Pausing the Send Command: A Semioethical Methodology to Arm the Hinge between Information and Communication

Abstract

This article explores the intersection between information and communication from the standpoint of Peirce’s semiotic theory. An initial reminder of the tenets of Peirce’s early semiotic theory of information provides the logical framework necessary for the investigation. We then explore the heuristic power of information at two levels, one first-intentional, the other, centrally, second-intentional. We identify specific critical exigencies at the nexus between information and communication that govern the assessment of inferential consistency and knowledge gains obtained while generating information. We then turn to an analysis of the transition between the representational relation and the interpretational relation at the core of semiosis. A detour taken to study how medieval thinkers worked out the transition from suppositio to significatio yields a logical and analogical clue regarding the hinge between information and communication. That hinge reveals itself to be a fluid transition between the logical and the ethical given the responsibilities involved when verifying the reliability of information. The paper’s high point comes with the introduction of the phrase “editorial semiosis” to characterize the activity at the hinge, an activity clarified through Peirce’s concept of self-control. The paper ends by considering whether some form of “artificial editorial semiosis” could counteract AI-generated pseudo-information.