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1997 - 2007 By Knowledge Information Systems LTD. Unpublished Work. All Rights Reserved. 1,

WHITE PAPER

Scientific SemeioticsAs-Defined-By Charles Sanders Peirce

(aka Peircean Semeiotic)

E.T. NozawaAdvanced Knowledge Systems AnalystKnowledge Information Systems LTD

[email protected]

Abstract:The purpose of this white paper is to draw the

attention of the Intelligence Analysis community toScientific Semeiotic as identified, defined, and developedby Charles Sanders Peirce. It was conceived by Peirce tofill a knowledge void in science discovered by Peirce andwhich still exists today. The void was created about 610Years ago when the scholars removed a part of Aristotle’sphilosophy in the belief that it would make it less religious.An unintended result, however, was the excising of thestudy of the Reasoning Mind and the study of Logic.

It was unknown that the reasoning mind andpsychological mind were separable. The reasoning mindcould be studied independently of the psychological mindand the results could be implemented without everinvolving the psychological mind. The reasoning mindprocesses could be implemented on a computer andautomated. Peirce made that discovery and proceeded todevelop a System of Logic and the Art of Reasoning. Weunwittingly use some of that non-psychological Logicknowledge today.

Peirce attempted to have his results published, buthis request for a grant from a prestigious institute wasrejected. Because of this rejection, he was denied theopportunity to write the seminal books that would haveexplained and elaborated on his systematic development ofLogic and the Art of Reasoning. We were thus denied theopportunity to see that Peirce’s theories also opened thecultural door to East Asian thinking and possibly WestCentral Asian thinking. The Peircean Triadic or TeridentitySign is the key understanding of the East Asian intellectualmind.

Peirce’s System of Science is an ordered system ofknowledge that was hierarchically structured by levels ofincreasing abstractness with Mathematics as the mostabstract. Peirce was a Pure/Applied Mathematician, theWorld’s leading Logician, Expert Classifier, a multi-levelSystems Thinker and Process Thinker. Peirce developed anaccountability systems, i.e., Measures, and did an trade-offstudy of all the significant Western philosophies. Given that

knowledge he constructed a framework of nested andhierarchical System of Systems for the non-psychologicaldomain of scientific knowledge. It was a scientific systemnot a religious or metaphysical one.

It was a philosophical body of knowledge thatwent over and above the conventional knowledge definedby the current existing incomplete philosophies.

Keywords:

Abduction, Accountability, Logic, Philosophy, ScientificMethodology, Semeiotic, Logic Engines, ExistentialGraphs, Theory of Signs, Inferential Science, System ofScience, Science of Inquiry, Knowledge Systems, CriticalThinking, Art of Reasoning, Systems Thinking, ReasoningMind, Economy of Research.

Forward.

The scientific methodology presented herein wascreated by Charles Sanders Peirce solely for use by high-minded, ethical scientists and engineers seeking truth,knowledge, and wisdom. Peirce described them asScientific Intelligences.

Additionally, the process-centered, human-centered, inquiry-based triadic philosophy as described byPeirce is significantly different from all other majorWestern philosophies; consequently, it is unique and standsalone in its own philosophical class: Peircean Realism.

Introduction.

It has become readily apparent within the last fewyears that seemingly simple system processes such asSurveillance Tracking, Information Fusion, SituationAssessment, Sensor Management, Human Factors,Command and Control, Fire Control, SituationalAwareness, Systems Design and Integration, Systems

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Engineering, and Quality Engineering have proven to be farmore difficult to analyze, design, and develop than it wasonce thought. There has been little or no progress in thelast 34 years and these areas remain fragile cottageindustries. Because of that accountability and sustainabilitymeasures of effectiveness remain elusive.

The fact is that there is something missing. Whatseems to be missing is a process centered, human-centered,inquiry-based scientific philosophy that provides theframework, points of departure, and measures for theconceptual development of the above processes/systems.Until such a new methodology is defined an automatedreasoning system (natural intelligence) that includes rightthinking (Logic), right actions and free will (Ethics),feelings and emotions (Aesthetic) will remain an elusivegoal. The new methodology must be an integratedscientific philosophy that accounts for external reality orenvironment (Metaphysics) and the perception of thatreality (Phaneroscopy), and overcomes the mind-body splitcaused by Nominalism. Until these domains are defined auseful Collaborative Science it will be difficult to define.None of the major scientific philosophies or current systemsparadigms have all of these characteristics.

Information Fusion, Situation Assessment, andResource Management have analogous human informationprocessing functions. This means that any effective designshould be based on an approach that is a model of humancognition. The absence of a scientific philosophy thataccounts for human cognition limits the development of asound Science of Information Fusion or useful designmethodologies.

Who was Charles Sanders Peirce?

Charles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1914) was a careerscientist and engineer at the U.S. Coast Survey. He is betterknown today, however, as the philosopher who founded thephilosophy of Pragmatism (Peirce preferred Pragmaticismfor his version).

He was the son of Benjamin Peirce, Jr.,distinguished internationally known Harvard professor ofMathematics and Astronomy. Charles Sanders Peirce wastutored in mathematics and science by his father and, on hisown, learned Logic at age 12. He attended Harvard and theLawrence Scientific School. After graduating from schoolhe went to the U.S. Coast Survey. While at the U.S. CoastSurvey, he became well known in Europe as an expert ingravitational measurements and in the design ofgravitational instruments. He never held a chair at auniversity, but was a lecturer at Johns Hopkins Universityfor five years. He also headed the Office of Weights andMeasures.

The bulk of Charles Sanders Peirce’s work is still inmanuscript form. It has been said that there are enoughmanuscripts to fill 100 volumes of books.

An excellent research library that contains a largenumber of books on Peirce and that also possesses a rareannotated set of Peirce manuscripts may be found at theInstitute for Studies in Pragmaticism at Texas TechUniversity in Lubbock, Texas.

What is the Philosophical Problem?

During the better part of the 20th Century, thedominant Western scientific philosophy was LogicalPositivism. One of the noble goals of this philosophy wasto develop a unified theory of science. In the process oftrying to unify science, however, it chose to ignore studiesof the human mind. It elected to focus on unifying theNatural Sciences, e.g., Physics. Astronomy, and Chemistry.The result of this conscious decision to ignore mentalisticstudies led to a decline and near extinction of Westernpsychological studies of the human mind and cognition bythe academia. The foundational works of Charles SandersPeirce and William James faded into obscurity as a newpsychological school became entrenched in Westernpsychology.

The new school that grew out of that newphilosophical environment was the psychology ofBehaviorism or, in simple terms, the psychology ofStimulus-Response. The basic tenet of this school was thatthe behavior a human being or other organisms could bescientifically studied and understood by merely stimulatinga subject and by studying the resulting responses. Theschool of Behaviorism dominated psychological research inthe 20th Century from before World War I until the death ofits most famous advocate, B.F. Skinner, in 1989.

The emphasis on Behaviorism and the NaturalSciences left the West bereft of a strong scientific traditionin the mentalistic, i.e., intellectual, studies that includescreativity, intelligence, emotions, feelings, ethics,aesthetics, epistemology, wisdom, and Logic. The humanmind was something that Logical Positivistic Science wasunable to deal with; therefore, it ignored it.

What is the Connection with Information Fusion?

The connection is that Surveillance Tracking andInformation Fusion processes are also information andknowledge producing processes. During periods ofwakefulness the human mind is constantly gathering dataand fusing useful information to support planning, decisionmaking, and management of processes that consciously andunconsciously guide our every move and action throughoutour daily lives.

Because there has been so little research done in thisarea, the quantitative and qualitative measures ofeffectiveness and figures of merit for the humaninformation processing system, i.e., the human cognition,have yet to be developed. Without a reasonable set of

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measures it becomes a difficult task to attempt to specifyand to properly evaluate a user-centered, process-centered,open-system information processing system. Thedevelopment of measures for Accountability andSustainability are therefore strongly dependent upon theability to understand the fundamental informationprocesses..

The notion of open-systems and closed-systemsappears to be new to the majority of the InformationProcessing community. Given the open system model ofhuman cognition, Information Fusion and SurveillanceTracking Systems, as equivalent processes, must also beopen-systems. In a well designed system these processeswould also try to continuously build a clear, stable,continuous, complete, timely, and relevant description ofthe surveillance domain.

The concept of open-system as used herein is similarto the Prigoginean notion of open-systems. The differencebeing that the human self-control process is primarilyexchanging and using information rather than energy withthe uncertain information environment in which it isimmersed.

The only known major philosophy that is defined asan open philosophy is Pragmaticism by Charles SandersPeirce. It is a scientific philosophy that treats all threephilosophical categories simultaneously as a unit:

None of the other Western philosophies can make thisclaim. There is no “Mind-Body” split that plagues the otherphilosophies such as Cartesianism.

What is Peircean Semeiotic?

Peircean Semeiotic as used herein refers to thetotality of scientific Peircean knowledge including hiscontributions to Semeiotic, Mathematics, Statistics, Logic

(Process), Philosophy, Scientific Philosophy, SocialSciences, Experimental Psychology, Operations Research,and the Cultural Sciences in general.

Peirce preferred the anglicized version of theoriginal Greek word. He found that translations from Greekto Latin often resulted in a loss or dilution of connotations.

What is Semiotics?

Semiotics is the generic term for the study of signs.There are many schools of Semiotics, but the threedominant schools are shown in the inset:

Only Peirce’s Semeiotic was developed as a scientificmethodology for the working scientists and engineers.Peirce’s methodology was never made known to thescientific community. The result was that the knowledgebecame “lost” and his name became associated withphilosophers and linguists. The other two schools areprimarily populated by Linguists and Humanists.Semiotics-as-Defined-by-Morris is also strongly influencedby the now defunct philosophy of Logical Positivism. Itwas Morris’s non-scientific Semiotics that becameassociated with Science.

Peirce defined Semeiotic as a higher level Logic thatwas made up of three lower levels of logic:

Speculative Grammar Critic Speculative Rhetoric

Within Critic may be found Logic as it is normallyunderstood by today’s scientists, mathematicians,Logicians, and engineers. From the Peircean point of view,however, Critic also includes the Logic of Relations and theScience of Discovery or Inquiry.

Speculative Grammar, in simple terms, addressesthe means by which Logical thoughts may be represented.Peirce’s triadic sign represents one approach. SpeculativeRhetoric addresses how logical thoughts or signs may becommunicated from an utterer to an interpreter to maximizeunderstanding. On a qualitative level, Peirce’s SpeculativeRhetoric provides a framework and a point of departure fora Theory of Communications that include the utterer, the

Three Major Schools of Semiotics

Semiology Sassure LinguisticsDyadic

Semiotics Morris LinguisticsDyadic

Semeiotic Peirce ScientificTriadic

Open Philosophy

External environment and all objects withinthe domain of discourse (Metaphysics).

Representation of that environment and all theobjects within it (Phaneroscopy).

Interpretation of the totality of theRepresentation (Normative Science).

Definition:

Intelligence:

The ability to React to a New Situation ina Non-programmed Manner.

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interpreter, and the sign, i.e., the bearer of an idea, i.e.,useful information.

What is a Peircean Sign?

The Peircean Sign (Figure 1) is defined by Peirce asthe irreducible combination of Object, Representamen, andInterpretant. In Figure 2, as an example, the Object couldrepresent the external air traffic management environmentincluding all aircraft, weather, and anomalous signals.

The Representamen could represent the air trafficmanagement surveillance picture on an ATC (air trafficcontrol) display or on the cockpit display.

The Interpretant could represent either the pilot oran intelligent system in the case of an unmanned vehicle. Inthe Peircean System of Signs, all three elements of the signexist simultaneously and are not reducible to pairs, e.g.,Object/Interpretant or Representamen/Interpretant.

The act of reducing a triadic sign to a set of pairs isanalogous to the Mind/Body separation problem attributedto Descartes. The irreducible Peircean triadic sign provides

Figure 1 – Irreducible Peircean Triadic Sign. The proof ofirreducibility is given by Burch.

Figure 2 – The three major categories of ScientificPhilosophy and their relationship with the triadic PeirceanSign.

Figure 3 – Peircean System of Science was developedfor scientists and engineers. All subjects are arrangedhierarchically in order of increasing abstraction.Mathematics is the highest level of abstraction. Thesubjects are intended to be interpreted as scientificsubjects as opposed to philosophical or humanisticsubjects. Each level is dependent upon the higher levelsof abstraction to provide additional principles anddoctrines to solve its problems. The lower levels supplydata to the higher levels.

the Cognitive Science and Consciousness community with ameans to describe a holistic mind/body Continuum. Peirceshowed that the triadic signs could be concatenated. In thisprocess the interpretant of one sign becomes the object of asecond sign. Sign concatenation may be used as a designaid to identify and define the subprocesses within a largerprocess.

What is the Peircean System of Science?

The Peircean System of Science evolved out ofPeirce’s search for the Scientific Method. He looked for itin a very thorough in-depth investigation of past and presentscience, philosophy, and Logic, but was unable to locateany methodologies resembling a useful, well defined andordered scientific method. Because of this void Peirce set

Peircean System of Science

Science of Research

Mathematics

Scientific PhilosophyPhaneroscopy

Normative SciencesAestheticsEthicsSemeiotic (Higher Logic)

Speculative GrammarCritic (Lower Logic)Speculative Rhetoric

Metaphysics

Conventional SciencePhysical SciencesPsychical Sciences

Science of Review

METAPHYSICS(E.G. ATC SURVEILLANCE VOLUME)

PHANEROSCOPY(E.G. SURVEILLANCE DESCRIPTION

NORMATIVE SCIENCES(ATC DECISION MAKERAND MACHINE INTELLIGENCE)

Peircean Sign – A Definition:“A sign, or representamen, is something whichstands to somebody (the interpretant) for something(the object) in some respect or capacity”.

OBJECT

REPRESENTAMEN

INTERPRETANT

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Figure 4A – Peircean Model of the Self is drawnas an open-system, process centered, user-centered teleological entity (teleological – goal-seeking entity).

out on his own to develop a scientific method that could beused by scientists and engineers.

Peirce constructed a System of Science whereineach major subject matter was ranked vertically in order ofincreasing abstraction. He placed Mathematics on thehighest rung as the most abstract of sciences and the SpecialSciences, i.e., the physical and psychical sciences, near thebottom rung. He then inserted what he called ScientificPhilosophy between Mathematics and the Special Sciencesas shown in Figure 3.

What is immediately obvious is that there is a largescientific knowledge gap between Mathematics and theSpecial Sciences. It is the gap created by LogicalPositivism when it consciously chose to ignore mentalisticstudies. The subject matter of the gap is the sameknowledge needed for the development of informationscience (Speculative Rhetoric), human reasoning or scienceof natural intelligence (Normative Sciences), situationalawareness (Phaneroscopy), and target, clutter, and EMIenvironment (Metaphysics).

It should be noted that there is growing realizationthat there is no viable Theory of Information Science.Systems Enginering, Systems Dynamics, Consciousness,Human Factors, and Information Science communitieswould be better served if there were a complete scientificphilosophy such as that defined by Charles Sanders Peirce.The absence of a complete integrated scientific philosophyhas led to a scientific and technological impasse.

What is the Peircean Model of the Self?

The Peircean Model of the Self (Figure 4A) is asimple mental model that describes the three basic systemsprocesses of a goal-seeking human information processingsystem as shown in Figure 4B.

These three basic systems are integrated and non-separable processes. They are interconnected and operate asa goal-seeking entity (teleological) immersed in anenvironment that contains uncertain information that isinaccurate, inconsistent, and incomplete.

Figure 4B shows the Peircean Model applied to thesystems design of an airborne air traffic managementsystem. As can be seen, Peircean Self-Control process isequivalent to the Command and Control and thus a startingpoint for a science of Command and Control (there is noscience of command and control at this time).

The Data Gathering process is similar to the signal,data, image, map, and information processing processes thatmay be found in the front end of an advanced airborne orground based Air Traffic Management information-processing systems. A notional automatic and adaptive datagathering system may contain the following processes:

Active and Passive Sensors Surveillance Tracking Information Fusion Knowledge Fusion Target ID Fusion

Within these processes are many sub-processes ortasks that were once wholly performed by a human operatoror pilot. In each case manual performance of a taskincluded active reasoning by the operator or pilot. Thetarget detection process required that an operator discerns asmall signal in noise and reason that the signal represented asignal return from an actual target and was not a falsealarm.

For anyone with experience with non-automatedsurveillance pulse-radar systems will also easily recognizethe following as tasks that demand a finite amount ofattention and reasoning: Clutter Reduction, ParameterEstimation, Track Initiation, Track Deletion, StateEstimation, Track Association, and Track Prediction

These tasks and others had to be performed andupdated by an operator for each target on every update. Incan be seen that the operator decision load increases rapidlyeven under light air traffic conditions. The advent of longrange two and three dimensional surveillance radarsgenerated so much additional data that it forced theinsertion of Automatic Target Detection and Tracking toprovide workload relief to the operators and to obviate theneed to add more operators and displays.

Automation, however, was achieved at the expenseof removing operator reasoning from the processes. It isfairly well known within the radar systems community thata highly skilled operator can very often out perform anautomated system when operating against a small numberof targets.

The Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Sciencecommunities had been unable to implement the field of

DATAGATHERING

SELFCONTROL

ACTIONCONTROL

INPUT - UNCERTAININFORMATION

OUTPUT - ACTION

PEIRCEAN MODEL OF THE SELF

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automated abductive, deductive, and inductive reasoningwhile still constrained by the philosophical limitations ofLogical Positivism.

What is the Peircean Self-control Process?

Peirce defined the self-control process based on hisunderstanding of the human cognitive processes at the levelof the Sign, i.e., conscious thought, and purposely avoidedthe psychological and physiological aspects of cognitiveprocessing. He wisely avoided mixing the domains of“hardware”, “software”, and “information”; he dealt onlywith information.

Figure 5 depicts the Peircean Model-of-the-Selfmodified to represent a surveillance system. The Self-control process is embedded within the command andcontrol. It should be noted the notion of Feedback Systemswas known to Peirce and the Experimental Psychologists ofthat era. Peirce was America’s first ExperimentalPsychologist. The Peircean Self-control process in simpleterms is given in the inset:

Figure 4B – The Peircean Model Of The Self serves as asimple model for identifying the top-level system processesof an airborne air traffic management system

Perception in this case represents the output of the datagathering process, i.e., measurements (target detections ortracks) and the input gate to self-control. Purposive actionrepresents the output gate of the self-control process.

Figure 5 – Peircean Model-Of-The-Self with the expandedSelf-control process recast as a notional airbornesurveillance information processing system.

What is the Peircean Science of Inquiry?

Peirce defined the process of inquiry or discoveryas including three fundamental inferencing processes shownin the inset:

The discovery of Abduction by Peirce as a logicalprocess represents a major contribution to the science ofLogic. Controversial at first it is now gaining generalacceptance as a legitimate form of inference that is separateand distinct from Induction and Deduction.

The science of inquiry forms the framework andthe point of departure for the development of automatedreasoning or belief engine as shown in Figure 6.

Peircean Information Processing System

KNOWLEDGEBASE

(BELIEF SYSTEM)

MGMTACTIONS

ALLOCATEDCOURSES

OFACTION

(XP - XM)SITUATIONALSTATE VARIABLES

CONTROL USER

PREDICTION

(K/K+1) AND (K/K+n)PREDICTED

SITUATIONALSTATE VARIABLESUNCERTAIN

INFORMATION

INACCURATEINCONSISTENTINCOMPLETE

MEASUREMENT INNOVATIONS

UNCERTAININFORMATION

XM

PARAMETERESTIMATES

SITUATIONALAWARENESSVARIABLES

PLANNING

DECISIONMANAGEMENT

(K/K-n) SITUATIONALSTATE VARIABLES

XP

(K/K)

ALTERNATIVE PLANS

PLANS

SENSORSUITE

DATAGATHERING

COMMAND& CONTROL

CONFLICTCONTROL

INPUT - UNCERTAININFORMATION

OUTPUT - ACTION

NOTIONALTOP LEVEL AIRBORNE AIR TRAFFIC

MANAGEMENT SYSTEM PROCESSES

Self-control Process:Perception

InnovationPrediction

PlanningDecision

BeliefPurposive Action

Not shown is the feedback path from the Belief process back tothe Innovations process. Closed-loop Feedback Systems aredifficult to comprehend and understand for those unfamiliarwith basic Control Systems Theory.

Abduction “.. the step of adopting ahypotheses as beingsuggested by the facts… leadto the prediction of theobserved facts” - Peirce.

Deduction “Performs the function ofmaking a prediction as towhat would occur if thehypotheses were to turn outto be the case”- Peirce

Induction “Finds the ratio of thefrequency by which thenecessary results ofdeduction do in fact occur”-Peirce.

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What is Peircean Systems Design?

Inasmuch as systems design is a reasoning process,the processes of inquiry may also be used for the systemdesign of new advanced systems. The system designprocess shown in Figure 7 represents the science of inquiryin terms of familiar design and analysis tasks.

Operations Research (the application of science tosolve military problems) represents the process of systemconcept formulation based on analysis and simulations ofCustomer operational requirements.

The most critical task is Systems Analysis. Thisprocess bridges the gap between operations research andsystems design. This step in the design process is whereinsightful inquiry-based analysis is done to gainunderstanding of the system and accountability measures.

The analytical process is similar to Peirce’sTheorematic Deduction. For Peirce there was a heavilyanalytical form of deduction as well as reductionistdeductive decomposition of the system requirements.Peirce called the latter Corollarial Deduction. The purposeof Systems Analysis is to generate a top-downMOES/FOMS tree (also Accountability Tree) that relatesthe desired effects of the system to all the functions andsubfunctions that affect the desired effect. It also generatesa system definition.

The Systems Design step takes the systemdefinition and produces alternative systems designs and theassociated costs for each design. This step combinesAbduction and Deduction to generate the alternativedesigns. System Evaluation (typically a simulation)quantifies the alternative systems designs. This step isequivalent to Induction.

The Optimization process will support the processof achieving a cost-effective design. The systems designprocess terminates when the optimality criteria have beenmet.

The dissipation of Conceptual Systems Designknowledge described above over the last 21 years resultedin the Government publishing a new InstructionCSCSI3170.01 Joint Capabilities and Development System(2003). In August 2006, an update in the form of a WhitePaper was published (Capability Based Assessment(CBA)).

When viewed from the standpoint of PeirceanLogical Systems, what emerges is the equivalent of aPeircean Abductive Reasoning System (Figures 6 and 7).The evolutionary JCIDS process took three years to capturethe Logic that once existed in the mind of the SystemsDesigners of the 1960’s.

The process is still incomplete and the fact that theinability to understand Logic was an impediment is stillunrecognized. Here is an example of the critical need tounderstand Logic and the applications of Logic; theenormous cost of this effort in time and dollars wasunnecessary when the basic knowledge was already extant.

What is the connection with Quality and Lean Sigma?

There is an interesting but little known connectionbetween Peirce and Quality Management-as-Defined-By-Deming. The two individuals that Deming looked to as hismentor and philosophical guru were Walter Shewhart andC.I. Lewis, respectively. Walter Shewhart also looked up toC.I. Lewis. Shewhart and Deming were, however, unawareof the fact that Lewis had studied Peirce’s manuscripts andwas drawing heavily on Peirce’s philosophy.

Shewhart and Deming refer to C.I. Lewis’ book,Mind and World Order, as the philosophical basis fortheir methodology for Quality Control. Without realizing itthey were embracing Peircean concepts including thePeircean concept of Triadicity. Unfortunately there were

Figure 6 – Simplified closed-loop belief enginefor an automated Peircean reasoning system.

Figure 7 - Simplified Peircean Conceptual Systems DesignProcess. The process is recursive and is terminated whenthe optimality criteria are satisfied. The optimality criteriaor decision threshold are set as an input to the optimizationprocess. The critical primary and secondary MOES/FOMSare identified and defined in the Systems Analysis phasefollowing the Operations Analysis phase.

Peircean Systems Design Process

OPTIMIZATIONPROCESS

OPERATIONSANALYSIS

SYSTEMSANALYSIS

SYSTEMSDESIGN

SYSTEMSEVALUATION

CUSTOMERDEMANDS CONCEPT

FORMULATIONSYSTEM

DEFINITIONALTERNATIVE SYSTEM

DESIGNS

COST- EFFECTIVEDESIGN

OPTIMALITYCRITERION

FUNCTIONALMOES/FOMS

CONSTRAINTS

TECHNOLOGY

EXPERIENCE

OPERATIONALMOES/FOMS

Peircean Belief Engine

HYPOTHESISGENERATION

DEDUCTIVEPROCESSES

INDUCTIVEPROCESSES

OPTIMIZATIONPROCESSES

UNCERTAININFORMATION

• INCOMPLETE• INACCURATE• INCONSISTENT

CONSTRAINTS

OPTIMALITY CRITERIA

KNOWLEDGE• FACTS• HEURISTICS• BELIEFS

DATABASE

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Figure 8. Example - Peircean/JSM Logic Engine

few books available at that time that reliably and accuratelyexpressed Peirce’s philosophy in a clear manner. Shewhartwas unsuccessful in his attempts to describe the triadicrelationship in his book, because the only readily availablereferences were the dyadic writings of C.W. Morris.

The notions of Logic are rife within the philosophyof Deming and most of the Modern schools of LeanManagement and Six-Sigma. The 19th and 20th Centuryquality concepts propagated by the Philosophy of FrederickTaylor have been superseded by the Modern methods ofDeming and the students of Deming, i.e., the post-WorldWar II Japanese Industry.

Design of Experiments is a well known processused in Agricultural Research (one of the domains of studyof Shewhart and Deming). An inspection of the processthrough the lens of Peirce reveals that the Design ofExperiments includes three inferences as opposed to thetraditional two. Peirce’s perspicacious mind saw that theDesign of Experiments began with Abduction, but becausethe Peirce’s precise vocabulary was unavailable to thecareful scientists of the early 20th Century the process couldonly be explained in tortuous terms.

How does it fit in with the Tofflerean Paradigm?

The Tofflers (Alvin and Heidi) have given theWorld a deep insightful look into the Future and havewritten extensively about the impact of the rapidtechnological changes on mankind and his civilizations. Inall of their writings, however, there is missing any mentionof the impact of the changes on Philosophy, the demise ofthe existing philosophies, and the possible replacementphilosophies.

Logical Positivism has been declared a collapsedphilosophy (C.1955). It was unable to live up to its owndoctrines and precepts. Its parent, Nominalism has beenhaving problems providing guidance for problems inadvanced physics and now in advanced information-processing science. The effect of Logical Positivism’scollapse is that in addition to affecting the Natural Sciences

it will also deeply affect the fields of Social Science, Logic(of Bertrand Russell and Frege), Psychology, Philosophy,Consciousness, and Cognitive Science. The void inmentalistic research will continue until a new scientificphilosophy such as Peirce’s is adopted.

None of these issues or any of the otherfoundational philosophical issues was addressed in detail bythe Tofflers. If there is underway a change in Ages equal toor greater in magnitude to the changes accompanying theshift to Agricultural Age and the shift to the Industrial Age,then it seems logical to look for changes in philosophy.

According to the Tofflers, the possession ofKnowledge (mind) will be equivalent to Wealth (money)and Muscle (military). The only extant philosophy thatoffers a system that covers the Mind (knowledge) isPeircean Semeiotic.

It appears that Peircean Semeiotic is the onlyphilosophy that has the ingredients needed to replace and tofill the voids created by the old philosophies. Peirce’sScientific Philosophy, i.e., Natural Intelligence, fills thevoid in mentalistic studies. Peircean Realism fills the voidscreated by Nominalism in the areas of Form and Universals.

How does it Compare with the Reflexive-Processes?

A comparison of the Russian scientific paradigm ofReflexive Processes as described by Lepsky and LeFebvrewith the Scientific Philosophy of American scientistCharles Sanders Peirce (1839 – 1914) shows that they arevery similar in their subject content and goals [Table 1].

The Russian goal is to develop a scientific paradigmthat will allow the Russian people to think clearly anddiscern deceptive language being used by the authorities,and, simultaneously, to develop a common language tofacilitate clear communications among different scientificcommunities.

The goal of Charles Sanders Peirce was to develop amethod of clear thinking for use by scientists and engineersin scientific inquiry; further, to communicate the results oftheir inquiry to a community of inquirers for examinationand critique.

The main difference between the two approaches is thereason for their creation. In the case of Russians, theysought to replace the Soviet scientific paradigm with onethat was devoid of Communist ideology tinged Behavioristconcepts. They surveyed and examined the prevailingscientific paradigms in the United States, but found onlyschools of thought based on Behaviorism.

They then turned to a concept that had been underdevelopment since 1962 by Russian Vladimir Lefebvre:Reflexive Control. Lefebvre’s integrated concepts ofFeelings, Free Will, and Thinking were combined with theconcepts of situational awareness and reality. Theintegrated combination became known as ReflexiveProcesses. The integrated set of sciences filled the void inmentalistic sciences created by Behaviorism.

GENERIC SIMPLIFIED

BLUEBELIEF LOGIC UNIVERSAL ENGINE

DATA

COLLECTOR

DATABASE

INPUTMIDDLEWARE

SORTER

SEQUENCER

INFERENTIAL

GENERATOR

OUTPUTMIDDLEWARE

KNOWLEDGE

DISCOVERY

DATABASE

PEIRCEAN KNOWLEDGE DISCOVERY ENGINE

DATA

PKDE

GENERIC SIMPLIFIED

BLUEBELIEF LOGIC UNIVERSAL ENGINE

DATA

COLLECTOR

DATABASE

INPUTMIDDLEWARE

SORTER

SEQUENCER

INFERENTIAL

GENERATOR

OUTPUTMIDDLEWARE

KNOWLEDGE

DISCOVERY

DATABASE

PEIRCEAN KNOWLEDGE DISCOVERY ENGINE

DATA

PKDE

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Peirce’s Scientific Philosophy, on the other hand,emerged as a result of Peirce’s quest to develop a ScientificMethod. Peirce had found that the much-heraldedScientific Method had never been fully identified, defined,and developed. One piece of the puzzle that needed to bedeveloped was a System of Science.

Peirce created a vertically structured system that rankedsubjects by their degree of abstractness. The highest levelof abstraction was Mathematics and the lower levels werethe conventional sciences. In between, Peirce insertedScientific Philosophy, i.e., sciences of the human mind orthe science of natural intelligence.

Although the terminology is different, the wordsdescribing Peirce’s categories have the same generalmeaning as those of Reflexive Processes. Peirce, however,was more precise in his definitions and the underlyingconstruct of his theoretical knowledge is better developed.The Peircean categories should be interpreted as scientificcategories and not metaphysical or theological.

The following table shows Reflexive Processes and thecorresponding elements of Peircean Scientific Philosophy:

Table 1 – Comparison of Lefebvre and Peirce

Reflexive Processes Scientific Philosophy

Situational Awareness Phaneroscopy(Situational Awareness)

Reflexive Control Normative ScienceFeelings EstheticsFree Will EthicsThinking Semeiotic

Reality Metaphysics (Reality)

Based on the Russian descriptions given thus far, itmay be said that Reflexive Processes is a form of Peirce’shighly developed Scientific Philosophy and that it couldeasily be replaced by Peirce’s Scientific Philosophy

From an applications standpoint, Reflexive Processes isin a far more advanced state. There is nothing equivalent inthe Peircean domain (or any other Western school ofthought) to the Reflexive Controls equations developed byLefebvre and with the supporting developments incharacterizing Free Will. A study of the proceedings of the2000 Reflexive Control Symposium would probably revealadditional areas of development.

In the domain of Semeiotic (Higher Logic or the Art ofReasoning), however, nothing comparable to Peirce’s workin the development of a System of Inquiry based on

Abduction and the Economy of Research is evident inReflexive Processes. The advanced integrated reasoningconcepts developed by Peirce have yet to enter themainstream of Western logical thought.

The key to any further advancement in ReflexiveControl and Western reasoning would be the developmentof a system of inquiry or the adoption of Peirce’s System ofInquiry. The Intelligence Analysis community wouldbenefit greatly from Peirce’s work in Abduction,Deduction, and Induction, Automated Reasoning, the Art ofReasoning, and the work done by the Russians in appliedHypothesis Generation (See Figure 8 Logic Engineexample)..

In summary, it may be said that Peircean Semeiotic isfar more advanced in theoretical concept developmentwhereas Reflexive Processes is more advanced in havingdeveloped practical applications. On the other hand,Peircean Semeiotic and Reflexive Processes have surpassedanything concepts developed based on Logical Positivism.

Summary.

The evidence seems to indicate that PeirceanSemeiotic is the only known major Western philosophy andbody of knowledge that offers viable solutions, points ofdeparture, and frameworks for the many problems inCollaboration, Information, Knowledge, Cognitive,Sociological, Cultural, and Knowledge InformationProcessing Science.

There is a need to restore the concept of Form andUniversals to philosophy, and Peirce’s ScientificPhilosophy needs to be restored to the System of Science.The problem of the Mind-Body split may be mitigatedusing the Peircean Concept of Triadicity.

The application of Peircean Triadicity to a problemin Zen Buddhism resulted in the understanding of a riddlethat Western Dyadic thinking was unable to decipher. Theuse of Triadic thinking (Object, Representamen, andInterpretant) showed that the heretofore incomprehensibleZen Riddle became comprehensible.

A similar application of Triadicity to the BuddhistConcept of Mutual Causality yielded a simple explanationof a concept that Western Dyadic thinking madeincomprehensible. When an attempt was made to equateWestern Buddhist Concepts of Mutual Causality to theSystems Theory of Bertallanfi, the analysis failed becausethe basic premise was false, i.e., concepts were Dyadic.

Peircean Semeiotic offers an open-system, human-centered, inquiry-based body of knowledge for scientificstudies and engineering applications to Complex AdaptiveSystems and for many other areas including:

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Collaborative Technologies & Systems Cognitive Sciences Social Sciences (sociology, anthropology) Social Psychology Operations Research Conceptual System Design and Analysis System Analysis and Synthesis High Density Surveillance Tracking Situational/Battlespace Awareness Science Command and Control Sciences Resource/System Management Sciences Lean Sigma (Business & Program Mgmt) Accountability/Sustainment Science Automated Decision Making Systems Automated Diagnostics Systems Automated Peircean Knowledge Discovery

Engines

Since the original publication of this paper in2000, the first U.S. Hypothesis Generation Algorithmincorporating Peircean Abductive Reasoning and PeirceanLattice Theory has been developed. and demonstrated.With the advance, a true Knowledge Discovery engine withpredictive properties was realized for the first time in theU.S. by Dr. R. W. Burch (Texas A&M University).

Peircean Semeiotic is an excellent candidate forreplacing the defunct philosophy of Logical Positivism asthe scientific philosophy for scientific studies of humanlogical/ethical/esthetical reasoning. The complete universalphilosophy of Peircean Realism is a candidate to replace theincomplete philosophy of Nominalism as the InformationAge philosophy that will help to reshape civilizations.

Conclusions

Peircean Semeiotic (or Scientific Semeiotic-as-Defined-By Charles Sanders Peirce) provides thefoundational knowledge for the next majoradvancements in Intelligence Analysis. It provides themethods for analyzing the Reasoning Mind andidentifying and defining implementable processes forexpanding and extending the reach of existing systemsin the Data Gathering, Command and Control, andWeapon Control domains of weapons systems. AnIntelligence Analyst will have new tools for makingthe Reasoning Mind more “Mindful” and less“Mindless” thereby begin the process of extending thereach of Information, Cognitive, Knowledge, Social,and Cultural analysis, design, accountability ndsustainment.

The Peircean method has been thoroughlyinvestigated and structured by Charles Sanders Peirce.

The necessary substantive trade-off analyses havebeen accomplished by Peirce and the foundations for asystem of accountability and sustainment forqualitative processes now exists and is ready forfurther development and use. The Peirce’s analyticalmethods have been proven and are ready for transitionfrom technology to application in systems.

Acknowledgments.Many grateful thanks to the collaborative IC

Semiotics Experts Panel. The finest group of beyond-the-leading edge-thinkers: Gus, Tom, Steve, Dan, Fred, Mark,Dudley, Bill, Ray, Gail, Bob, John, Ken, Tom, and the restof the Semiotics Experts Panel. Also Pat for herenthusiastic support and research contributions.

Glossary.

Abduction – See Inferential Science below.

Data – An organized array of signs with no particular userin mind. Typically of little useful value to anyone.

Deduction – See Inferential Science below.

FOMS – Figures of merit: Qualitative or quantitative valueor amount of worth. Also FOMS are known as Measures ofPerformance (MOPS).

Form – What makes a thing be what it is (Aristotle); Formis something the mind can take in, assimilate, andcomprehend (Peirce).

Induction – See Inferential Science below.

Information – An organized array of useful signs for aparticular user or decision-maker.

Inferential Science – As defined by Charles Sanders Peircethe combination of Analytic and Synthetic Inference whereAnalytic may be subdivided into Corollarial Deduction andTheorematic Deduction and Synthesis may be subdividedinto Abduction and Induction. (Note: Goedel’sIncompleteness Theorem is similar to Peirce’s definition forTheorematic and Corollarial Deduction. He considered ithis most important discovery).

Knowledge – Useful information that has predictiveproperties.

Logic – The science about drawing necessary conclusions(Peirce); a science which makes a systematic study of thereasoning process.

Logic Engine – A “plug in” universal Logic System. Thereare two known such engines in the World: JSM HypothesisGenerator and BLUE or PKDE.

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Logical Positivism – A failed philosophical movement thatbased its approach to a unified science on a vague notion ofempiricism and verificationism.

The philosophy of the “Hard Sciences” adopted bythe adherents of the Vienna Circle and like organizations inthe early 20th Century and late 19th Century. It was adoptedby the “Soft Sciences” assuming that it would give themscientific legitimacy. The adoption of the philosophy wasmade without critically and adequately examining theimpact of the assumptions on the ability of the “SoftSciences” to address and answer problems of the subjectmatter of the “Soft Sciences”.

In the Media, David Brooks of the New YorkTimes observed the dichotomy and surfaced the tip of aniceberg in his The Art of Intelligence article in April, 2005.

Additionally, since there is no one “Minding theShop”, the fact that the philosophy had collapsed in the1950’s went unnoticed. A few thoughtful philosopherstried to inform the scientific community but their voice’swere too small.

The philosophy was declared “collapsed: in themid-1950’s. Bertallanfi’s General Systems Theory cited inthe CCJO (Capstone Concepts for Joint Operations, 2006)is based on the obsolete theory.

MOES – Measures of Effectiveness: A quantitative indexthat indicates the degree to which the desired effects havebeen achieved. Also a measure of Accountabiliy andSustainment.

Mathematics – The science which draws necessaryconclusions…Benjamin Peirce, Jr.

Noise – Unorganized and unstructured collections of datareports; Enron model. Often used as a baseline or floor.

Non-psychological Logic – Peircean approach to Logicalthinking is that the Reasoning Mind was separate anddistinct from the Psychological Mind; therefore, in thismanner removed Theology and Metaphysics from anydiscussion of Science.

Nominalism – Things are real, thoughts are not (FromEugene Halton, Bereft of Reason, 1995). The generalphilosophy that has guided Western Civilization since about1389 AD. It is the philosophy of the Industrial Age.Logical Positivism and other popular philosophies rests onthis decadent metaphysical philosophy.

Operations Research – The application of science to thesolution of military problems. Different from the operationsanalysis or systems analysis methods cited in theCapabilities Based Analysis JCIDS.

Pragmaticism – Peirce’s name for his version ofPragmatism, which is based on Realism. Renamed byPeirce when he realized that Pragmatism as practiced by

William James and others had taken a turn away from hisoriginal premisses.

Process – A systematic sequence of actions directed tosome end. Logicians are concerned with the processleading to a conclusion while Mathematicians areconcerned with arriving at a conclusion.Science – Methods of Discovery of knowledge (Peirce).

Scientific Philosophy – Used by Peirce to denote theKnowledge domain (Mindful domain) where conventionalmeasures and measurement devices no longer becomeapplicable. It is a qualitative measurement domain thatrequires a greater breadth and depth of explanation todescribe the Accountability of the new advanced 21st

Century Knowledge Information Processing Systems.

System – An ordered and comprehensive assemblage ofprocesses directed to achieve a desired effect andaccompanied with well defined inputs, outputs, constraintsand well defined MOES/.FOMS. These are defined in theConcept Formulation phase of Systems Design.

Systems Analysis – Insightful, inquiry-based analysis thatbridges Operations Analysis and Systems Design in theSystems Engineering development process.

Semeiotic (See-My-Oh-Tick) – The science of signs. ForPeirce – Higher Logic that included Speculative Grammar,Critic (lower Logic), and Speculative Rhetoric.

Systems Engineering – The analysis, design, anddevelopment of large scale complex systems. IncludesLean Management Processes. Similar to systemsengineering as defined by Simon Ramo.

U.S. Coast Survey – The most advanced technicalinstitution in the United States in the 19th Century. It is theearly forerunner of NOAA and later spawned the NationalBureau of Standards the forerunner of NIST.

Wisdom – Knowing better.

References.

Recommended Reading:

Burch, Robert W., A Peircean Reduction Thesis, TexasTech Press, Lubbock, TX, 1991.

Burch, Robert W., “Charles Sanders Peirce”, The StanfordEncyclopedia of Philosophy, Edward N. Zalta, July, 2006,URL = <http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/peirce/>.

Houser, Nathan, and Christian Kloesel (Ed), The EssentialPeirce, Volume I, Indiana University Press, Bloomingtonand Indianapolis, 1977.

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Peirce Edition Project (Ed), The Essential Peirce, Volume 2,Indiana University Press, Bloomington and Indianapolis,1998.

Peirce, Charles Sanders, Semiotic and Significs, TheCorrespondence Between Charles Sanders Peirce andVictoria Lady Welby, Ed. Charles S. Hardwick, IndianaUniversity Press, Bloomington and London.

Peirce, Charles Sanders, Reasoning and the Logic ofThings, Edited by Kenneth L. Ketner, Harvard UniversityPress, Cambridge, MA, 1992.

Peirce, Charles Sanders, Chance, Love, and Logic,Philosophical Essays, Edited by Morris R. Cohen,University of Nebraska Press, 1998.

Turrisi, Patricia Ann, Pragmatism as a Principle andMethod of Right Thinking, SUNY Press, 1997.

For More Information:

Aquinas, Thomas, Saint, An Aquinas Reader, Selectionsform the Writings of Thomas Aquinas, Ed. Mary T. Clark,Fordham University Press, New York, NY, 1972.

Buchler, Justus, Philosophical Writings of Peirce, Dover,New York, NY, 1955.

Capra, Fritjof, The Web of Life, A New ScientificUnderstanding of Living Systems, Anchor Books, NewYork, NY, 1996.

Czerwinski, Thomas J., The Third Wave, What the TofflersNever Told You, Strategic Forum, Institute for NationalStrategic Studies, NDU, No. 72, April1996.

Eisele, Carolyn, Studies in the Scientific and MathematicalPhilosophy of Charles Sanders Peirce, Ed. Richard M.Martin, Mouton Publishers, New York, NY, 1979.

Fisch, Max H., Peirce, Semeiotic, and Pragmatism, Essaysby Max H. Fisch, Ed. Kenneth L. Ketner and Christian J.W. Kloesel, Indiana University Press, Bloomington,Indiana, 1986.

Ketner, Kenneth L., His Glassy Essence, An Autobiographyof Charles Sanders Peirce, Vanderbilt University Press,1998.

Kilian, Cecelia S., The World of W. Edwards Deming, SPCPress, Knoxville, TN, 1992.

Jones, Carl, Editor, Toward a Science of Command,Control, and Communications, AIAA, Washington, D.C.,1993.

Lefebvre, Vladimir, A Formal Method of InvestigatingReflexive Processes, General Systems, B0l. XVIII, 1972.

Lewis, C.I., Mind and World Order, Dover, New York, NY,1929

Marias, Julian, History of Philosophy, Dover, NY, 1967.

Medawar, Peter Brian, Induction and Intuition in ScientificThought, Jayne Lectures for 1968, American PhilosophicalSociety, Independence Square, Philadelphia, 1969.

Peirce, Charles Sanders, Peirce, Charles S.: SelectedWritings, Ed. Philip P. Wiener, Dover, NY, 1958

Peirce, Charles Sanders, Note on The Economy of Research,Report of the Superintendent of the United States CoastSurvey, June 1876.

Foundational paper by Peirce that lays the basis formodern Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, Cost-BenefitAnalysis, Cost-as-an-Independent-Variable.

Peirce, Charles Sanders, Collected Papers, Ed. CharlesHartshorne and Paul Weiss, Harvard University Press,Cambridge, MA, 1931.

For reference only. A classic but now archaic poorlyedited multivolume set that attempted to capturePeirce’s thought. The recent disambiguation effort toorder, sort, and sequence the Peirce manuscripts hasresulted in the publication of high quality books andpapers.

Ramo, Simon, The Development of Systems Engineering,IEEE Transactions on Aerospace and Electronic Systems,AES-20, No. 4, July 1984. Founder of Ramo-Woolridgeand one of the conceivers of the Ballistic Missile Program.

Scarrott, Gordon G. and P. C. Marijuan, The Formulation ofa Science of Information, J. of Cybernetics and HumanKnowing, Imprint Academics, V. 5, No. 4, 1998.

Shewhart, Walter, Statistical Method From the Viewpoint ofQuality Control, Dover, New York, NY, 1986.

Suggested Reading:

Civilizations around the World are undergoing cultural,social, religious, historical, and technical changes.. Thebooks by the Tofflers provide excellent insight to thesechanges, many of which were foretold by them.

Toffler, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Future Shock, BantamBooks, New York, NY, 1970.

Toffler, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, The Third Wave, BantamBooks, New York, NY, 1980.

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Toffler, Alvin and Heidi Toffler, Power Shift, BantamBooks, New York, NY, 1990.

Non-Western view of Sun Tzu:Sun Tzu, The Art of Strategy, Translation by R. L. Wing.Broadway Book, 1988.

A veteran advanced weapons systems designer wouldrecognize the information process oriented nature ofthe book.

Periodicals - Current Events:Brooks, David, The Art of Intelligence, New York Times,

April, 2005.Probably the first time the distinction between the HardScience and Soft Science is broached in the Media.The author leans toward individual analysis as opposedto groupthink analysis. He also suggests a return to theClassics as one of fundamentals of IntelligenceAnalysis education.

Appendix..Experiential Systems Analysis and Operations Research:

Intelligence Analysis - Advanced Information,Cognitive, Knowledge, and Social/CulturalInformation Processing Systems Science andTechnology. Foreign Semiotics and Reflexive Control.Information Processing Systems. Advanced PeirceanKnowledge Discovery Engine (Beyond Advanced DataMining). Social Network Analysis and PatternAnalysis. Accountability Analysis and Development -Measures of Effectiveness and Figures of Merit forqualitative and quantitative information processingsystems.

Systems Analysis and Conceptual Design - AdvancedNetwork Centric Warfare, Surveillance, and TrackingSystems, Advanced analysis and design of closed-looped open system, process centered, human centered,and automated systems. Network Centric Warfareconceptual systems analysis and design. Kill-ChainAnalysis, Qualitative and quantitative MOES/FOMSidentification and definition.

Systems Analysis and Design – Advanced Fighter,Recce, and Bomber ISR Information ProcessingSystems. Advanced Ship-based and Land-basedAutomatic and Adaptive Long Range Surveillance andFire Control Systems. Counter-weapons Sensors.Information Processing, and Displays. MeasuresAccountability - Measures of Effectiveness andFigures of Merit for combat knowledge informationprocessing systems.

Systems Analysis and Design - Advanced CombatAirborne Active and Passive Systems, ConceptualDesign of Intelligent Closed-Loop Kill Chain CombatSystems. Identification and definition of Measures formultiple mission Kill Chains.

Advanced Air Traffic Control Systems SystemsAnalysis and Design - Advanced Communicationsstudies. Advanced Human-centered ConceptualSystems Analysis and Design. Measure identificationand definition.Advanced Radar Meteorology Systems Analysi –Atmospheric Measurement Methodology and Analysis.Advanced Statistical Methods and Analysis.Advanced Weather Systems and Products.

Advanced Lean Sigma – Green Belt.Mindful Lean systems analysis tools and Six Sigmastatistical analysis and critical thinking analysis tools.

Education:BSE/MSEE

Military Service:U.S. Artillery Communications