Why materialists are predominantly materialists

[Neo-Scholastic]

Bennyboy, what some fail to understand is that the meaning of expressions are not the products of images, sentences, words, letters, and sounds arranged according to grammatical structures. Meaning simply cannot be reduced using their strategy because meaning is causally top-down. Meaning manifests in and through symbols without being the symbols themselves.

[Angrboda]

Symbols are only a small part of meaning but they are an indispensable part. Thank you for trying to minimize the role that symbols play in meaning.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'm merely pointing out that, as I understand reductionist models, symbols are seen as structural features of physical processes and their affect. Within that interpretive framework, any significance attributed to a sign system would be a superfluous after-the-fact folk description with no causal role. Am I wrong?

[Angrboda]

I'm merely pointing out that, as I understand reductionist models, symbols are seen as structural features of physical processes and their affect. Within that interpretive framework, any significance attributed to a sign system would be a superfluous after-the-fact folk description with no causal role. Am I wrong?

(emphasis mine)

You've gone from criticizing symbols as impotent bearers of meaning to asking about sign systems. Those are very different things. And no I wouldn't say that it is inherent in the reductionist paradigm to assert that [in] a sign system, the symbols play no causal role. It may be a part of some reductionist theories, but I'd say it's more likely to appear as a straw man.

[Neo-Scholastic]

I'm merely pointing out that, as I understand reductionist models, symbols are seen as structural features of physical processes and their affect. Within that interpretive framework, any significance attributed to a sign system would be a superfluous after-the-fact folk description with no causal role. Am I wrong?

(emphasis mine)
You've gone from criticizing symbols as impotent bearers of meaning to asking about sign systems. Those are very different things. And no I wouldn't say that it is inherent in the reductionist paradigm to assert that [in] a sign system, the symbols play no causal role. It may be a part of some reductionist theories, but I'd say it's more likely to appear as a straw man.

It was a short post so I wasn’t trying to draw out all of semiotics’ subtleties and my inaccuracy led to confusion. The defining concept of reductionism (within philosophy of mind) is that complex mental phenomena are sufficiently explained by simpler and purely physical processes. I say this is problematic for at least two reasons: 1) it confuses signs with their significance and 2) it treats expression and interpretation as entirely bottom-up physical processes. It gets worse too. The reductionist paradigm is itself a cultural artifact that constrains interpretation to fit the mechanistic outlook of modern industrial culture. It’s a vicious circle.

[Angrboda]

(emphasis mine)
You've gone from criticizing symbols as impotent bearers of meaning to asking about sign systems.  Those are very different things.  And no I wouldn't say that it is inherent in the reductionist paradigm to assert that [in] a sign system, the symbols play no causal role.  It may be a part of some reductionist theories, but I'd say it's more likely to appear as a straw man.

It was a short post so I wasn’t trying to draw out all of semiotics’ subtleties and my inaccuracy led to confusion. The defining concept of reductionism (within philosophy of mind) is that complex mental phenomena are sufficiently explained by simpler and purely physical processes. I say this is problematic for at least two reasons: 1) it confuses signs with their significance and 2) it treats expression and interpretation as entirely bottom-up physical processes. It gets worse too. The reductionist paradigm is itself a cultural artifact that constrains interpretation to fit the mechanistic outlook of modern industrial culture. It’s a vicious circle.

First, I don't see how #1 is true. A reductionist isn't necessarily proposing a theory of signs by arguing that it is rooted in physical phenomena. I think there's a naive sense in which people attribute meaning to signs as if there were something inherent in the sign that related it to its significand. I don't see that as a part of reductionism. Even if it were true that some confuse signs with their significance (whatever that means), there are reductionist theories of meaning which do not commit any such error.

Second, as regards #2, I fail to see how this is 'problematic', to use your word. It's possible that sign systems are a bottom-up process, we simply don't know. How our language centers make sense of words is largely unknown as the process tends to happen subconsciously. What I think you mean is that we cannot derive the meaning of a sign solely from a bottom-up analysis of syntax and grammar. If that is what you're saying, then I'd have to say that this is a caricature of the reductionist position. Few if any reductionists suggest that we can derive meaning in this way. Rather they would say that there is nothing beyond the physical required to understand the nature of signification. I see no conflict or 'problem' here.

[Neo-Scholastic]

A reductionist isn't necessarily proposing a theory of signs by arguing that it is rooted in physical phenomena.

they [reductionists] would say that there is nothing beyond the physical required to understand the nature of signification.

These are mutually exclusive positions. If something can be explained by the purely physical terms then it is firmly rooted in the physical. If something isn’t rooted in physical phenomena then it is not purely physical. Nevertheless, there may be reductionist philosophies with which I am not familiar.

[Angrboda]

A reductionist isn't necessarily proposing a theory of signs by arguing that it is rooted in physical phenomena.

they [reductionists] would say that there is nothing beyond the physical required to understand the nature of signification.

These are mutually exclusive positions. If something can be explained by the purely physical terms then it is firmly rooted in the physical. If something isn’t rooted in physical phenomena then it is not purely physical. Nevertheless, there may be reductionist philosophies with which I am not familiar.

By the first I simply meant that a reductionist isn't necessarily proposing a specific explanation of how sign systems work by suggesting that they have their basis in the physical. I didn't mean that the reductionist is arguing that signs do not reduce to the physical. Only that you don't have to possess a full fledged theory of the subject to be a reductionist.

[Neo-Scholastic]

...a reductionist isn't necessarily proposing a specific explanation of how sign systems work by suggesting that they have their basis in the physical.

Doing so is a serious omission at best and baseless assertion at worst.

I didn't mean that the reductionist is arguing that signs do not reduce to the physical.  Only that you don't have to possess a full fledged theory of the subject to be a reductionist.

Or rather they don't have any principle by which they can reincorporate phenomena that already dismissed as illusions. Then they confidently re-issue the promissory note that someday-maybe a theory will be forthcoming.

[Angrboda]

I didn't mean that the reductionist is arguing that signs do not reduce to the physical.  Only that you don't have to possess a full fledged theory of the subject to be a reductionist.

Or rather they don't have any principle by which they can reincorporate phenomena that already dismissed as illusions. Then they confidently re-issue the promissory note that someday-maybe a theory will be forthcoming.

I'm not sure it's a necessary part of reductionism to dismiss meaning as an illusion. You seem to feel it's a grievous omission for a reductionist not to have a theory of meaning. With all the counter-apologist head space devoted to consciousness, I suspect it's hardly noticed by your average reductionist. You in particular seem to have this obsession with the issue and the presumed consequences for materialism. Good for you. It's an interesting question but hardly the main thrust of a physicalist theory of mind. But as long as we're on the subject, what is your theory of meaning?