On Language Theory and Semiotics

These excellent questions are from Raj Dye, who posted them in response to my last contribution (“Reason and Religion 6/7”).

Question 1: “Why was the decision made to extend Linguistic theory rather than Semiotic theory? According to Wikipedia, Semiotics ‘extends the definition of language in what amounts to its widest analogical or metaphorical sense’. Would you dispute that? Given your work developing the Metaformal Language theory, what would you suggest is the proper relationship between Linguistics and Semiotics? At present researchers in the field of Semiotics concern themselves, in part, with ‘non-linguistic signification.’ Does this change with the development of your theory?”

Answer 1: It's not a matter of "rather than"; straightforward extensions of language theory and semiotics are convergent. It's a matter of the implicit inseparability of language and semiotics. Each implicitly takes the other for granted, diverging only with respect to emphasis. They are dual aspects of one self-dual (or trialic) entity. Specifically, they are related by CTMU USRE|ERSU duality, where USRE stands for “Universe as a Self-Representational (semiotically reflexive) Entity” and ERSU stands for its intrinsic logico-geometric manifold, the “Expanding Rubber-Sheet Universe” of modern physics. (As I explained a couple of decades ago at Biola University, these are just dual but perfectly compatible ways of looking at the universe.)