The Ontology of Semiosis

A Conscious Agent (see Hoffman, 2008, Conscious Realism and the Mind Body Problem) can be a symbol (and part of the semiotic web) but not all symbols are Conscious Agents. Patrick Dunn’s semiotic web is roughly analogous to Donald Hoffman’s user interface, in which symbols = icons. An individual Conscious Agent’s semiotic web (user interface) includes other Conscious Agents as well other types of symbols (icons). Reality consists of inter-related and interacting semiotic webs, each with a Conscious Agent at its center. The Conscious Agent at the center is the Persona of Cinemorphics. The symbols in the semiotic web are the persona’s “inventory” of characteristics. Cinemorphic change (deleting and adding characteristics) is the same as changing the symbols in the semiotic web to bring about reality shifts. “Symbol changing” can also be brought about by creating NEW metaphors…i.e. “You” ARE a persona/ego/self becomes “You” ARE a character that can be changed around (like in a script). Re-framing…re-metaphorizing is the “reality handling”/manipulation that results in <material> changes.

At Play In The Semiosphere

I will be discussing Patrick Dunn's approach to reality handling and manipulation within the context of Cinemorphic self shifting in future posts. Interesting parallels and implications...

“Think of a huge web stretching across the black emptiness of space. In each nexus of lines rests a symbol connecting to an infinite number of other symbols. It is important to grasp this concept, because symbols are the underlying girders of the universe.

I call this complex of recursive symbols ‘the semiotic web.’ When seeking meaning, the mind says ‘I can place any idea in my semiotic web, which I've built up from all the symbols of our culture, and have it make sense to me.’

I believe the semiotic web is the substance of ultimate reality. More than just an abstraction to explain the way the human mind works, I think it is the abstraction to explain how Mind works. Mind is not separate from reality, nor is reality separate from the semiotic spaces it inhabits.

Manipulating symbol systems manipulates the semiotic web, and therefore manipulates reality.”

Patrick Dunn. Postmodern Magic: The Art of Magic in the Information Age http://www.amazon.com/Postmodern-Magic-The-Art-Information/dp/0738706639