Roulette: Icon Index Symbol

Terrence W. Deacon summarizing Pierce in The Symbolic Species

No particular objects are intrinsically icons, indices, or symbols. They are interpreted to be so, depending on what is produced in response. In simple terms, the differences between iconic, indexical, and symbolic relationships derive from regarding things either with respect to their form, their correlations with other things, or their involvement in systems of conventional relationships.

One example comes to mind: the figures designating public washrooms. In one interpretation they are an icon depicting gender formations, in another interpretation they indicate the facility is just behind the door and finally they can be interpreted as part of a symbol system.

And so for day 1393
06.10.2010