Abstract

The grounding of semiotics in the finiteness of cognition is extended by examining the assumption that cognition can be compared or described. To this end, the two means by which qualitative values for cognition are putatively derived – introspection and observation – are framed in terms of the semiosic field as metacognition and trans-metacognition. These recovery functions are seen to be complex and mutable, dependent on context and habitus rather than objective encapsulation of past thought. An alternative view of cognitive similarity is offered: that recovery functions stabilise a mythology of cognition that facilitates its allocation by important discourses such as psychology, neurology, philosophy, and indeed semiotics. These superstructural discourses, in turn, operate to shape the context and habitus of new agents, including the proliferation of recovery functions. To formalise this cyclically determinative process, a concept of semioformation is introduced that locates the ontogeny of agents among the cumulative externalities of other agents. Determination, rather than description, is therefore posited as the effect of the assignment of qualitative or equivalence values to cognition. With this in mind, technology is highlighted as a critical area in which to examine recovery functions and semioformation. In particular, the category of the real is seen as undergoing rapid mutation.