“Language is not made to be believed but to be obeyed, and to compel obedience newspapers, news, proceed by redundancy, in that they tell us what we ‘must’ think, retain, expect, etc. language is neither informational nor communicational. It is not the communication of information but something quite different: the transmission of order-words, either from one statement to another or within each statement, insofar as each statement accomplishes an act and the act is accomplished in the statement.”

― Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari, in "A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia"

@mcc I like the idea of a #yesand symbolcharacter/emoji/emoticon, preferably one that works across languages. Useful! Is there prior art?

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

Re: Michael Harris • Language About Language
• https://mathematicswithoutapologies.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/language-about-language/comment-page-1/#comment-380

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

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

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

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

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

Perhaps it takes a number theorist to appreciate it …

Resource —

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

#Peirce #Inquiry #Logic #Mathematics #Reflection
#Semiotics #SignRelations #HigherOrderSignRelations

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

Re: Michael Harris • Language About Language
• https://mathematicswithoutapologies.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/language-about-language/comment-page-1/#comment-353

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

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

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

Resources —

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

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

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

#Peirce #Inquiry #Logic #Mathematics #Reflection
#Semiotics #SignRelations #HigherOrderSignRelations

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

Re: Michael Harris • Language About Language
• https://mathematicswithoutapologies.wordpress.com/2015/05/23/language-about-language/comment-page-1/#comment-346

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

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

Resources —

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

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

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

#Peirce #Inquiry #Logic #Mathematics #Reflection
#Semiotics #SignRelations #HigherOrderSignRelations