**1. Introduction**

Lots of evidence has accumulated that online content influences people. It has even been pointed out that computer algorithms sometimes know us better than we know ourselves. They can detect our interests by the searches we do and the web pages we open. If this were not so, businesses would not advertise on the Web. But does that mean we humans are just a slower, less systematic kind of computer? How different are computers and living organisms?

Peirce's most difficult category is Firstness. It is difficult because it is about things before we really begin to think about them or even recognize their "otherness." Secondness, which consists in that otherness, and Thirdness, which contains our categorizations or general conceptions of things, are fairly straightforward. In Peirce's categorical system Firstness lies at the base of Secondness and Thirdness. Before anything is different or general, it is itself.

There is an enlightening passage where Peirce lays out the relation of Secondness to Thirdness:

*I should not wonder if somebody were to suggest that perhaps the idea of a law is essential to the idea of one thing acting upon another. But surely that would be the most untenable suggestion in the world considering that there is no one who after lifelong discipline in looking at things from the necessitarian point of view has ever been able to train himself to dismiss the idea that he can perform any specifiable act of the will. It is one of the most singular instances of how a preconceived theory will blind a man to facts that many necessitarians seem to think that nobody really believes in the freedom of the will, the fact being that he himself believes in it when*  *he is not theorizing. However, I do not think it worthwhile to quarrel about that. Have your necessitarianism if you approve of it; but I still think you must admit that no law of nature makes a stone fall, or a Leyden jar to discharge, or a steam engine to work ([1], pp. 89-90).*

Here he is arguing against the popular "necessitarianism" of his day, which we generally call "determinism" in English today. Its claim is that every single fact of our experience is determined by natural laws. If you know the state of facts at any time, you can deduce what the facts will be at any other time by those laws ([1], p. 325). Peirce says this implies there is no real increase in diversity in the world. Whatever diversity exists today would have existed at the beginning of the universe. Natural processes only rearrange things; they do not create anything new ([1], pp. 334-335).

Now, actually, there are several objections one could make to the passage. The most obvious is that, of course, stones do fall because there is a law of nature, gravitation. What Peirce is saying is that when a stone falls, some other single entity, such as perhaps my foot hitting it, is the occasion for that law to operate. That is Secondness. He is arguing that my foot hitting the stone is not predictable by that or any other law.

A more difficult problem is his statement that no one can "train himself" to believe he cannot make certain choices. It seems people often do train themselves to believe that. In fact, maybe that is what depression consists in, the belief you cannot do things you would like to do. But I believe Peirce is speaking here in a more "ideal," philosophical sense: does the philosopher really believe he cannot make choices?

### **2. Wilden on computer technology**

How we understand the human brain has important implications for the freedom of the will. In a 1972 piece, Anthony Wilden lays out a distinction between "analog and digital communication" ([2], pp. 155-195). Wilden is attempting to show what elements of electronic technology may correspond to the nervous systems of organisms, and his discussion of analog and digital brings out some interesting parallels. He says our nervous system includes both analog and digital elements, laying out in detail how nerve axons transmit messages to the synaptic connections between cells. The transmission is at first an analog one, meaning that it is about "difference" on a continuous scale. Eventually the message passed in the axon reaches a certain "threshold," and it becomes a matter of "opposition" rather than difference ([2], pp. 174-176). This is now a digital message. Wilden points out that genes are digitally coded but depend upon related enzymes, which are analog elements ([2], p. 158). Digitalization is always necessary whenever an important "boundary" or "frame" needs to be added to an analog continuum. As Wilden puts it:

*[The organism] introduces a desired closure into a continuum, which distinguishes a certain "part," and by the same act constitutes himself as distinct in some way from the environment he perceives ([2], p. 174).*

The digital splits the world into discrete elements and helps us experience our individuality. The connection of this concept to Secondness is clear.

In another chapter of the same book, he suggests the analog may correspond to Peirce's Thirdness, but he admits he does not understand Peirce's categories very

**29**

*Analog, Embodiment, and Freedom*

*DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89595*

*psychological laws permit ([1], p. 81).*

aware of more things and different categories of things.

**3. Pre-Wilden views of analog and digital**

cal information is adequate ([4], pp. 76-82).

Firstness is the "monadic" aspect of our experience. He says:

well [3]. He suggests Firstness is the Real and Secondness, the Imaginary. This misconstrues them. Something imaginary is a Second when we find out it is imaginary; until then, it is an aspect of our freedom, which is Firstness. As Peirce would put it,

*I can imagine a consciousness whose whole life, alike when wide awake and when drowsy or dreaming, should consist of nothing at all but a violet color or a stink of rotten cabbage. It is purely a question of what I can imagine and not of what* 

Consciousness has this monadic aspect that is complete unto itself and not dependent on anything external. Firstness is predominant in the ideas of "freshness, life, freedom" as well as feeling, as opposed to perception, will, and thought ([1], pp. 78-79). When we find out something is imaginary, we are essentially acknowledging a dyadic relation, a relation between what something is and what it is not (Secondness). There is also an element of Thirdness that comes into this, in that becoming convinced something is not real is coming to a sense of the persistence or stability of that reality ([1], p. 247). That is a triadic relation, because it involves a sense of connecting links between things, things yet to come as well as in the past. It is saying, "I will not see evidence of it in the future." Thirdness has a necessary connection to future time. For example, evolution is Thirdness because it is the emergence of things in time. Education is Thirdness because it means becoming

Wilden cites John von Neumann's classic work *The Computer and the Brain* ([2], pp. 157-158). Von Neumann talked about analog and digital computers but did not interpret human cognition in terms of the analog. Analog computers work by representing numbers by units of actual physical quantities, while digital machines represent them "as in conventional writing or printing, i.e. as a sequence of decimal digits" ([4], pp. 3, 6). He thought our cognition was basically digital with some analog features ([4], p. 58). He emphasized the binary nature of nerve impulses. They were basically "on–off switches," and he put less emphasis on the threshold features Wilden emphasized ([4], pp. 40-44). What is "non-digital-like" in our brains is the result of their working statistically rather than analogically. If we imagine computing machines to have existed prior to the human brain, we might say the brain gave up precision in arithmetic to gain "an improvement in logics" ([4], p. 80). The nervous system uses two types of communication, the "non-arithmetical" and the "arithmetical." The latter includes "communications of orders," which are logical. Our nervous systems require less "logical depth" than digital computers, so statisti-

Hubert L. Dreyfus conceptualized human cognition in terms of the analog in his 1965 book *Alchemy and Artificial Intelligence* but appears to have given up that understanding in his later work *On the Internet* (2009). In the first work, he lays out three areas that digital computers are unable to handle: fringe consciousness, essence/accident discrimination, and ambiguity tolerance [5]. Dreyfus's conception of the analog appears to have influenced Wilden ([2], p. 157). One problem he lays out in some detail is language processing. It is difficult to understand language as simply a list of words in sentences constructed by rules. Dreyfus cites Wittgenstein on how our understanding of language appears to be inseparably connected to the way we live. Our lives provide us with the context that makes words and sentences

#### *Analog, Embodiment, and Freedom DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.89595*

*Cognitive and Intermedial Semiotics*

pp. 334-335).

any other law.

choices?

*engine to work ([1], pp. 89-90).*

**2. Wilden on computer technology**

*he is not theorizing. However, I do not think it worthwhile to quarrel about that. Have your necessitarianism if you approve of it; but I still think you must admit that no law of nature makes a stone fall, or a Leyden jar to discharge, or a steam* 

Here he is arguing against the popular "necessitarianism" of his day, which we generally call "determinism" in English today. Its claim is that every single fact of our experience is determined by natural laws. If you know the state of facts at any time, you can deduce what the facts will be at any other time by those laws ([1], p. 325). Peirce says this implies there is no real increase in diversity in the world. Whatever diversity exists today would have existed at the beginning of the universe. Natural processes only rearrange things; they do not create anything new ([1],

Now, actually, there are several objections one could make to the passage. The most obvious is that, of course, stones do fall because there is a law of nature, gravitation. What Peirce is saying is that when a stone falls, some other single entity, such as perhaps my foot hitting it, is the occasion for that law to operate. That is Secondness. He is arguing that my foot hitting the stone is not predictable by that or

A more difficult problem is his statement that no one can "train himself" to believe he cannot make certain choices. It seems people often do train themselves to believe that. In fact, maybe that is what depression consists in, the belief you cannot do things you would like to do. But I believe Peirce is speaking here in a more "ideal," philosophical sense: does the philosopher really believe he cannot make

How we understand the human brain has important implications for the freedom of the will. In a 1972 piece, Anthony Wilden lays out a distinction between "analog and digital communication" ([2], pp. 155-195). Wilden is attempting to show what elements of electronic technology may correspond to the nervous systems of organisms, and his discussion of analog and digital brings out some interesting parallels. He says our nervous system includes both analog and digital elements, laying out in detail how nerve axons transmit messages to the synaptic connections between cells. The transmission is at first an analog one, meaning that it is about "difference" on a continuous scale. Eventually the message passed in the axon reaches a certain "threshold," and it becomes a matter of "opposition" rather than difference ([2], pp. 174-176). This is now a digital message. Wilden points out that genes are digitally coded but depend upon related enzymes, which are analog elements ([2], p. 158). Digitalization is always necessary whenever an important "boundary" or "frame" needs to be added to an analog continuum. As

*[The organism] introduces a desired closure into a continuum, which distinguishes a certain "part," and by the same act constitutes himself as distinct in some way* 

The digital splits the world into discrete elements and helps us experience our

In another chapter of the same book, he suggests the analog may correspond to Peirce's Thirdness, but he admits he does not understand Peirce's categories very

*from the environment he perceives ([2], p. 174).*

individuality. The connection of this concept to Secondness is clear.

**28**

Wilden puts it:

well [3]. He suggests Firstness is the Real and Secondness, the Imaginary. This misconstrues them. Something imaginary is a Second when we find out it is imaginary; until then, it is an aspect of our freedom, which is Firstness. As Peirce would put it, Firstness is the "monadic" aspect of our experience. He says:

*I can imagine a consciousness whose whole life, alike when wide awake and when drowsy or dreaming, should consist of nothing at all but a violet color or a stink of rotten cabbage. It is purely a question of what I can imagine and not of what psychological laws permit ([1], p. 81).*

Consciousness has this monadic aspect that is complete unto itself and not dependent on anything external. Firstness is predominant in the ideas of "freshness, life, freedom" as well as feeling, as opposed to perception, will, and thought ([1], pp. 78-79). When we find out something is imaginary, we are essentially acknowledging a dyadic relation, a relation between what something is and what it is not (Secondness). There is also an element of Thirdness that comes into this, in that becoming convinced something is not real is coming to a sense of the persistence or stability of that reality ([1], p. 247). That is a triadic relation, because it involves a sense of connecting links between things, things yet to come as well as in the past. It is saying, "I will not see evidence of it in the future." Thirdness has a necessary connection to future time. For example, evolution is Thirdness because it is the emergence of things in time. Education is Thirdness because it means becoming aware of more things and different categories of things.
