their task is to present the primary data in the form of a compact and most visual final expression. D. Final conclusion should be the simplest and most “expressive” result for all previously made transformations. Usually this is a formula in physics, a brief chemical or logical construction. It is then introduced as the algorithm of a generally accepted designation for all analogous transformations in science and in its practical applications, and the intermediate steps remain the property of a small group of specialists. The last circumstance (paragraph “d”) shows how abstract the symbolic signs are: a lay person is not able to recognize them í he utilizes only the end result, believing its face value. Today, symbols are signs of the highest semiotic concentration. This does not mean that humanity has reached the maximum possible semiotic filling of signs. Maybe in the future we will learn to read thoughts and create signs that will be more abstract than today’s symbols.

Additional angle in comprehension of human signs interfaces It seems to me that the concept of human-signs interface can be extended to what Thomas Kuhn describes in his famous book “The Structure of Scientific Revolutions”.53 I mean that the human-sign interface most clearly manifests itself during the paradigm shift to a particular phenomenon in ontology or in semiotic reality. When people changed the paradigm of understanding the structure of the Solar System from the Ptolemaic to the paradigm expressed by Copernicus, this could also be described as a change in the human-sign interface. Moreover, in this case, the concept I adopted is manifested in its most complete form. Just as the changes in the interface on the computer table are clearly manifested, the change of interfaces is very clearly visible at the macroscale in the most general pictures reflecting the laws of nature. 53

Kuhn Thomas. The Sructure of Scientific Revolutions. Chicago and London, 1962.

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If my point of view is accepted, this can help us in determining, whether this or that concept of an event or phenomenon is finalized with the adoption of its new interface. This question is of extreme importance. I can reformulate it as follows: can the previous interface be considered false or just the forerunner of the new interface? Is it possible to say that the previous interface was fake, although from a new perspective it is natural to define it as incorrect? It seems that only a two-sided meaning can be given to these questions: yes, the previous interface was incorrect, but this does not mean that it was fake. It was correct from the point of view of previous knowledge about the subject under discussion, and the new interface may well turn out to be wrong after the discovery of newly received data about it. Changing the interface does not at all mean a conflict between the true and the false; it means the process of mastering and understanding a certain truth in relation to the problem being studied. The most interesting thing in this process is that our consciousness at any stage of cognition the subject of study agrees to recognize accepted conclusions as final and that we consider the already asserted truth as the ultimate one. We, as it were, submit to the knowledge we have gained and adapt our life to it. Then, when under the influence of geniuses who announce the infidelity of the existing paradigm, we are forced to consider alternative versions, the inertia of thinking manifests itself and makes it difficult to believe new views. Very rarely, breakthrough discoveries win immediately í special conditions are needed for this. Some period passes, often very long, while new discoveries are adopted by the majority of the population in a country or in the whole world. There is a paradoxical saying, however, not lacking in its foundations: new ideas come to live, when the carriers of the old ideas disappear, and novelties do not seem impossible to new generation. The most important thing in the process of “scientific revolutions” is a convincing visual experiment. It must be easily understood and indisputable. When Fleming accidentally discovered penicillin and showed it in practice, all doubts about the need for its use disappeared. Still, there are problems that cannot be verified beyond doubts; in this case, difficulties arise associated with the search of undeniable evidence and the question of changing the extant hu-

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man-sign interface for a particular problem is stretched for a very long time. This happened with the genetic research of Gregor Mendel (1822 – 1884). Almost seventy years passed before his experiments on the transmission of hereditary traits were taken into service and the era of a new branch of science, genetics, began. That happened after the death of the great natural scientist; and the gene itself, which is a transmitter of traits, was discovered only at the beginning of the 20th century. This happens today, when the theory of the origin of the Universe is based on the existence of dark matter and black holes. Now this exists only as a hypothesis, underlying the standard cosmological model. Many scientists doubt the existence of these categories and require their additional experimental confirmation. Although many experiments. which have been already done, indicate the validity of this hypothesis, it has not yet been fully recognized by the scientific community. These are some of the characteristics, that I have identified for constantly occurring changes in the interaction between people and the surrounding signs and sign systems. This topic is far from exhausted, and I will continue its discussion in the next but one chapter with examples from the history of cartography.

THIRTEEN ON VISUALITY54

The main idea of this chapter is to consider the concept of “visualization” from a philosophical point of view. I will try to show that in the sense, which is presented here, it can become a reliable criterion for judging the correctness (or incorrectness) of our theoretical ruminations. In general, I affirm that which has long been intuitively accepted and constantly used. But when you want to rely on existing views on visuality, you will very soon find out that it was undeservedly assigned to such categories that, as it were, initially clear and do not require any additional explanations. In fact, as we will see below, this is not at all true. The lack of detailed explanations of the main characteristics of the concept of visuality significantly limits our ability to use it in its full and uncomplicated meaning. In a word, it seems to me that a detailed and thorough formulation of the main qualities of the phenomenon and its main characteristics is required, which is the purpose of this part of my book.

Existing views on visuality The reference to this concept can be found in tens of thousands of published works, and everywhere it is affirmed as something so obvious and convincing that it is understood and accepted without presenting further evidence. This something either immediately turns into reliability, or it has already allegedly been analyzed earlier and brought to such a degree of understanding that can be considered final and not requiring further confirmation. 54

I have already wrote on visuality in the book “From Semiotics towards Philosophical Metaphysics” (Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2007), but this chapter is treating it differently.

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The basis for this kind of conviction is the fact that visuality is initially based on the evidence of our vision. We see – that means that we know and comprehend. We see í it means that we are easily guided in the surrounding reality and can use this knowledge to translate our plans into it. “It’s better to see once than hear a hundred times,” says popular wisdom. At the same time, we must not forget that we see with the help of the eyes, but we decipher what we see and understand its meaning with the help of the brain. Eyes act only as a conductor, bringing the picture to the brain, where it is fixed and subjected to analysis. Skills of adequate decoding of what he saw have been practicing since childhood and become more and more sophisticated and mature over time. People, for whatever reason, deprived of their childhood vision and recovering it after a considerable period of time, demand time to get used to the correct interpretation of what they see. This is a painful process, sometimes lasting for years and not always achieving the desired results.55

Therefore, parents and the school are required not only to supply the demanding children’s mind with various cognitive situations, but also to help them in their correct decoding it. Apparently, this is the main function of teaching children, and even adults, though adults do it relying on their previous experience. After making sure that relying on what they saw helps to cope with pressing concerns, people throughout history have tried to improve the ability to visually comprehend the real world around and within them. They came up with all kinds of devices to see more and better. To do so, they invented glasses, binoculars, microscopes, telescopes, periscopes, and even such devices that allow you to see the invisible. Thus, it’s impossible to see how fast we are walking, but with the help of a pedometer this problem is solved, and on the device we see the speed of our own movement. And, with the help of a speedometer, you can determine the speed of the car, thou without it you cannot guess it.

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John Z. Young. Doubt and Certainty in Science: A Biologist’s Reflections on the Brain. N.Y., Greenwood Press, 1981.

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It is impossible with the naked eye to see atoms and atomic particles in the synchrophasotron, but if you place a screen in it, then from the tracks of the impacts of the dispersed particles, you can judge them and their speed of movement. This is, so to speak, “indirect” visualization, which then translates into direct representations of any material nature. This is called by me symbolic or non-direct visualization, temporarily replacing the well-known visualization of the ontological plane. There are signs that are specially adapted for fixing such visualization and for its subsequent translation into “genuine” visualization, that is, into direct one. That is how the word visualization is reflected in various languages. The etymology of this word in Russian is absolutely transparent: it comes from the word “look”. In English, it corresponds to visuality, dating back to the Latin vedere, again with the meaning “see, watch.” In German anschaulich (visual) clearly correlates with schauen (watch, peer). This term is most common in pedagogy; there, by clarity is understood such property of the material being studied that allows it to be seen in a form that is easily understood and remembered. And again, either it appears in its direct real embodiment (pictures, mock-ups, films), or in an indirect form (the Torricellian emptiness cannot be seen, but in the course of the demonstrated test it is adequately perceived and analyzed by our mind). It is very strange that the concept of visuality was not subjected to a thorough philosophical consideration. I don’t know of any major work on visualization, and in special fields of knowledge I know only one doctoral dissertation by V.P. Bransky. As a matter of fact, it was this work that prompted me to tackle this issue closely. The author of the dissertation claims that in physics visualization as such disappears and “... the principle of visualization is replaced by the principle of non-visualization.”56 With this I cannot agree. In reality, in my opinion, the principle of visualization simply changes in form, but throughout remains indestructible in essence. I will invariably prove this thesis in the following exposition. 56

Bransky V.P. The philosophical significance of the problem of visualization in modern physics. Moscow, URSS, 2010. (In Russian). At: http://www.twirpx.com/file/410038/

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My analysis of the concept of visuality will be based on three main statements: a) visuality, even in the most abstract and distant from everyday thoughts, does not disappear í it only distances itself from the usual understanding of what is directly perceived by our eyesight and other senses; b) if in the course of cognition direct visualization disappears, then it is replaced by symbolic visualization; c) the conclusions, obtained in the discussion with abstract visualization, cannot be considered final until we demonstrate them in terms of ordinary visualization.

The extension of the concept of visuality onto the readings of other receptors The first deviation from the initial idea of visualization occurs when we are convinced that not only what we see is visible, but also any direct sensation of the body. Of these, the earliest is the reaction of the newborn to breast milk, which he sucks with his eyes closed. However, very soon visual perception begins to play a major role among all the sensory systems with which we are endowed by nature. This applies, first of all, to the so-called sense organs, which serve vision, hearing, smell, taste and tactile sensations (i.e., touch), but not only to them. To a large extent, we depend on muscle coordination and other body functions that organize our behavior, which ensure our relationship with the environment. There is a calculation according to which vision provides us with 80 to 90% of all information about the external environment. In addition, we also have internal indicators of well-being, which are also very obvious: we feel pain as a serious malaise, fever as a sign of an oncoming illness, etc. Just as in cases with external irritants, they make us to respond and take steps to troubleshoot. The creation of devices to help doctors recognize diseases has been particularly developed over the past hundred years, after it became clear that the discovery of Wilhelm Conrad Roentgen could be used in medicine. The purpose of all instrumental diagnostics í radiography, ultrasound examination, computed tomography í is to en-

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hance visuality. It should be noted that the previous medicine, which used the methods of physical diagnostics (using only human sensory organs), such as palpation, auscultation and percussion, also aspired to this. Very soon, by tacit agreement, people began to understand by visuality all natural and artificially enhanced methods of obtaining “sensory” perception of information. From this point of view (an expression that is very characteristic for our topic) of a person receiving such information, any such perception is sufficiently visual to make appropriate practical decisions. Nevertheless, in our final analysis, we will be compelled to reduce all cases of visualization to the visualization of this “most prominent type”. This will be discussed in the following sections.

Transition to iconic visuality The above mentioned type of visuality is possible, however, only for a limited number of cognitive situations. It works only in circumstances of direct contact with the events being studied or with their very specific presentation. According to semiotic terminology í only when we deal with natural signs and with the lower strata of images (iconic signs). Natural signs indicate the whole picture hidden for the eye, which is restored by a person based on his previous experience (say, when, leaving the house, he sees rain clouds and therefore takes an umbrella with him). And the lower register of images includes drawings, photographs and their derivatives, which can also be used to judge a cognizable situation (a person takes an umbrella with him, when he saw pictures of rain in paper weather forecast). At the higher level of iconic signs, direct visualization is no longer possible (thus, no practical conclusions can be drawn from abstract painting). In this case, we are forced to abandon the direct visualization and turn to the symbolic visualization of signs, which only indirectly testify to some features of the studied process. At the same time, both the selection of signs and their transformation begin to depend on the ontological laws of the phenomena being studied, and on the rules of the sign system in which these signs are included. It turns out, as it were, dual subordination of the gnoseological situation í

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both ontological and semiotic; and both must be taken into account, if we want to come to the right conclusion. Both types of dependencies are reflected in the metalanguage of the used sign system, which prescribes the rules for working with it. My task is not to thoroughly describe this issue; I just want to show that while going from one sign system to another, when the abstractness of the signs included in them increases, the primary type of visualization disappears more and more, while the share of the symbolic visualization is greatly increased. Below I will focus on several types of symbolic visuality in a sequential chain of its metamorphoses along this parameter of visualization.

The first stage of symbolic visuality Symbolic visualization changes in the indicated direction: the higher the abstractness of the signs used by us, the more visualization distances itself from its initial attachment to sensory perception and begins to depend on the form and content of the signs. Since the stages of visualization studied here are becoming more abstract, this complicates their understanding and subsequent testing in ontology, outside the sign world. The last remark is very important for further discussion. The symbolic visualization, in my opinion, always remains connected with the primary form of visualization. But precisely because in a symbolic performance it often cannot be seen and accepted by us until the end, it requires further confirmation in the experiment for itself. Therefore, in each case of its transformations, I will also talk about the possibilities of confirming the conclusions of symbolic reality in ontological reality. So, the transition to symbolic visuality does not mean a complete rejection of its original content and acceptance of the principle of negligence. On the contrary, the visuality of signs is immanently tied to the sensuality. First examples of symbolic visuality are always based on our sensual experience. Let’s take the simplest example: the fraction 256/512 is much less obvious than 1/2. Therefore, if we get the first fraction as the result of calculations, we reduce it to 1/2. Why is half so clear? Because it is based on our everyday experience, and because the image of objects divided in half easily arises in the

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brain. There are a lot of such sensually perceived signs, and we constantly rely on them in our reasoning. If signs turn out to be “non-visible”, other signs come to their aid. That is why, the fraction shown above (256/512) is non-visible at once, but becomes visible after reduction. In this way we are taught to deal with fractions at school, reducing them as much as possible. There are other ways: one of them is the use of signs of a lesser degree of abstractness. Note how in Russian words explain the corresponding fractions. Prior to 1/5, all previous similar fractions can be replaced by their verbal equivalents (1/2 í “half”, 1/3 í “third”, 1/4 í “quarter”). Then the combination with the word “part” comes into effect: “the fifth part from ...”, “the sixth part from ...”, etc. When the fraction reaches exorbitant heights (after the first hundred), we refuse to replace it and simply call the number (1/102 “one hundred and second”, etc.). Thus, verbal synonyms gradually reach the limit beyond which they become nearly “non-visual” and therefore meaningless. Then remain only actions with corresponding numbers. Replacing “non-visual” signs with “visual” occurs in many cognitive situations. When explaining words in a dictionary, we often add pictures to verbal definitions. Literary texts are accompanied by illustrations, and the formulations of physical laws are accompanied by experiments that make clear verbal explanations. Everywhere this happens according to the principle: more abstract signs are supported by less abstract ones. All simple picturesque representations of reality í a picture of the location of objects on the ground or just an object as an illustration of a dictionary entry í belong to such signs. That is why we so often resort to drawings and simple graphic schemes in our explanations. For example, when explaining the composition of a substance, we willingly draw the constituent of atoms. For example, we can imagine a water molecule as follows: Naturally, this is much more visual than the chemical formula 2 H O. Schemes, say, drawings of various very abstract phenomena, are more difficult to understand, but even they, so to speak, “em-

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body” dry theoretical calculations. Have you ever thought about the question, why all the geometry is “laid” on schemes? Firstly, because it concerns spatial relationships that are easily represented in the drawings; and, secondly, because they clearly illustrate all our mathematical calculations about these same relationships. We could have referred to verbal explanations, instead of confining ourselves to drawings, but we usually combine the both ways of illustration. It is no coincidence, that at the dawn of human civilization, in their explanations of the surrounding reality people turned to signs that clearly explained what was happening. A vivid example is the theory of the ancient Greeks about the structure of the Universe, which was accompanied by a visual diagram í an image of several spheres orbiting the Earth. Bright stars, visible in the sky and already known to the Greeks, were each included in separate spheres. At the beginning of our history, the explanation of phenomena in ontology took place on the basis of signs that were not very abstract and were visual from the point of view of our ancestors. Let us turn to another specific example í the definition of circumference size. In Babylon, this problem was solved by including a circle in the squares í external and internal with respect to the circle. The average value between their perimeters was considered as needed circumference and was quite adequately applied in practice. It is clear that this result was very inaccurate, and people had to refine it, improving the original method. Here’s what it looked like in the figure:

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The left drawing shows an improved version of determining the circumference - using regular polygons, which, of course, are closer to the circle on their sides. This procedure could be repeated again and again, each time increasing the number of sides of the polygon and approaching an increasingly accurate result. This method was good for getting approximate results, but was not suitable for more accurate calculations. We managed to obtain such ones only by referring to the internal resources of the circle as a geometrical figure, but this required a scientific approach and appeal to more abstract signs. This became possible at the next stage of using symbolic visuality.

Symbolic visualization in developed science The next stage of symbolic visualization is connected with the fact that each scientific trend began to build its own paradigm, where its own type of signs was clearly visible, and only this paradigm had an inherent strategy for processing them. Chemistry has its own system of signs, for which special algorithms have been developed for manipulating them (more precisely, there is a specificity for each branch of chemistry in this matter). The same thing happens in physics, linguistics and in any other science. It is no exaggeration to say that it is from this moment that mature scientific knowledge arises. Prior to this, activity of a specifically chemical nature also took place, but it had not yet taken shape into mature science. Thus, before receiving its system of signs, inorganic chemistry took several millennia to advance, but only after the permanent and generally accepted signs appeared and rules for processing each of them were established, it turned into a mature scientific branch of knowledge. While in medicine the main methods of combating ailments were prayers and the giving of gifts to gods and saints, it was difficult to talk about it as a science. Only when doctors learned how to investigate the occurrence and course of illnesses and to influence the real causes of diseases, could it be declared as a mature science. Then medicine began to acquire the experience of independence and the ability to address causes and effects in one key. While parts of the body (elbow, foot) served as units of measurement in differ-

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ent countries, it was impossible to scientifically approach length measures. Only after the definition of meter as a universal measure and when it came out from pure mental calculations, did the science of measurements – that is metrology í became possible. And from it and in comparison with the meter, the other measures, more and less than it, have already appeared, turning into a single standardized system for measuring length. Reliance on one’s own forces in a particular scientific system determines the status of any epistemological direction: only after it coordinates a specific subject and methods of study and expresses them in unlike other sign systems, this direction can be considered truly scientific and independent. Cartography became a science only after it placed the image of the Earth’s surface in a grid of parallels and meridians, developed its own conventions and defined mathematical models for transferring images to globes and twodimensional maps. Before that, it was limited to random drawings, schemes of separate territories and arbitrary sets of signs, and therefore it was not a science yet. Mathematical studies permeate the history of any civilization, but they took shape in science only after they were reduced to several interconnected sign systems that were processed according to certain pre-established algorithms for them. This property of crystallization of knowledge systems in specific branches of science is accompanied by the need to present the emerging systems of signs in the most convincing, that is, the most visual form. At the same time, a very paradoxical property of these systems is manifested: it turns out that it is not at all necessary to find out their ontological nature to the end; it is enough to single out some general characteristic of them and precisely determine the parameters of its manifestation and metamorphosis. Say, we study chemical elements. We can focus on finding out what it is, how and why this or that element arose, and we can study any element as a given fact at some current time. Here I repeat de Saussure’s thesis about the possibility of simultaneous and diachronic language learning. You can study a language from the point of view of how and when it appeared and how it developed (diachronous position), or you can focus on its state at present moment (synchronous position). Indeed, there are two approaches to learning languages. Ulti-

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mately, they become complementary (complement each other), but also may be studied separately. I would like to extend this thesis to any science, and not just to linguistics. In any science, we can focus on the history of its origin and efforts to appear in the form of a complete system, and we can engage in elucidating the characteristics of its specific and already known manifestations. In the final phase, both of these approaches merge into a single concrete result, which turns out to be the most obvious for this science. In physics, for example, it appears in the form of formulas. It is not at all necessary, although it is desirable for didactic reasons, to study how this or that formula appeared. It is enough to understand its content and practice its application. After that, you can, without hesitation, use it for practical calculations. If I know the formula for calculating the current strength, then I put it into practice without even learning the history of its appearance. As rightly is noted, “you can draw a straight line without thinking about the fact that it consists of points.” It is formulas that are manifestation of visuality in physics, as well as in algebra and trigonometry. In chemistry, the same function is performed by recording various types of reactions. In fact, this is how most of the disciplines are studied at school: a formula is given, its components are briefly explained, and training is carried out in its practical applications. It is only important to show that this formula works in practice, that its results are applicable. Its transfer to ontological practice is a necessary condition for the affirmation of symbolic reality in human consciousness. In geometry, where spatial figures are studied, the affirmation of visualization occurs in a different way í by drawing additional constructions proving the correctness of the results obtained in this case. That is why the basis of the study of this science are theorems and a unified explanation of their visual constructions. But, even in geometry it is required to show that the final conclusion of the theorem is acceptable in practice, otherwise it will not become clear to us. A comparison of two samples of symbolic reality (in algebra and geometry) proves how diverse are the ways of expressing visuality in epistemological situations using abstract signs. Geometry is much closer to ontological reality than algebra. It took shape as a science two thousand years earlier, and its signs are much less ab-

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stract. Therefore, in geometry, completely different ways of achieving visuality are possible than in algebra, where the only evidence of the visuality of its formulas lies in their practical applications. The visuality in its intuitive understanding is still farther from sign manipulations in logic. There, even practical conclusions are not always convincing. Therefore, in logic, it was necessary to resort to purely formal methods of asserting visuality that did not go beyond the boundaries of the logical schemes themselves í the so-called “truth tables”, which purely technically certify that all sign transformations were performed correctly. By definition, they do not at all coincide with the criterion of practical verification of the falsity or truthfulness of the findings. In natural sciences, this kind of verification is considered mandatory. No matter how complex and abstract the problem may seem, its final resolution must be tested in practice to ensure that it is correct. In this case, the verification method is an experiment delivered in a completely visual mode. That is why the results of the natural sciences are recognized as more reliable than purely theoretical statements, based only on the logic of presentation. Einstein’s theoretical analysis of the structure of the Universe was postponed until 1919, although the theory itself in its original form was formulated as early as 1905, and considerations about the curvature of light under the influence of the attraction of the Sun were introduced in 1915. Humanity had to wait for the eclipse of the Sun when it was covered by the Moon in order to measure the ray deflection predicted by Einstein; rays passing near the Sun were not visible in its light. The doctrine of black holes was formulated in the 60s of the last century, but it received its first confirmation in practice only in February 2014, when emissions from the explosion of a vanished black hole were recorded. All these and similar examples convince us that symbolic visuality in the knowledge exists and that it may always be connected with direct visuality, which ultimately either accepts or rejects it.

Reliance on similar (metaphorical) signs in programming Peculiar material about the dependence of our most abstract calculations on already known cognitive structures is provided by to-

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day’s practice of creating information technologies. This is a completely new matter, and most of the computer technologies invented have no analogues and precedents on which their creators could rely. They have to focus only on the conditions of the task that is set before them, evaluate its existing peculiarities and come up with solutions in the form of all kinds of metaphorical forerunners of their future creations. They imagine specific parameters of possible products and mentally rely on their metaphorical (virtual) model, which allows them to create a possible image of their future product. The metaphorical model allows them to outline the parameters and the sequence of work on the manufacture of the desired product. This, of course, is not the only way to invent the information technology that is necessary today, but in any case, one of the main routes of their development. In my opinion, this is also an appeal to visualization, the visualization of a non-direct and far distant from the primary means of expression, which were described above. Thus, due to the increase in the degree of abstractness in signs, we have to look for support in the visuality of signs, although it is sometimes very far from ideal. A complete rejection of visualization í ontologically or semiotically justified í would lead to a loss of orientation in the course of cognitive activity of man. And here I am absolutely comply with Norbert Wiener, one of the creators of cybernetics, who wrote: By the way, I am convinced that if there is any one quality that distinguishes a truly talented mathematician from his less capable colleagues, that it consists in the ability to operate with temporary symbols that are only understandable to him. That allows him to express the ideas that arise in his mind in certain conditional language, which is necessary only for a certain period of time. If a mathematician does not possess this skill, he will never achieve anything, since it is absolutely impossible to keep a thought in an unformulated form” (Italics mine – A.S.)57

It should be noted that the appeal to metaphorical models is an appeal to symbolic reality, which acts at the time the product is be57

Wiener Norbert. I am a Mathematician. New York, Doubleday Inc., 1956.

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ing created, but will certainly be verified later in its practical suitability and effectiveness. It is this ontological verification, that ultimately visually certifies the quality of a new product.

Getting rid of excessive abstractness as a way to achieve visualization The method mentioned above for referring to symbolic visualization using temporary signs, is effective only during the creation of new ideas and intellectual products, when scientist is given the right to rely on temporary, variable and personally owned symbolic constructs. The situation fundamentally changes when work on a new product ends. Then he needs to explain his principles of creation and the content of the development to other people, and for this, the scientist must use existing and conventionally approved signs, otherwise people simply will not understand him. Of course, he can offer new landmark constructions, but even in this case he manipulates with the previously accepted concepts and notions. This is usually done in the form of language messages í language as a sign system is adapted to explain all other sign combinations (new and old) produced in any semiotic system. In other words, any sign always gets verbal duplication. Being by my scheme in the middle of the sign continuum, at an equal distance from the most and least abstract signs, language gets the opportunity to comment on any of them. Language permeates all our cognitive activity and eventually becomes the interpreter of all our undertakings í both theoretical and practical. Therefore, when we come to a new result that is not yet known to others, we turn to the language for an explanation of what is happening. The language has the ability to verbalize any intellectual product; there are resources in it to explain new things to both specialists and the most unprepared “dummies.” Language allows you to choose verbal means of varying degrees of abstractness that are available to each of us (we are, of course, not talking about oligophrenics). If necessary, then verbal explanations are accompanied by signs from non-speech systems (drawings, diagrams, charts, etc.). Using language resources, you can always explain the essence of new developments, resorting to the

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concepts already known to your interlocutor. These make explanations clear and, therefore, understandable. Our explanations must necessarily include the methods of practical application proposed by the authors of new discoveries, that is, their transfer to the ontological plane in the form of possible real applications.

Visuality to strengthen sign systems There is an additional form of symbolic visuality, which is even further away from the “direct” one than the above examples. It is even more “symbolic” than the instances indicated in the previous sections, because they have birth in semiotic reality and only afterwards, sometimes in the distant future, get their empirical confirmation. They are associated with the improvement of existing sign systems and with the creation of new sign systems. I relate to signs and their systems as instruments of our mental work. Like other tools (say, a hammer or a shovel), signs are constantly being improved and acquire additional qualities and properties. But, unlike a hammer or a shovel, their usefulness and even the need for their very existence are not at all obvious. They often appear only after a very long time of hesitations, during which period new versions of signs remain in limbo and are constantly attacked by opponents. Obstacles of this kind to new theories in mathematics, for example, were called crises of mathematical thought, and there were at least three of them throughout the history of this science. The first of them was associated with the invention of complex numbers, the second with the advent of imaginary numbers, and the third with the theory of sets developed by George Cantor on the threshold of the 19th century. I will focus on the latter case, since it is closer to us in time and is well documented. I allow myself to cite a long quote about this crisis from Brittanica.com, since it seems to me quite understandable and comprehensively explains the essence of the matter: Georg Kantor ‫ ޒ‬... ‫ ޓ‬was a German mathematician. He is best known as the creator of set theory, which has become the cornerstone in mathematics. Cantor introduced the concept of a one-toone correspondence between elements of sets, defined infinite and

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well-ordered sets, and proved that there are “more” real numbers than natural numbers. Cantor’s theorem actually states the existence of “infinity in infinity”. He defined the concepts of cardinal and ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. His work is of great philosophical interest, which Kantor himself was well aware of.58

Cantor’s theory of transfinite numbers was initially perceived so illogical, paradoxical and even shocking that it came up with harsh criticism from contemporary mathematicians. In particular Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré, later also German Weil, Leutzen Egbert Jan Brauer and Ludwig Wittgen claimed objections to his philosophical outlook. Some Christian theologians saw in Cantor’s work a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity of the nature of God, once equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism. Criticism of his writings was sometimes very aggressive. Poincare, for example, called his ideas “a serious illness” that affects mathematical science; and in public statements and personal attacks of Kronecker against Kantor, such epithets as “scientific quack”, “apostate” and “youth corrupter” sometimes flashed. Decades after Kantor’s death, Wittgenstein bitterly noted that mathematics was “trampled along and across by the destructive idioms of set theory,” which he dismisses as “buffoonery ridiculous and erroneous.”» To date, all this criticism has come to naught. Cantor’s theory became the basis of many branches of mathematics í general topology, general algebra, functional analysis í and had a significant impact on the modern understanding of the subject of mathematics in general. The essence of the overcoming mathematical crisis lies in the fact that new landmark developments cannot be rejected from the threshold on the grounds that they are incomprehensible, nonvisual and unable to therefore serve as a continuation of the views adopted nowadays. It takes a long time to wait until practical life interests proclaim their final verdict on this matter. Ultimately, it is this circumstance that turns out to be decisive. In the waiting period, we have to be content with indirect criteria for the suitability or unsuitability of the proposed innovations. 58

At: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Georg-Ferdinand-LudwigPhilipp-Cantor

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These include, first of all, signs of “fit” of new sign formations into the old and tested corpus of knowledge in the corresponding field of research, such as: completeness of the system, does the proposed material cover the gaps in the existing corpus, whether the proposal is formulated in the appropriate language and other similar considerations. There is also a criterion of a certain harmony of the presented results and even their aesthetic appeal. In a word, we have to rely on some formally incomplete evidence, but there is nothing to be done í much in our life rests on inconclusive judgments. For example, in judicial practice it is often necessary to pass very harsh sentences based on indirect, rather than direct evidence. This legal principle is accepted as some necessary condition í not to leave the crime unpunished. Everyone understands that it can lead to an erroneous conviction. Therefore, some corrective procedures are instituted in advance: many higher institutions that have the right to cancel the initial sentence, reexamine the case for newly discovered circumstances, etc. In the same way, in our case, empiricism and life practice still have the right to make clear and final verdict in any controversial issue after the limitation period of a particular problem.

Fallacies of direct visuality That, perhaps, is all that I wanted to say about visuality. It remains to write a few words about the dangers of the statements of people who trust their personal feelings too much about things to be discussed from different points of view. Visuality is not only an integral part of any cognitive process; it is still often the cause of errors in our hasty judgments. An ill-conceived and self-confident belief in one’s own rightness, based on the testimony of the senses, often leads to erroneous opinions. Sometimes such opinions continue to live for many centuries, as happened with Ptolemy’s cosmology, which put the Earth at the center of the universe, and the Sun and all other celestial bodies were believed to revolve around the Earth. Copernicus’ theory refuted these claims. With what fervor, I would say, even with fury the supporters of the previous theory fought with new views! And all under the claim that they “saw the rotation of the Sun and stars

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with their own eyes”. For them it was clear that this was right. With the same fury people, who witness some kind of passing event, defend their version of what happened, forgetting that any of us sees things in our own way and from our bell tower. No wonder there is a saying: “Lying as an eyewitness.” From the foregoing, two practical conclusions can be drawn. The first of them: if the theory cannot obtain evidence along the lines of direct sensory visibility, we should continue to search further and further proves, regardless of time. Until the truth of the theory is confirmed, it will remain in the status of a hypothesis í nothing more. And the second: verification by means of visualization can be achieved in different ways, and not just by direct vision, although such “direct” verification was and remains the most reliable and convincing form of confirmation of the correctness of the arguments put forward, in spite of some pitfalls on the road.

FOURTEEN NOTION OF “NOTIONS”

At the beginning of the 90s in the last century, my monograph “Semiotics and Linguistics” was published in Moscow; in it I tried to formulate the principles of semantic differentiation between the terms “concept” and “notion”. At that time both of these words were used as synonyms, and the borderline between them was not marked. Apparently, I managed to do this: at present, almost no one, at least in linguistics, uses these two terms as interchangeable. Of course, this is not only my merit. Thousands of people have connected to a science called “conceptology”; and the impression about concepts as if they were synonyms with notions is vanishing. The distinction between these two terms becomes a fait accompli. Now, it seems to me, the time has come to turn to the difference between a word-concept and a concept as a unit of our thinking. The difference between them is significant, and mixture of these two things leads to a fair amount of confusion. I came to fairly complete understanding of this distinction recently (at any rate, I hope so), which brought me great satisfaction and at least facilitated the task of explaining the terms “sign” and “sign system”. This difference can be briefly defined as follows: notion-words are one of the specific groups of words in a language (in the general sense, the basic unit in languages are words in their various incarnations). Notion, as a unit of thinking, belongs to a different sphere of being and therefore differs from a notion-word in many respects. In other words, notion-word is a sign in a certain language, while notions in our mind is a category of thought. Undoubtedly, they intersect in their concrete fulfillment, because any thought can be expressed in words, but: a/ firstly, notion in mind can be expressed not only in words, but also with the help of other signs (drawings, diagrams, mathematical symbols, etc.); b/ secondly, both of these

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variants of notions (in the language vs. in our mind) do not coincide with each other in origin, content and ways of processing them. This will be discussed in this chapter.

The origin and specificity of the two types of notions We get words (including notion words) from parents and adults in general, at school (as well as in other educational institutions), and as result of reading. Acquaintance with new words is usually accompanied by explanations. The content of this notions is formed in the brain, we remember them and include in our speech repertoire. Mental representations and the notions corresponding to them more often appear in our brain not in such formal setting. Of course, they also arise in a special educational format, when meeting new words, but their formation also occurs to a large extent spontaneously and randomly in the natural course of events. This is especially true for the objects of our environment, namely, these kinds of objects, which fall into the field of our attention first of all. We encounter many things unintentionally, but even in this case they influence us and fall into our memory. Gradually, every subject we meet overgrows with details and turns into a kind of uzus, around which everything connected with this stronghold is grouped. He receives certain characteristics, his connections with other objects and phenomena are clarified, in a word, a mental notion can be rooted in our consciousness without special explanations of its meaning. Words-concepts, on the contrary, gravitate to such explanations: during their formation, they are surrounded by the corresponding paradigms of proper use, while mental concepts can do without strictly scientific approach to them. They simply live and enrich themselves in the course of practical replenishment with additional characteristics and methods of use. It should be noted, that in relation to a notion assimilated on our own initiative, we ourselves determine its volume and the depth of our penetration into it; and notions instilled by institutions are always limited in this sense by the program and the time that is allocated for it by independent of us circumstances. It is clear, that the interest and motivation for the assimilation of notions that came to us by

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chance and are incompletely explained, but which enjoy us, is much higher than in notions suggested by some authority. The main thing, however, is that two types of notions relate to different spheres of human activity, and each of them receives its content and degree of relation with other elements of the structure in its own way. Notion words are connected and combined with other words in the language by specially learned rules, procured to them together with the appearance of the new words; while chance notions usually are nor accommodated in this way. I want to say that both types of notions depend on the environment into which they belong. We study the formal matrix of what we learn by its rules; while randomly acquired notions are often left uncultivated. A notion that arose in thoughts by chance, in a natural way, does not at all need special formal restrictions. It develops in the areas that we ourselves choose for it, sometimes without thinking at all. Some notions are constantly evolving, some are fading without receiving further incentives. The development of such notions in our brains remains to a large extent the fruit of our individual approach, while the notions included in the language system are constantly monitored by teachers and linguists. Thousands of language experts in any country in the world are professionally studying the ups and downs of a particular language system. They track the fate of each word, improve the rules for its use and introduce them through schools and mass communication into collective practice. Each new generation receives these rules in a well “packaged” form and is forced to study them so as not to become the subject of ridicule and condemnation. Thus, a linguistic notion is constantly nurtured and developed in its relations with other units of the language. Notions that arise spontaneously in our brains develop according to different rules and parameters í each time in a purely individual way. Notion words are primarily collective property, which allows them to be used for communication among people. If they remained in personal use of each individual, we could not successfully transmit our thoughts and opinions to other people. Their collective affiliation is a guarantee that, having met a stranger on the street, I can ask him a question, and he will understand me, if, of course, he knows the language in which I spoke to him.

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As a result of the development of the two types of notions, person’s personality is formed í each person turns into a thinking creature with his/her set of notions of certain inclination and with distinctly oriented worldview. All this cannot but affect one’s attitude to achieving knowledge: we either become open to the perception of new scientific ideas, or we prefer other kind of explanations for what is happening. Religious or other mystically colored approach prevents or nearly completely blocks its holder from the opportunity to engage in science in the form that is accepted in modern society. These two leading directions are in constant confrontation with each other, although the effectiveness of scientific approach today looks absolutely convincing. The difference between the two types of notions lies also in the fact that the notion words are always built linearly and sequentially, one after another. This is explained by the fact that for speech we use either the channel of its oral performance (mouth, tongue, etc.), of writing or gestures in languages for the hearing impaired. Each of these methods allows you to build statements sequentially, word for word. This largely determines the logic of speech: having uttered one word, we are looking for the correct continuation to it, correct both in meaning and in grammatical execution. Limitations of this kind for notions spontaneously arising and developing in our brain are obviously absent in many ways. I say “obviously”, bearing in mind the fact that we still do not fully know. how our thinking functions. According to the impressions that might be formed from the practice of communication, we can conclude that thoughts have a complexly constructed synergetic structure. For example, when I forget a word, I get to it in my mind from different angles í from the point of view of its writing, the object that it denotes, its participation in my previous statements, etc. Sometimes, going this way, I I find the right word and use it. Therefore, it seems to me that the notion in the brain has a multi-level structure, which can be recalled from one of its constituent parts. By giving it out, I am forced to use the linear arrangement of signs in some necessary sequence according to the rules of this or that language. We even build complex nonlinearly constructed mathematical formulas, which are read, nevertheless, with one sign after another consequently.

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Degree of abstraction of the two types of notions The foregoing leads me to the conclusion that in each of the systems, where this or that notion appears, it acquires the degree of abstractness that the system imposes on it. Appearing in speech, it has the degree of abstractness and those features that are inherent in linguistic structures. If it appears in mathematical calculations, then the degree of abstractness increases accordingly. Let me remind you, that I am ranking signs and systems made up of them, according to the degrees of abstractness of the signs that constitute them up. Individual notions have different degree of abstractness. They can serve as the basis for the most diverse and original decisions that are not subject to the laws of logic and the rules of generally accepted behavior. Many of the notions that arise in individual experience are preferred for the individual, but unexpected by other people. They retain their specific trait of singularity until their master successes to clearly explain them up.

Processing both types of notions in our thinking Due to differences in nature, both types of notions need completely different processing and improvements, each according to the rules in the system they belong to. Notion words are processed by linguists in order to optimally adapt them to the rules of use as part of a given group of vocabulary units. According to the abstract quantum, I divided all the words in the language into three groups. The least abstract are “names” (in linguistics they are usually called proper names). They designate only one referent and are created for it only. They have specific grammatical equipment: in Russian, for example, they are usually capitalized, have no synonyms or antonyms, and are collected in separate dictionaries for proper names. They are determined by describing the object that they denote. So, Moscow Kremlin is described through the history of its occurrence and what happened to it next, as well as with the mention of its special role in the Russian state. There is a standard method called the Porfiry tree for describing notion words. This next group of words in my classification is

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much more abstract than proper names. Notion words have a lot of different referents covered by a single word. There is a special method of defining notions through their genus/species affiliation, it was justified by neoplatonist Porfiry (3rd century AD). This logical device turned out to be so effective, that it has survived centuries and is firmly rooted in modern lexicography. However, it has a great disadvantage in that usually notion words in languages conclude some variants of meanings, and therefore their specific definitions are notable for the uncertainty in the sum of all definitions involved in the dictionary entry. By the way, the polysemy of notion words in any language clearly distinguishes them from mental notions, which are mostly unambiguous. In our century of science, this circumstance has led to the appearance of concept words, which are even more abstract than notions and require a more rigorous method of definition. I proposed a new version of the Porfiry’s tree, which, in my opinion, is more suitable for defining concepts and called it a conceptual grid. You can read about conceptual grids in chapter 10 of this book (p. 140). Concluding this brief description of the methods for determining different language layers that differ in the degree of abstractness of the signs included in them, it should be noted that all the above procedures are purely logical constructs and do not occur in ontological reality. They belong to semiotic reality, which, in particular, exists in order to process signs within the framework of existing sign systems. These procedures are specially conceived and performed in order to make interpersonal communication more effective. Note that notion words also differ from mental concepts, that are not subject to such close attention from society. Personal thinking procedures are a private affair of each of us, and we ourselves must supplement them and make them more transparent for understanding. To do this, we can improve our personal notions by turning to everyday accepted communication, or we leave them privately for ourselves. Either we can, of course, betray them into oblivion.

Mixing two kinds of notions As I have already noted, confusion of this kind leads to great turmoil. The fact of such a confusion can be illustrated by numer-

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ous attempts to rebuild the ordinary human language on the basis of the so-called philosophical language. Their peak occurred in the XVIII century, when the outstanding philosophers-educators decided to radically remake everything that we inherited from the past and what they considered imperfect. The fact that we use different languages led to many difficulties, so many people thought about creating a single language for the entire population of the planet. To them belonged such giants of thought as Leibnitz and Descartes. They proceeded from the simple fact that, for example, the mathematical icons are understandable to everyone and, moreover, these images express not elements of notions, but something whole and complete (a kind of a notion). Why not to do the same in a specific language comprehensible for everybody? Following the analogy with mathematics, many prominent thinkers tried to create a language of this kind. All of them, thinkers of the past, and today’s experimenters suffered permanent defeat. On the other hand, those who followed the path of creating artificial languages of Esperanto type, chose the pattern of already existing natural languages and sometimes succeeded. What was the reason? The creators of languages such as Esperanto simply approved the principles of building natural languages from selection of appropriate grammar and words. Namely, those three types of words with the corresponding abstractness that I have mentioned above, and which exclusively can make up the linguistic sign system named language. For this, words are created with all their morphological and syntactic equipment, and also the grammar, that can govern the rules to organize these words processing. Those who wanted to replace words with personal notions, even if they would be expressed with mathematical symbols (which, in theory, should be intelligible for everyone), always received unsuitable constructions instead of languages. Indeed, personal notions, belonging exclusively to their owners, could not be understood without profuse explanations. In addition, they could not be composed without morphemes, which enable words to connect with other words into lengthy expressions. They cannot even create complex words without linguistic components needed for the task. Simply put, neither icons, nor notions of the personal use are suitable for creating human languages.

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This example clearly demonstrates my thesis that two types of notions should be distinguished: those that we learn from personal experience, and those that we get from any scientific system and that should be clearly understood by the appropriate audience. Being in system, they are not just stacked like things in a suitcase – in any order, but are in mutual connections and intersections with each other. Maybe, this is the meaning of science: it, of course, deals with isolated things, but its main task is to build systems in ontology or semiotic reality. Only in systems we can distinguish its units, identify their characteristics, call them names, establish the role of each particle; in a word, to install the rules of the game. After system is set up, it is being improved throughout the entire time of its existence.

FIFTEEN WHAT HAPPENS WITH A SIGN SYSTEM, WHEN IT FULFILLS ITS AIM (ON THE EXAMPLE OF THE EARTH CARTOGRAPHY)

Introduction Semiotics is the science of signs, sign systems and semiotic reality in general. There is no doubt that, in terms of its content, cartography deals specifically with signs in cartographic design, and therefore “general semiotics” (as it is now called) can speak out about sign systems in cartography. Humans, since the time immemorial, were interested in their geographical environment and its fixing in memory in the form of various images and descriptions. At first they used gestures and words for this, then drawings (on the ground, tree bark, papyrus, paper and other surfaces), which were signs of what people saw in their natural environment, came into the use. Over time, the signs themselves, their execution and the content contained in them have been improved, as well as the possibility of spreading signs in different territories to larger and larger audiences. On this basis, science arose dedicated to all these problems and it was called cartography. Today it represents a valuable and extremely necessary part of the cognitive activity of people, one of the greatest achievements of the human spirit. Like any other science, cartography has constantly changed: it was replenished with new data, introduced new signs and sign systems, invented increasingly convenient methods for presenting the phenomena surrounding us. In its development, it has come a long way from primitive cartographic constructions to complex comput-

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er programs, which are clearly structured data about the space around us and its manifestations. Today we seem to have mastered the art of portraying this space. How did we achieve this? This will be discussed below. I will try to very lapidary describe the path traveled by cartography, realizing that it is very difficult to do this on the scale of a small article. Therefore, I confine myself to describing only the cardinal lines of the development of cartography, focusing on those semiotic principles that underlie the innovations that took place in it. Rather, I will talk about the philosophical principles of cartography than about specific historical facts. Essentially, my goal is to find out a development pattern common to all national cartographies, based on some philosophical postulates and the laws of semiotics. Their persistent introduction into science can be considered only in retrospect, looking back from the perspective of today, when the results of countless cartographic searches and undertakings come together. The possibility and necessity of such retrospection is explained by the globalization of the modern world, which requires demonstration of the development of a particular science in the form of a single and consistent picture. It is also about combining the achievements of individual cartographic national schools in such a picture, identifying their general trends and directions, as well as outlining their possible transformations in the future. I highlighted four guiding postulates that formed the modern cartography semiotics: a) appreciation that our planet is a ball and its surface is spherical; b) appreciation that this ball is spinning; c) understanding that the main content of cartography should be signs collected in an appropriate manner in systems (at the same time, gradations are inherent in sign systems along this way í from local to global); d) acceptance of the fact that the correct landmark construction can occur only if the general laws of the philosophy of knowledge are observed.

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Accordingly, I have included several successive stages in this work. First, I tell what our being is and how it was inspected by man. Then I explain the sequence of signs in the history of human cognition and their acceptability for various cartographic constructions. The realization that the Earth is a ball and that it rotates in certain position around the Sun are central for further illustration of all stages of development of cartography as a science. Four of these components will be constantly present in the following descriptions – I hope, in distinct and comprehensible explanations and some illustrations accompanying them. Let’s hit the road!

What is being and how it becomes known In my recent philosophical meditations, I presented being consisting of three segments: ontological, semiotic (signs) and virtual realities. The material environment and we ourselves in our physical embodiment constitute the ontological layer of being. Its basic element is a thing-event, occurring in the reality surrounding us and in ourselves, available for human perception and study. As a result of this study, we come to some conclusions that are recorded in our consciousness. Then we act according the signs embodying our thoughts in the brain and outside. The letters are accumulated in various carriers of signs í in books, notes, paintings, maps, etc. Gradually, signs and their systems amass and begin to make up various objects of culture, art, and scientific developments. This creates a new type of reality í the semiotic one, which allows us to get out of the ferity state and develop civilization, culture and science. Simultaneously, our imagination and logically organized thinking are constantly driving us to new inventions and discoveries. This is virtual reality that gradually develops into ontological and semiotic manifestations of the human spirit. This approach is strictly opposed to previously existing and generally accepted philosophical views, based on the interaction between two opposing categories: materialistic vs. idealistic. This opposition was formulated as the “main issue of philosophy” and was proclaimed as a priority vision of the theory of cognition. In my opinion, such premise cannot serve as basis for constructing reliable philosophical theory, suitable for implementation in the

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practice of life. I hope that I offered an alternative approach, presenting more meaningful analysis of cognitive processes. This article is an attempt to illustrate this approach. As an example, I analyze cartography, which was implemented in the form of different images, which used various methods of perception and thinking of a person seeking for their practical applications.

What ontological phenomena are studied in geography? The answer to this question is simple: geography since ancient times studied the space on Earth, both close adjacent to our habitat, and on the vast expanses of the entire planet. The word geography itself is a combination of two Greek words: geo (Earth) + graph (description); and since ancient Greece, the meaning of this phrase has not changed, except that its description forms have become more complicated and refined. (Its complications and refinement will be the subject of our discussion in this article.) The space was described as a set of certain characteristics: the presence of water spaces (seas, lakes, rivers, etc.); specific terrain í plateau, mountains and other hills, deep depressions; features of climate, vegetation, wildlife, and, finally, human habitats and their distinctive features. From the very beginning, these analytical characteristics of terrestrial spaces were of practical interest for determining the size and boundaries of states, for understanding the composition of the population and their social components, for organizing business, tourism, travel, etc. to infinity. The very territories that had been previously mapped changed over time, which required corrections both in the general list of characteristics of a specific territory and in their more detailed description. Not only the data themselves for a given territory changed, the quality and methods of the descriptions also constantly improved. This was due to the development of sciences, which provided cartographers with new approaches to description techniques, as well as tools for fixing them. Using the formal language, we can say that the methods of cartographic descriptions and their semiotic design were improved. Let us reconstruct an approximate chronological sequence of the most cardinal

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changes in cartography, which will require a brief introduction to the essence of the semiotic approach in general.

Types of sign systems in historical retrospective In my version of semiotics, I showed sequential development of sign systems in the form of a pyramid, where the steps are the types of sign systems that appear at each new stage with a special, specific taxon inherent only for this particular type of systems. I suggested that the initial rung of sign reality was natural sign systems with a natural sign as their taxon. Signs of this In type are part of some naturally occurring event: thus, thunder precedes a thunderstorm and warns us of its approach; a doorbell indicates that someone is waiting at the door to be opened, etc. By this sign, we mentally imagine some parts of the whole situation and prepare for its continuation and development. The next stage of sign reality is embodied in images. Images are entirely products of the human imagination: we create them not only for the sake of remembering events that happen to us, but also for imaginary situations. Images give birth to art, education, culture and precede any of our practical undertakings. Unlike natural signs, they are born in our mind, and not in reality, and therefore are much farther away from their referents than natural signs. In my terminology, they have a greater charge of abstraction than signs of natural origin, which provides us with a deeper penetration into the studied subject. Images become instruments of thinking later than natural signs, both in phylogenies (in the history of mankind as a genus) and in ontogeny (history of the development of each of us). The next step in signs development was the emergence of languages, which made it possible to clothe everything that was happening in verbal form. The taxon of any linguistic sign systems becomes the word denoting a specific object about which we think, and that allows us to endow it with appropriate characteristics and connections with all other things, turn this way and that in the mind, and not materially, coming to appropriate conclusions. By mentally honing our findings, we formulate them verbally and/or in writing and communicate to other people. After an exchange of thoughts, our conclusions sometimes become valuable not only for us, but

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also for our interlocutors, which may serve as a reason for their practical implementation in general practice. In its charge of abstractness, the word by far surpasses images in its capabilities to appropriately perceive the surrounding world and clearly convey its understanding to ourselves and to others. For the sake of consolidating the gained knowledge in their own brains and in the collective information box, people came up with its fixation using notational recording systems. This includes not only writing, but also other recording systems, such as, say, painting for an artist, musical notation for a musician, drawings for an architect, and so on. As a taxon, they use graphemes of any kind and complexity. The invention of the recording raised our thinking and human civilization as a whole to a great height; without them, culture and science would have been impossible. Needless to say, that as taxon, graphemes are much more abstract signs than a word or an image. Notations cannot be made outside of signs retrieved from a complete and well organized system, while natural signs, images, gestures or exclamations are possible outside of any system. Finally, already with the development of science, people began to use formalized sign systems. I defined symbol as their taxon. I distinguish two categories of symbolic formalized systems: formalized systems with constant-value symbols (such as the letter I for electrical circuits, where it always denotes current strength); and systems with variable symbols (like, x, y, z in algebra, where they have to be replaced by numbers of the natural series in order to achieve the final result). Symbols in my mind are the most abstract signs; they are so far from their referents that we can work with them, temporarily putting aside the very subject of study. As soon as we get the desired result, we sort of cash out our most often numerical results and use them in real terms í for ontological or semiotic phenomena. All the above considerations may be shown in the scheme, that I often use, – this scheme was demonstrated on the page 64 above. If you arrange the taxa one by one as they appear in the scheme, then it’s easy to understand what I mean, when I say that the individual and humanity as a whole developed using signs and symbolic reality in the exact order that is shown there. First, they began to

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distinguish between natural signs, ĺ then they used the images that arose during this process, ĺ invented languages, ĺ introduced recording systems, ĺ and came up with formalized scientific symbolic systems. The thread of Ariadne in this set is the criterion for the increasing abstractness of taxa from one stage to another in the development of sign reality. But this is still half of the battle. Each step of the pyramid can be considered as autonomous and having its own development path. By the same criterion for increasing the degree of abstractness, we can place signs that appear during the processing of particular life problems or particular scientific theory, that is, inside the same stage of the pyramid, moving from left to right. And again, signs go through the same stages of development as moving from the bottom of the pyramid to its top. For example, the arithmetic of natural numbers developed as follows: from simple recount of visible objects, people first switched to replacing real objects with their substitutes (for instance, pebbles), then embodied them in abacus knuckles, or nicks on a stick, like Robinson Crusoe’s, then counted using words. There were also mathematical systems based on alphanumeric (for example, gematria among Jews and Slavs). Relatively recently, convenient rules for the specific notation of arithmetic operations appeared, and finally, in a new period, they resorted to a qualitative restructuring of mathematical operations by inventing logarithms, degrees, etc., as well as substituting purely arithmetic calculations with algebraic ones using variables signs. Each time, the algorithm of action radically changed and became more rigid and one-of-a-kind, but the results were more and more suitable for this particular number system. Let’s take another example of branch semiotics, this time medical. Its development lasts about 2500 years. By the way, it was in the medicine of Ancient Greece that the term of semiotics first appeared as a name of scientific discipline.59 59

“The physician Galen of Pergamum (139-199 B.C.), for example, referred to diagnosis as a process of semeiosis. By the eighteenth century semiotica, semiotique, or Semiotik had been officially adopted as a medical term for the doctrine of symptoms in various European languages”. At: https://www.acaemia.edu/501680/Handbook_of_semiotics

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Throughout the history we know, how medical science has developed in line with two interrelated trends: a) the desire of representatives of this science in theory and practice to get rid of the orientation on witchcraft and faith in the supreme power, which supposedly dominated human destiny and brings diseases for our sins; b) the desire to reorient to the study of the natural causes of diseases and ailments. Medical science, which has achieved tremendous successes, has further developed along this last line. From the first primitive diagnostics to x-rays and tomography, medicine came to the point that the doctor now does not raise his head from the computer, reading the data of all possible tests and examinations, and only on the basis of it he prescribes the appropriate treatment. On this way, from a simple examination of the patient and the demand for his wellbeing (natural, figurative, and verbal signs), the medics gradually switched to diagnostic procedures using the latest devices that produce complex graphs and charts. Even an ordinary doctor is not ready to independently understand these signs and is forced to resort to analysis of specially trained experts for this. Semiotics in geography went the same way, its subject was the description, display and interpretation of specific signs for geographical objects. We call it cartography, and we will discuss it in the following sections.

A brief history of cartography based on semiotic principles Preparatory period í the natural and imaginative stages of cartography The first “maps” showed limited territories (in the ancient Greek jargon), that looked more like primitive topographic image of a fixed location, than the subsequent maps. They preceded the appearance of genuine maps, which were obliged to be systematic and

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follow rules of the system they used. In this case, the rules of the semiotic system replace the rules of the natural picture that reveals before our eyes. This demanded in mature maps the appearance of map orientation to the cardinal directions (North, South, East and West), of special scales, units of measurement for areas, distances and signs corresponding to all this. This is an earthenware tablet from the late Babylonian period from Mesopotamia, which depicts a map of the then-known Babylonian world, which contains both real geographical features and mythological elements. The plate is stored in the British Museum (under the number BM 92687) and is the only known surviving world map of this period in Mesopotamia. Based on the analysis of the spelling of toponyms, scientists date the map to the end of the VIII í beginning of the VII century BC. In the tablet real geographical objects are located within two concentric circles. The circles represent the oceans and are literally marked on the map as “salt water”. From other texts it is known that the Babylonians denoted both the Persian Gulf and the Mediterranean Sea by such phrasing. The parallel lines inside the circles are not signed, but obviously depict the Euphrates. Outer triangles represent various mythological

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objects which are also designated in the texts on the tablet (see the right picture). 60 And this is one of the more detailed surviving “maps” of Mesopotamia itself (2400-2200 BC). It is located on a clay tablet and is reproduced with a decrease. There are no mythological objects on it, and an attempt was made to reduce the details shown to a certain totality and ordering. However, it is still far from a genuine map. Decisive steps towards these were made by the ancient Greeks, who we refer in the following illustrations to.61 Gradually, syntactic elements (signs of the location and hierarchy of the so-called “significant signs”) began to appear in cartographic images, which aimed to reproduce some picture of the location, the map was planned to present. Again, the ancient Greeks turned out to be innovators in this regard. In the pictures here you see three stages of the Greeks’ representations of the Earth: 1) the times of Homer; 2) Hekatey’s map; 3) map of Ptolemy. “The map of Hekateus describes the Earth as a round disk surrounded by the ocean, in the center of which is Greece. This idea was a very popular element of the outlook of the then Greece, expressed initially in the verses of Homer. Like in many other early maps of antiquity, the scale is not observed on his map. The units used were “days of sailing” by sea and “days of 60

At; https://www.google.com/search?q=tablet+from+the+late+Baby lonian+periodd. 61 At: http://geoman.ru/books/item/f00/s00/z0000060/st102.shtml

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walking” by land. This map was supposed to be an addition to the geographic work of Hekatey known as “Travel around the world”. The paper was divided into two books: “Europe” and “Asia”.62 Ancient Greek cartography threw a bridge from simple cartographic images to genuine maps. On the map of Ptolemy, we already find the intention to show in detail the entire world known at that time, in connection with which it was necessary to introduce restrictions on the scale and syntactic indicators of the details reflected on the map. Claudius Ptolemy (90-168 AD) believed that with the help of astronomy and mathematics the Earth can be very accurately displayed on the map. Ptolemy revolutionized the image of a spherical Earth on a plane and proposed precise methods for determining the position of geographical objects on the Earth’s surface using a coordinate system with latitude parallels and longitude meridians. Ptolemy’s atlas “Geography” in eight volumes is the prototype of all modern maps and GIS. It included a list of geographical names indicating the latitude and longitude of each place to facilitate the search, indicated the scale, conventional signs with a legend, as well as the method of orientation of the maps í so that the north was on the map above and the east on the right.63

All further cartography was aimed at clarifying the parameters mentioned on the Ptolemy map (of course, if we consider the entire cartographic heritage as a single and consistent stream of ideas). Unfortunately, de facto this was not so, and each national cartography had its own collection of images and traditions. Nevertheless, at the present stage of the development of all sciences, they gravitate toward universalism, due to globalization. This allows us to build in any science, as it were, an imaginary single trend, necessary leading to this-day results. Bearing this in mind, we will continue our review.

62 63

At: https://www.geographyrealm.com/ptolemys-geographia/ Ibid.

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Intermediate period: the Middle Ages Strictly speaking, it would be possible to go directly from the ancients to Gerardus Mercator, but this seems to me wrong. The Middle Ages are not at all lost for cartography, since they were a very productive period for geographic discoveries during which the material that was necessary for breakthrough cartographic achievements was collected. It was in the Middle Ages that people first felt themselves to be the inhabitants of a single planet, which must be completely populated, studied and colonized. There have been great journeys, the discovery and development of new continents, and finally, the realization that the Earth is a spinning ball and, therefore, all ideas about it should be derived from an understanding of this fact. Even in antiquity, speculation was expressed that our planet is a ball. Aristotle gives several reasons for this statement: Aristotle (who made quite a few observations about the spherical nature of the Earth) noticed that during lunar eclipses, when the Earth’s orbit places the planet exactly between the Sun and the Moon, the shadow on the lunar surface is round. This is a shadow from the Earth, and it directly indicates the spherical shape of the planet. If you have recently been to the port or just walking along the beach, peering at the horizon, you might notice a very interesting phenomenon: the approaching ships do not just “appear” (as they should, if the world were flat), but rather rise over the sea level. The reason that ships literally “come out of the waves” is, because our world is not flat, but round. Returning from a trip to Egypt, Aristotle noted that “in Egypt and Cyprus there are stars that were not seen in the northern regions.” This phenomenon can only be explained by the fact that people look at stars from a round surface. Aristotle continued and stated that the sphere of the Earth is “small in size, because otherwise the effect of such a slight change of terrain would not have manifested itself so soon. The farther you are from the equator, the further the

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“known” constellations go to the horizon, giving way to other stars. This would not happen if the world were flat.64

But all such evidence was indirect, as the direct confirmation that the Earth is a sphere was obtained from Magellan’s round-theworld travel when he left Spain on five ships (1519) and sailed west. Three years later, the remaining ships returned to Spain from the east, and this clearly showed that the Earth had a spherical shape. The opinion that the Earth rotates around the Sun and around its axis has also been radically verified. For the first time this opinion was expressed by the Pythagoreans in Ancient Greece and then from time to time was repeated by some scientists and philosophers. However, it remained peripheral and refuted everywhere: it was very difficult to believe in it, because we do not feel any movement and no resistance to it in the environment surrounding the Earth. This opinion was more difficult to accept than reasoning about the spherical shape of the Earth í it contradicted the so-called “common sense.” A mortal blow was dealt to this opinion by the appearance of the teachings of Copernicus, which rejected the geocentric idea of the structure of the solar system and placed the sun at its center. It also moved the Earth to the level of one of the planets orbiting the Sun. Copernicus wrote: Not only the Earth rotates with the water element connected to it, but also a considerable part of the air and everything that is in some way akin to the Earth, or the air closest to the Earth, saturated with earth and water matter. Everything follows the same laws of nature

64

At: https://hi-news.ru/space/10-prostyx-dokazatelstv-togo-chto-zemlyakruglaya.html .

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and has an acquired movement, which is communicated to it by the adjacent Earth in constant rotation and without any resistance.65

The rotation of the Earth around its virtual axis was clearly shown in the experiment of Foucault with a pendulum, which he hung in the building of the Pantheon in Paris (1851). A pendulum, mounted on a long wire, touched the sand poured under it with its sharp tip and drew a line on it. The pendulum always sways in the same plane. Therefore, when it began to draw inconsistent footprints in the sand one after another (line by line), this meant that the land on which the Pantheon stood was moving away from its former position and taking away everything that was located on it. This experience was repeated many times and today it is known to any student studying physics or cosmology.

Cartography of modern times These were the steps that ensured scientific approach to the knowledge of being in general; it was gradually perceived by mankind, beginning in the middle of the second millennium according to the Gregorian calendar. Cartography has not passed such an approach. After the victory of the scientific method in carto-semiotics, everything fell into place, because it was decided to divide the planet into specific territories and establish mapping methods for any part of the planet. This was done using a grid of parallels and meridians converging at the poles. For each segment received, their time of day and approximate climate transmutations during annual cycles were specified. Then it was necessary to locate the land and water sources available in these areas, to designate the relief and other features obtained by direct observation. The mathematical approaches invented by Mercator were used to depict the outlines of land and water spaces in such a way that there were no noticeable discrepancies between natural and iconic images on planar surfaces in different places of the grid, and as a result physical maps 65

Copernicus Nicolaus. On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1992 (first printed in 1543 in Nuremberg).

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appeared that we are known today. Using scale, generalization and other techniques, cartographers have achieved an adequate image of any part of the Earth, which we use to our great advantage. I will not trouble myself with description of all cartographic techniques; my task is different – in semiotic and not in cartographic generalizations of material for the analysis of cooperation between ontology and carto-semiotics. Agree, that this is a different perspective of the review and that it requires different approaches and terminology, on which I will focus in my further presentation. I just want to say that by the twentieth century, cartographers actually exhausted the power of their branch semiotics, not calling it semiotic, but using other names; “cartography”, “cartology”, etc. As for the essence of the matter, cartography always and everywhere used signs, collecting them into the corresponding sign systems: physical, meteorological, historical, and dozens of other types of maps. In any of these types of cartography, there were signs and their combinations, their own syntax for the distribution of signs, their rules for their decoding and their metalanguages, which listed all the signs used and meanings of each of them. It is only important to mention that all these cards relied on physical maps as the main ones and, as it were, “grew” out of it. This is an important semiotic principle of creating sign systems: all additional systems appear after and on the basis of one main type, which may not even be mentioned openly, but is always present in the mind of the system compiler and its users. Recollect, at least, natural human languages that cannot be reduced to a single language (it simply doesn’t exist), but they all seem to follow this nonexistent language, which is present in thoughts and determines the main parameters of all really living languages. We can say that by the twenty-first century, cartography has coped with the task of describing and representing terrestrial spaces, both in practical and theoretical terms. Earthlings received reliable visual aids, satisfying the most diverse needs of their orientation in the surrounding natural environment. However, this was not enough í both in terms of the volume of the mapped spaces and in their internal content. The urgent task appeared to create maps for orientation in outer space, since people went into it; and the task of exploring dissemination of different space objects on the Earth. For

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this kind of cartography, it is necessary to repeat in an altered form the whole process of developing earth maps anew, starting with philosophical and semiotic initial postulates. This is what concerns the volume of the emerging cartography of celestial spaces. As for the earth cartography (and this is the second aspect of the problem), completely new directions appeared in it, which are not covered in any way by the previous initial postulates; and we will talk about them below. Outer Space Mapping By cartography as a whole, I mean the science of the visual representation of spaces on planet Earth, on other planets and other celestial bodies, in the near-earth parts of the galaxy and in more outer space. Although cartography as it is, has historically appeared as part of geography and still belongs to geography institutionally and is used mainly for the orientation within the Earth space, in theory it should apply to all arias of the universe. In each segment of the universe it will be mapped with specific features, yet based on the existing experience of mapping the Earth, because this may greatly facilitate our future efforts. For future maps it will be necessary to establish the framework of the cartographic space and the position of “cardinal points”. We will need to determine which parts of the world are “North”, “South”, “East” and “West”. In the existing cartography they were established from the point of view of inhabitants of the now “northern” part of the globe. Had our civilization originated, say, in Australia, the North pole would have been in the place of the south and the South pole in the place of the north. Apparently, in most cartographic mapping, the Earth will be on the north side, where we shall find a good and constant reference point, and the south pole shall be on the opposite end of the virtual axis. There will be west on the left hand, and east on the right. The scale of the maps will be determined, as in terrestrial cartography, by the needs of the consumers for whom the map is being created, and the units of measurement will in most cases be parsecs and light years due to the enormity of the spaces that will have to be dealt with. Our descendants are likely to use those units of space

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that already exist, as we are used to them. Mathematical projections will be needed for images of spherical surfaces on planar maps, but we already have experience in mapping the celestial sphere from the Earth, and we can use it.66 The urgent task will be to place on the map those visible objects that “constantly” surround the object from which the mapping will be carried out, in spite of the fact that these parts are constantly moving in relation to each other. Perhaps, it will be similar to the way we create maps of the star world today for observers at various points on the Earth. Our descendants will have to resort to different maps for the same space, but at different times of the year and from different viewing points. Most likely, it will be a set of different charts in the computer, from which you can select the desired chart, or the chart atlas. For each object to be mapped, you will have to find its own image (sign), the meaning of which will be explained in the legend or in another place on the map fields. Each type of charts will be accompanied, as it is today, by its metalanguage; and for each type of map in metalanguage all signs used will be listed with instructions on how to work with them in order to achieve their adequate interpretation. It seems that the main taxonomy for space maps will include: a) maps for specific celestial bodies; b) maps for the constant environment of these heavenly bodies; c) maps for moving from one segment of the celestial sphere to another (maps of travel routes). However, this assumption, like all the others presented in this section, is just a hunch that may come to life, or it may turn out that it will not be needed.

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See, for example, the book of Serapinas Balis Balio. Mathematical cartography. Textbook. M .: Publishing Center "Academy", 2005. Also at: http://flightcollege.com.ua/library/.

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New dimensions in standard Earth mapping – 3D Mapping Before the invention of the computer, planar images (2D - twodimensional format) could be obtained either by creating an object model manually, or using optical devices, or in the form of atlases, where one image adjoins the previous one, forming the illusion of its continuation. Neither one nor the other nor the third achieve such an effect as the volumetric image reproduced by a computer (3D í three-dimensional format) of the object. It can vary in size and angle of view; it can be turned by the user to any side, stopped for a long review, and you can return to it as many times as necessary. In addition, the computer is able to demonstrate the object at any time of the day, at any time-period of its existence and in any light. Needless to say, this option of representing images as specific cartographic signs far surpasses all the others mentioned above. Around the second half of the 20th century, the so-called GIS (geographic information systems) appeared, which are defined as “systems for collecting, storing, analyzing and graphically visualizing spatial data and related information about necessary objects”.67 And although GIS are not maps in the literal sense of the word, they undoubtedly belong to cartography as a continuation of geographical images in other forms than in maps. After the invention and improvement of computers, GIS became the most widespread. There are huge number of sources that relate to all aspects of the use of this extremely important cartographic resource. Zoom cartography of the image in question A special type of GIS are planar images, which, with the help of computer, change their sizes and, accordingly, the degree of resolution of the considered image. This feature significantly improves the quality of perception and is widely used when considering cartographic images. The desired effect is achieved quite simply í by pressing a button or by moving the mouse wheel, which allows you

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At: https://www.google.com/search?source=hp&ei=UoiyXa6zKvKOlw T49LuIBQ&q

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to view all possible positions of the object up to the size that we need. It should be noted that this and the previous methods of mapping violate the traditional postulate of cartography, which prevailed in it until recently, í the principle of “depict what we are currently seeing in the real world.” For example, if I observe in a computer various images of territory that turns to me with all its sides, then in reality this territory remains motionless. We observe the same thing, when changing the resolution of a particular picture í this is just a technical trick that allows us to examine in detail the particulars we need. Here we are talking about additional features of cartographic images, which are actually not observed in reality. Cartographic images that are not repeated in the ontology, but appear as signs At the beginning of the chapter, I wrote about three types of reality (ontological, semiotic, and virtual) and their relationships. The experience of cartography indicates that each layer of reality makes its own contribution to this interaction. Here are some of the innovations of today’s cartography, based on semiotic resources and the speed of smart machines. Consider the navigator (GPS – Global Positioning System) as a way of targeting the terrain. In practical execution, the navigator appeared recently and instantly gained immense popularity. It is based on the work of a satellite system that determines the location of an object moving on Earth that wants to get a route for its further advancement. Some satellites let it know where it is at the moment and connect it to the map database, which determines the possible path to the named point. All this is reflected as a fat line of movement of the object from the start point to the place of destination on display of a gadget (it constantly changes as you move to the destination). This greatest achievement of modern cartography rests on two grounds. Firstly, on the sufficiency of data about the area where the moving object is located. If they are full enough, then the navigator chooses the march route with a higher degree of probability, which leads the traveler to the goal. Moreover, as you follow the route proposed by the navigator, difficulties and insurmountable obsta-

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cles may arise; Then the navigator gives out a variant of an exit from this difficult situation. Secondly, the navigator uses the indications of satellites (three or four relevant for the given territory), which determine the starting point and connect the moving object to the corresponding database. Without a satellite system, the navigation format in question would not have been possible. In this example, we see the close interaction of three layers of reality: ontology and semiotics create something ephemeral, which does not exist in reality, í a line of movement that actually does not exist at all in ontological manifestation. It is virtual with respect to ontology and is embodied only in a sign. The above facts allow, using the analysis of the three layers of reality, to reproduce in a few lines the path of cartography from its inception to the present day. At first, people orientated themselves by remembering places they had visited before, but judged the rest by analogy, again from their meager experience. And they judged the universe in the same way í recollect the ideas of ancient Greeks about the borders and structure of their ecumenical planet. Direct study of ontology close to them and rich imagination, that is, virtual environment, were brought into action. Then, gradually expanding the studied space, mankind learned to fix it on maps and other visual aids, connecting other people and the following generations to their own experience. Thus arose semiotic reality in cartography. Gradually, it swept the entire globe, without leaving a piece of land unexplored. When people achieved their goal by creating detailed maps, they did not stop there. Having decided that the overall picture should be more viral, they made it moving and presented in many perspectives (GIS). Then they supplemented it with imaginary lines (navigators) and came to the opportunity to decompose the whole image layer after layer, dividing it into artificially selected parts (see below). Here the main stimulus and the driving force of the development again became the virtual environment of our imagination on the basis of our accumulated classical achievements. But for this we needed a time interval of hundreds of years, during which we collected these achievements, and the help of assistant machines that are able to process huge amounts of available data in a minimum of time (computer).

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Maps with intentional deviations from real images of depicted objects I mean anamorphic charts (I intentionally use here the term charts instead of maps), which impose additional appearance on the cartographic maps of the territories we are familiar with, changing the sight of the territories themselves and the content of the resulting image. Here is an example of such charts with corresponding explanations: Literally, an anamorphic map is a distortion map. In the scientific language, anamorphic maps are cartographic schemes on which the territories of states are constructed in accordance with a given variable. Within the limits of their natural geopolitical position and the usual contours of state borders, some countries suddenly turn out to be prohibitively huge, while others í barely distinguishable points, even of no points and completely disappear from the face of the Earth at zero and negative values of the leading indicator. Moreover, on other thematic maps-anamorphoses, the situation can change diametrically opposite way. It all depends on the indicator selected by the map compilers and the share of each territory in the global population, or in the global production of something or services, export-import of various goods, emigration-immigration, planting-deforestation, birth-rate-mortality of people, and so on.68

In the following illustration, we find the most radical deviation from the usual cartographic paradigm of the image of the Earth. Assuming that every literate person knows the contours of the continents well, the authors of the “Muslims in 2030” chart plays with different shades of blue in order to show their expected distribution over all terrestrial territories in 2030; and where Muslims are not supposed to be, the territories are not drawn at all. The legend for the chart gives blue ranking, and, accordingly, we can familiarize ourselves with the authors’ forecast on the location of the centers of Muslim communities.69 Here is how it is shown on the anamorphic chart: 68 69

At: https://kornan.jimdo.com/expearence/articles/anamorphic charts At: https://imgur.com/2CNuh

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“Layered” cartography for GIS Finally, I want to introduce cartography, which is called “layered.” It allows separate review of each of the layers comprising complete maps. Thus, we get cartography, where maps are surveyed not only in the horizontal direction, but also vertically. Here is an example of reading such a map: An electronic map consists of an ordered set of graphic layers of the map, which are sequentially displayed on the computer screen one layer after another. If necessary, some layers can be temporarily disengaged, so as not to interfere with viewing the rest.70 Here is an example of such layered Map:

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In: http://lib.znate.ru/docs/index-277395.html?page=21

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Vertical reading of the map is mandatory in the long-term planning of the construction of distant objects, such as gas pipelines, railways, etc. When creating a bridge to the Crimea peninsula through the Kerch Strait, designers faced precisely such problems when they were obliged to “peer” deep into the sections intended for the construction of bridge supports. It was in this regard that doubts were expressed about the strength of the designed plan and these doubts were justified looking retrospect. Technical capabilities for viewing deep layers hidden from direct observation today exist, and they should be used one hundred percent.

Brief philosophical resume My review concerns the implementation of the latest achievements of cartography. I presented some problems of cartographic history, based on the interaction of the three layers of being í ontology, semiotic and mental (virtual) realities. It turned out that the

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previous postulates are not suitable for today’s cartography, that they should be supplemented by semiotic analysis and analysis from the modern standpoints of virtual reality. For a long time, terrestrial cartography could be based on the simple and clear principle of “mapping all terrestrial territories with appropriate methods and showing them in the form of maps, globes, etc. After the goal was achieved, the traditional forms of cartographic activity have exhausted themselves, and we had to continue this science with other means. Current mapping methods and techniques supplement the accepted standard paradigm with new approaches and new cartographic products that are different from traditional ones (GIS images, navigators, etc.). I propose to call the current stage of mapping metacartography as opposed to the previous one, which can be designated as the initial cartographic period. Such delimitation has already occurred in physics and cosmology, where the standard model of the world is supplemented by para-additives (see works on supersymmetry). The same stratification is observed in linguistics, where ordinary human language is supplemented by paralinguistic elements (gestures, facial expressions, intonation), which serve as essential reference points for deciphering purely verbal messages. There is reason to believe that in future, step-by-step with science advances, whenever the initial aim of a particular science is gained, new unconventional approaches will arise, as it has already happened with cartography. Therefore, the example of the analysis, demonstrated in the article, may be useful for the philosophy of cognition in general.

SIXTEEN SUMMING UP: 50 THESES ON KNOWLEDGE, SCIENCES, AND EDUCATION

1. The form of this chapter was suggested to me by Ludwig Wittgenstein’s “Logical-Philosophical Treatise”.71 The words included in the above title represent the main concepts of my reasoning and serve as guidelines for the argumentation. I will talk about them in the order in which they are presented there. 2. Homo sapiens is inquisitive by nature – for this reason, he belongs to highly developed mammals. His curiosity helps him to survive, warning him about dangers and encouraging him to invent various useful things, tools, and implements. Curiosity can be a stimulus for inventiveness, but it can also exist on its own when it simply develops our creativity and imagination. 3. In the course of exploring the surrounding world a person makes conclusions about what he/she saw, heard, and was conscious of. These conclusions can be called knowledge. Knowledge rests, deposited in the brain, and when it is remembered, it leads to the improvement of the mind. 4. Knowledge can be categorized into three types or grades: a/ Primary knowledge about a particular phenomenon, including general ideas about its structure and main characteristics. Primary knowledge allows us to judge, in the most general terms, about the subject of our interest. It also justifies primitive attempts to work with a given subject. For example, when we feel unwell, we go to a 71

Wittgenstein’s "Logical-Philosophical Treatise" (Logisch-Philosophische Abhandlung, 1921). At: https://www.ruthenia.ru/logos/number/1999_01/1999_1_07_.htm

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family doctor, who, having general medical knowledge, makes a preliminary conclusions about the disease and directs us to a specialist doctor. Primary knowledge is realized in the form of a propaedeutic course in university education or can be acquired through self-education. b/ The next step should be experienced or professional knowledge, which includes information about most of the details of a studied phenomenon. It is acquired in the course of specialized education and/or long-term practice with the subject of study. c / There is yet another type of knowledge – creative, which involves attempts to improve used objects in order to obtain their optimal practical effect. The source and driving force of this type of knowledge is human curiosity and also practical outputs obtained from the application of this kind of knowledge in life. 5. No single animal, or plant, has a consciousness that can stimulate its cognitive activity to the same extent as that of a human being. As a result, only homo sapiens has a consciousness that prompts him to acquire more and more new knowledge. 6. The knowledge deposited in the brain can lead to nothing, or it can help its owner to perform actions that improve the conditions for the existence of both himself and the society within which he dwells. 7. Knowledge presented in a systematic form is more substantial than chaotically presented impressions. As a result, the tendency to collect and present knowledge in the form of sciences has prevailed. Science can be defined as systematically organized knowledge on one or another problem vital for humanity. Knowledge in science is demonstrated in a logical and coherent form with a sequential consideration of all relevant topics, subtopics, sections, etc. – with the proposed solutions to the problems mentioned in them. 8. Relatively recently, the concept of a paradigm has arisen which, in a condensed form, represents a specific science. The paradigm sets the meaning of a given science, which allows scientists engaged within a specific framework to act in unison. 9. In my view, scientific paradigms should include: a/ philosophical rationale for a specific area of knowledge belonging to this branch of science; b/ its subject of study and the methods adopted for its processing; c/ axiomatics and propaedeutics of its

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main provisions; d/ taxonomy and classification; e/ basic concepts and terminology; f/ metalanguage of science; and g/ methods of verification of the conclusions obtained in the course of research. 10. Philosophical rationale determines the place of a science among all other areas of knowledge. Additionally, it speaks about the goals that the science sets for itself and, in a concise form, it declares the methods adopted to achieve the goals named by it. 11. Philosophical substantiation is presupposed by all science as a whole, as well as by its constituent parts. For example, we formulate the philosophical justification for the entire science of linguistics and separately for each of its aspects – semantics, phonetics, grammar, stylistics, etc. Moreover, the consistent sections of these parts can receive their own justification. 12. The subject of the study of science can be the same for all its parts, and can be very different for each part. Thus, in linguistics, the subject of study in all of its constituents is the same – language(s); while in physics, individual parts diverge quite fundamentally (compare: motion, electricity, optics, etc.). This happened because, at the dawn of civilization, the sciences did not yet clearly differ from one another and they were conglomerated as large groups. At that time, the king of the sciences was philosophy; it was accompanied by natural philosophy, from which came physics, chemistry, and a number of other natural sciences; they were joined by the sciences of men and their social life. The criterion for the division of sciences according to the subject of study (nature ļ man) was constantly emphasized by scientists when classifying knowledge. Already in modern times, a third group was added to it – the sciences of human society. 13. Methods of study in each science, and even in each part of the same science, differ sharply – they are specific to each science and are one of the main criteria for the classification of scientific knowledge. 14. There is one more classification feature. It is based on the separation of the exact sciences from the imprecise ones, and is associated with the methods used in each case for processing the facts found in a particular science. Mathematical processing prevails in the exact sciences; verbal explanations in the inexact ones. Although mathematics and linguistic explanations are used in

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any science, their specific weight in each case makes science to a large extent exact or inexact. 15. Exact sciences also differ by the extent to which evidence of the correctness of its conclusions is available (visible/comprehensible). The visibility of such evidence ultimately provides solutions for problems in the exact sciences: from the moment visual conclusions are obtained, they are accepted by public opinion and remain in the archive of knowledge forever. The conclusions of imprecise sciences are accepted only as hypotheses; they are valid only until a new hypothesis appears and replaces the former one. 16. Axiomatics was used by Euclid in his Geometry (3rd century BC). Euclid created elementary geometry, which was preceded by five axioms that determined the consistency of all theorems derived from them. We still use this geometry in school textbooks. This form of presenting systematic knowledge attracted many scientists, but it was never successfully repeated, since all subsequent sciences were not worked out so far that they could be generalized in the form of axioms. Therefore, it was necessary to precede such unfinished knowledge with only some propaedeutic recommendations, focused on what has already been achieved in a particular branch of knowledge. 17. Taxonomies are primary classifications, when there is still not enough data for a detailed description of all divisions or subdivisions in some ripening science. Then they operate with approximate categories called taxa. As the material is being replenished, more and more accurate gradations appear, which are implemented in classifications. An example, taxonomy is the scheme of evolution in Darwin’s theory – in it gaps were left between the supposed stages of development of living matter on Earth, which were based on already known facts. They were called taxa and were gradually replenished with newly found data, turning into classes and subclasses of more and more accurate classifications that arose out of new explorations. 18. This development of successive categories (axiomatics ļ propaedeutics; taxonomy ļ classification, etc.) reflects the gradual formation of any emerging science and the fact that science is constantly evolving and changing; therefore the science of today is not similar to the same science in the earliest period of its

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development. At any period of its development, concrete science appears to its contemporaries as something complete, on which they can rely, and what can be used in practical life. Therefore, the theory of Ptolemy (geocentric), which was later replaced by the theory of Copernicus (heliocentric), should also be recognized as scientific, but for its time. Different periods of development should be considered as stages of maturation of scientific knowledge in a single sequential chain. No one can predict what the sciences of today will result in, and what later, perhaps, will be interpreted in the light of new discoveries as “unscientific.” 19. As one or another science develops, its own terminology arises, reflecting phenomena, objects, and events specific to the given science. In terminology, three linguistic layers should be distinguished: proper names, notions, and concepts. Proper names mean one referent (denoted); notions collect many referents in one word; and concepts stand out from notions in order to designate the most important denominations of the given science. These three layers are supplemented by words of the ordinary language, which are used according to the general vocabulary adopted in a given national language, and in accordance with its syntactic principles. 20. Proper names in the language of science mention the scientists of the given science, the history of its maturation, and its general landscape. They are described in the so-called terminological vocabularies in the same way as any historical event – with a mention of its beginning, continuation, and finally its modern state. Notions and concepts in scientific vocabulary are presented in a completely different way – they are endowed with their hierarchical status, and their meanings are emphasized within the boundaries common for the phenomenon under consideration and in conformity with the traditions adopted in this concrete science. 21. The interpretation of notions sometimes may be controversial – whether to refer to them as proper names or as notions including various meanings. In my opinion, such notions should be interpreted as belonging to both categories – sometimes they are understood as proper names (for example, the title of a novel, although the novel itself appears in a large number of copies); sometimes they are understood as notions for their use in a science-specific context. If the same word appears in the general vocabulary (say, “saw”), it

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must always be interpreted as a notion, while in vocabularies for science or craft, it can be accepted and processed either as a proper name (“Give me an Oleo-Mac or Efco chainsaw”), or as a notion (“circular saw,” “disc,” “tape,” etc.). 22. Out of the total number of notions we can pick out certain concepts that are the most important notions for a particular branch of knowledge. In a scientific glossary, concepts head entire sections, which themselves consist of the corresponding notions and proper names. In jurisprudence, for example, criminal law, civil, financial law, etc. are usually distinguished. All these terms are concepts denoting individual sciences that together constitute jurisprudence. Within each of these sciences, their own conceptual schemes are drawn up (in my terminology, as conceptual grids). There are very few concepts in any science – several dozen at most. It is useful to represent them in the form of a graduated table, where they each occupy a particular place in the hierarchy of concepts for a given scientific field. (I wrote a lot about conceptual grids in my works.) 23. Metalanguage is a detailed presentation of the above-said in the descriptive texts of a given science. All previous scientific categories are included in metalanguages, and for very large systems, such as natural languages and mathematics, metalanguage becomes the only complete generalization. In natural languages, for example, meta-constructions of the semantic plan are explanatory dictionaries compiled according to the alphabetical principle (this principle concentrates all the words of the language not according to their content, as terminological vocabularies do, but act as the only possible aid for quickly finding words). The syntactic rules of the language are collected in multivolume grammars. All scientists working according to the paradigm of this or that science use the same metalanguage. 24. Metalanguage is also distinguished by the fact that in its final and aphoristic form it represents the gestaltidea of a given field of knowledge, which distinguishes it from all other sciences. The gestalt-idea of chemistry in our time is the table of D.I. Mendeleev: it is the basis for all directions of chemical research, both already existing and those that may arise in the future. For today’s genetics, this is the double helix of James Watson and

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Francis Crick. It should be noted that before the appearance of the double helix, another gestalt-idea prevailed in genetics – Mendel’s laws of heredity. So the gestalt-idea of science can change in the course of its development. 25. The proposed methods of research verification are mandatory not only after the final result is obtained, but throughout the entire process of studying the declared subject of some concrete science. The nature of verification most clearly divides all sciences into exact and inexact. If verifications are carried out by introducing results of our investigation, in the form of substantiated practical life applications, the corresponding knowledge acquires the status of an exact science. If it is impossible to do this, then this part of knowledge is regarded as a not entirely exact science (such as history or sociology). 26. The main means of making science exact is the application of mathematics as the basis for processing scientific data. Mathematics itself seems to be the most exact science. Its applications in the sciences studying the phenomena of inanimate nature can also be considered exact. The more a science uses calculations, the more accurate it becomes, because we strive for the ideal of completeness of scientific data, so that any science becomes a reliable support for the practical activities of people. 27. Exact sciences usually rely on experiments for verification, which clearly demonstrate the authenticity of the conclusions of a particular science. Such an experiment is sometimes difficult to carry out, especially when it comes to very distant or very small objects of study. But, ultimately, such an experiment takes place when the necessary conditions appear and the tools and mechanisms necessary for it are invented. 28. Inexact sciences use variable, probabilistic methods to verify their achievements. Logic, for example (except the elementary logic of syllogisms), uses probabilistic criteria to verify its conclusions. It has developed its own internal methods of separating right from wrong, which do not concern non-systemic confirmation and entirely rely only on the correct adherence to all the rules of logical constructions. 29. The least accurate are the sciences about the social life of people, since they clash with the worldview of individuals. The

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worldview is formed under the influence of various factors that cannot be enumerated and evaluated precisely. 30. According to the parameter of accuracy for the obtained scientific results, we can imagine three stages in the development of the theory of cognition. In this regard, I rely on the teachings of Auguste Comte (1798 – 1857), who was the founder of the philosophy of positivism. According to his theory, the first stage of cognition was the religious stage; it was replaced by the metaphysical stage, followed by the modern scientific stage of cognition, which he called the “period of positive knowledge.” 31. The first stage of explaining what was happening was based on faith and presented in the form of religious doctrines: “This is correct because our religion says so, and there can be no doubt about it.” This way of comprehending reality is the simplest of all, and not a single people or tribe has surpassed it. Even now, half of humanity (if not more) takes the explanation of the world on faith. Nevertheless, the number of religious believers is constantly decreasing, which is facilitated by the educational system adopted by humanity today. 32. The second stage of cognition was designated by Comte as metaphysical. It is characterized by the fact that it deviates from the previous religious stage, limiting the supreme power of otherworldly forces and distributing spheres of influence between faith and people’s free will: “Yes, God is the beginning and end of everybody and everything, but He also gave people the opportunity to control their destiny and, in particular, their cognitive processes.” 33. This limitation provided people with a chance to study nature and themselves, without always turning to God, in whom they sincerely believed. All the great scientists of antiquity and the beginning of the Renaissance divided their lives between religious rituals and the discovery of the laws of nature (Newton, Kepler, Descartes, Spinoza, etc.). They took facts from nature itself; and what was beyond the facts was left to God. Thus, they managed to find many real life patterns and laws of natural and social qualities. 34. Thus, the next step appeared to be the third stage of cognition, which did not take into account the presence of God or other supernatural forces at all. Scientists simply took the facts obtained in their study, generalized them and made the appropriate

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conclusions. Laplace’s response to Napoleon is very characteristic for this stage. Based on the work of Newton and Kepler, Pierre Laplace calculated the exact future orbits of the rotation of the planets around the Sun (1796). Napoleon asked him: “Where is the place of God in your picture of the world-building?” Laplace replied, “Sire, I didn’t need this hypothesis.” 35. Comte called the third stage of obtaining new knowledge “positive” or “scientific.” The scientific method of acquiring knowledge is characterized by the fact that it: a / takes nothing for granted, except that the researcher observes something which does not cause him doubts; b / facts derived from observations are analyzed in the brain of a scientist and are embodied visually in the form of images or other signs; c / the result obtained must be verified in an experiment. 36. Several hundred years have passed and the scientific method of knowledge has proved its superiority, completely changing the life of people on planet Earth. Many sciences, which were already established in antiquity, have achieved their intended goal; for example, cartography completely described the surface of the earth, covering every corner of the planet. It complements what has already been achieved, expanding extensively and intensively, which requires new content for this science and a new formulation of its tasks. 37. It seems to me that human cognition has entered a new phase; it can be called the second scientific stage of understanding the world. Why is the next phase needed? The first scientific phase has proven itself and has largely exhausted its effectiveness: many sciences are already approaching the completion of the program that was drawn up for them at the beginning of their implementation. Secondly, the initial scientific stage was based on too rigidly formulated logic. Ultimately, it relies on one basic postulate: if two opposite positions are given and one of them is correct, then the opposing position is false. This is called the law of the excluded third (tertium non datur, that is, “the third is not given”). But this is an incomplete logical postulate for the study of nature, and even more so for the study of things-events associated with human behavior.

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38. Using the law of the excluded middle, we usually rightly exclude what is incorrect and leave the results suitable for us, but sometimes situations arise that require the expansion of this logical message. The current situations are all the more intolerant because people accustomed to the usual “no third way” look at exceptions with contempt, and some with obvious hostility. I am convinced that by applying a broad interpretation of the law of exclusion of the third and postulating that intermediate and additional options to it are possible, we will be able to move further than we did before, rigorously applying this rigid logical premise. I want to emphasize that both stages of cognition, outlined by me above, have a single basis – the scientific approach to comprehending knowledge. 39. The scientific approach to the comprehension of knowledge is actively used in all specific sciences, but the theory of knowledge itself is still dominated by metaphysical reflections characteristic of those outlined by the ancient Greeks, who long ago minimized the role of gods and supernatural forces and, instead, offered just scholastic reasoning. Until now, philosophers seem to ignore modern science and its successes and endlessly discuss the views of Plato, Aristotle, and their followers. Meanwhile, today, based on the achievements of various sciences, it is quite possible to build a new philosophy of cognition, which is what I tried to do in this book. 40. The existing theory of knowledge is incomplete. First, it only speaks about “matter” that is opposed to “ideas.” In my opinion, cognition includes three layers of reality: the ontology that we study; signs with which we clothe everything about which we reason and about which we draw conclusions; and our thinking, which initiates the urge to knowledge and the process of cognition in general. The interaction of these three layers provides humanity with new knowledge. There is nothing like this approach – neither in plants, which respond to signals from the outside purely automatically, nor in animals, which show the beginnings of intelligent behavior, but do so intuitively within natural limits in physical complexion and mental abilities. 41. Ontology includes the entire environment around us and ourselves, as physical objects. At first, even before the appearance of man, ontology arose randomly according to the patterns of

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creating the same product in the same environmental conditions. Therefore, for identical products, we can calculate special laws of their development (laws of nature). 42. Observing specifically arranged things, we transfer their images to the brain, where these images are processed and endowed with characteristics special for them (again, in the form of signs). Search results are also expressed in signs that can be conveyed to other people, so that they could understand what is at stake. This is how sciences are created. 43. Knowledge does not emerge from the simple interaction of an observed thing with its sign without connecting our thinking to this process. Directing the brain manifests itself in the form of socalled virtual reality, which selects the necessary elements for such an interaction and the sequence of their steps. After this collaboration between the three spheres of knowledge, logically substantiated conclusions emerge, which can be transferred into the practice of life: into ontology, into semiotics, and into the practice of thinking that guides our behavior. 44. To achieve this structure, I had to break human thinking into two halves: into thoughts on a specific subject and in to thoughts which teach us how to build thoughts of the first order. I called the second part of thinking – metathinking. It is metathinking that makes us homo sapiens. Some animals have thoughts of the first order, but none of them have thoughts about how to think in general, which I call metathinking. 45. Truly scientific thinking is based on participation of previously assimilated logic, since “unkempt” thinking may turn out to be wrong. It involves emotions and intuition beyond the control of reason. You have to learn logical thinking all your life, since logic takes different hypostases depending on the subject of reasoning. Many people readily internalize logic’s position as the leading component in their thoughts; many do so with great reluctance. But “... false wisdom gleams and smolders before the Sun of our immortal mind. Long live the Sun, let the darkness fall!”72

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Pushkin A.S. Bacchus song.

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46. The role of intuition is worth emphasizing. Intuition is a necessary thing – it helps us come to insights at the end of properly constructed cognition processes. It only happens after long, exhausting work and reflection on what we explore. Intuition, not based on preliminary analysis and toil, usually does not lead to the desired aim. 47. The previous theses lead me to educational problems. Having a wealth of pedagogical experiences, I am convinced that the main goal of school education should be to teach schoolchildren logical thinking, which is based on scientific knowledge. Thus, by teaching schoolchildren to think logically, always and in everything, we prepare them for future professional activities and fruitful lives. 48. Borrowing scientific knowledge does not at all mean copying sciences in the state in which they appear at the present stage. The scientific approach to acquiring knowledge can be demonstrated at different stages of learning by various methods – according to the maturity of the students: a/ In primary schools, emphasis should be placed on mastering the native language and elementary mathematics, which will allow students to master skills and abilities in the course of their independent studies. Data from other sciences should be presented in the form of distinct interesting events that exhibit their practical implementation. b/ During the second stage of school education (middle grades), some disciplines may, to some extent, repeat scientific explanations, but still they should not be presented as if it is a kind of a replica from the corresponding science. It is better to concentrate attention on some separate interesting facts, only mentioning their scientific meaning and place in real life. It is recommended to present scientific knowledge in the form of its practical application – botany should be presented in the context of “my garden” or “my vegetable garden”; history in the context of “interesting facts from the history of my country,” and so on along the same strategy. c/ The senior classes of the school, in my deep conviction, should be organized after the furcation (distribution) of students according to their interests, as is actually done in most of the advanced countries today. This will make it possible to present scientific knowledge in a form closer to the corresponding science,

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repeating its path of development and studying some of its terminology and methods. In any case, school subjects, even in the senior grades, should be much more adapted to the level of understanding by schoolchildren the meaning and importance of the corresponding science, yet far from its real embodiment even in comparison with the corresponding university courses. 49. The modern revolution in information technology enables us to change today’s approach to school education. We can transfer part of the training to the students themselves, who, using computers and other gadgets, will be able to acquire the necessary knowledge that they are interested in, on their own. Only, it is necessary to adjust the distribution of the material studied at school with suitable material available through computers, so that they complement each other. It is also necessary to establish control over the material that students study at home and in every possible way to encourage independent studies. I propose, in this respect, to test the assimilation of independently studied by schoolchildren material, and give to them marks for their voluntary work. These marks will be reflected later in some document, handed over to pupils in addition to their graduation certificates. 50. In any case, the emergence of new technologies should lead to fundamental changes in the school and university education. It means the transfer of a significant share of education to the students themselves, combined with the main course, which is delivered and consolidated in the educational institutions. The conditions for this kind of reform are already ripe, if not overripe. Had we introduced the above combination of school work with self-education earlier, we could even today, in the context of the coronavirus pandemic, continue classes exclusively on television, radio, and computers, despite the temporary closure of the educational institutions themselves.