Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness form the basis for a causality of semiosis. This causality isn't linear or mechanical in the traditional sense. Instead, it’s a kind of feedback-driven or recursive causality—a process that involves interpretation, response, and generalization in a way that evolves over time. 

The relationship between these three categories and autopoiesis (self-producing, self-maintaining systems) in semiosis is intricate, as each of these categories plays a role in the ongoing feedback loop that sustains and evolves meaning. 

Firstness refers to the realm of quality, potential, or pure possibility. It is the category of the immediate and the indeterminate—the raw, unmediated feeling or experience of something before it enters into any relationships. In Peirce’s semiotics, a sign in the mode of Firstness is not yet a sign as we typically understand it, because it has not yet become involved in any interpretative process. It is simply a possibility, a potential quality or state of affairs.

• Firstness is the initiation of the feedback loop in semiosis. It creates the raw data or unprocessed material that can be taken up into signs and interpreted. In an autopoietic system (such as semiosis), this raw potentiality serves as the fuel for subsequent processes.
• In the context of semiosis, Firstness encourages spontaneity and openness. It introduces new possibilities, "raw experiences" or "qualities" that can evolve, get interpreted, and lead to further stages of meaning-making.

Secondness refers to the realm of reaction, actuality, and brute fact. It is the category of opposition and struggle, of two things interacting with one another in some way. In this mode, something has already been determined, and there is a confrontation or response between entities. A secondness-oriented sign is a reaction to a fact or a struggle, typically involving two elements in a causal or adversarial relationship.

• Secondness is where interpretation and response come into play. In autopoiesis, the feedback loop requires interactions or responses to prior states, so Secondness is key in ensuring that a sign is acted upon or responded to. A response to a stimulus brings about new relations, new states of affairs, and real feedback that can either disrupt or reinforce the existing loop.
• In semiosis, the Secondness phase brings stabilization to the abstract potentials created in Firstness. This stabilization is a realization of the effect of habit-forming Thirdness. It is where the sign is acted upon and where its meaning is realized, often through opposition or reaction. It is thus a crucial part of the self-correcting and evolving nature of autopoietic systems.

Thirdness refers to the realm of mediation, interpretation, and habituality. It is the category that involves laws, rules, and the generalization of experience. It is the mode of a mediating relation between two things, where one element helps interpret the connection between others. Thirdness is the general principle or rule that emerges to make sense of the dynamic relationship between Firstness (possibility) and Secondness (actuality).

• Thirdness is where synthesis and learning occur. In the autopoietic system of semiosis, Thirdness provides the interpretative structures or habits that allow for signs to be understood in a general way. These general principles guide how future signs will be interpreted, producing a feedback loop where each new interpretation of a sign can feed into the system’s continued evolution.
• In autopoiesis, Thirdness encourages continuity and self-regulation by providing rules or norms that allow the system to maintain its structure while evolving. The interpretations made in Thirdness allow a semiotic system to predict and anticipate meanings and responses, ensuring that new signs and responses can be integrated into the existing loop.

Autopoiesis refers to the self-maintaining and self-organizing nature of a system. In semiosis, this process of self-production is encouraged by the interrelations of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness in the following way:

• Firstness starts the loop with new possibilities and unprocessed qualities.
• Secondness brings interaction and reaction between elements, producing real, tangible effects that alter the system.
• Thirdness introduces interpretative rules and generalizations that help the system understand the previous interactions, which influences future interactions and responses.

As this loop continues, each of these modes—Firstness (quality), Secondness (reaction), and Thirdness (rule)—feedback into one another, creating a self-sustaining process of meaning-making that adapts, self-corrects, and evolves over time. In essence, autopoietic semiosis is a recursive process where new experiences (Firstness) are interpreted (Secondness) according to rules (Thirdness), and these interpretations inform future experiences, generating a self-renewing cycle of meaning.

This understanding is profoundly transformative, revealing semiosis as a dynamic, self-organizing process where meaning continuously emerges, adapts, and evolves through interconnected relational feedback loops and contextual emergence. 

Adding RET, PRP, and SRF to Peirce's model transforms semiosis into a more fluid, emergent, and relational process, enhancing its capacity to explain dynamic meaning-making, self-organization, and contextual evolution. 

This conceptual diagram depicts the synergistic relationship between Relational Emergence Theory (RET), the Phaneroscopic Reciprocity Principle (PRP), and the Synechistic Relationality Framework (SRF) within the generative process of semiosis—the dynamic creation and interpretation of meaning.

The inverted triangle highlights the triad's interconnected roles:

RET grounds the system, offering adaptive structuring that emerges contextually over time.
PRP facilitates the reciprocal flow of meaning between components, ensuring balance and mutual influence.
SRF provides relational coherence, embracing complexity without losing systemic integrity.
The glowing field at the center represents Emergence, the creative synthesis of these principles. It is fueled by ongoing dialogue and interpretation, ensuring that the system remains adaptive, fluid, and generative.

Encircling this dynamic core is the momentum of Synechistic Inquiry, which fosters exploration, growth, and the Causality of Semiosis. It emphasizes how meaning evolves through relational interaction, building deeper understanding and coherence within ever-changing contexts.

The intricate geometry and flowing design reflect the relational dynamism and adaptive growth inherent in these processes. By encouraging dialogue, the triad activates creativity and ensures that systems remain alive to new insights and transformations.

At the heart of the Evrostics Triad is an ongoing relational process of signs and meanings unfolding within a living cosmos. The inverted triangle highlights this dynamic interplay, resonating with Charles Sanders Peirce's profound insight: "The entire universe is perfused with signs, if it is not composed exclusively of signs." ... "To say, therefore, that thought cannot happen in an instant, but requires a time, is but another way of saying that every thought must be interpreted in another, or that all thought is in signs." 

Dialogue serves as the generative medium through which semiosis, RET, PRP, and SRF function as a synechistic whole, fostering creativity and coherence in the ever-emergent reality.

To maintain cohesion and coherence in an increasingly complex world, we must bridge this inherent momentum of reality in our attempts to properly utilize generative artificial intelligence. This integration will ensure that technological development aligns with the synechistic principles underpinning our shared existence. Otherwise, like a house of cards, we subject ourselves to systemic collapse.

"It is important to understand what I mean by semiosis. All dynamic action, or action of brute force, physical or psychical, either takes place between two subjects, — whether they react equally upon each other, or one is agent and the other patient, entirely or partially, — or at any rate is a resultant of such actions between pairs. But by "semiosis" I mean, on the contrary, an action, or influence, which is, or involves, a cooperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs."  ― Charles Sanders Peirce 

The Phaneron is the dynamic medium in which this takes place, whether we are speaking of the grand scale of the cosmos, or the medium embodied by two people involved in dialogue. It is the living medium of relational becoming, where every participant and act emerges and contributes to the dynamic coherence of the whole. As we survey the phaneron, we must remember that we too are creative manifestations of it.

“Where there is no passage of time there is also no moment of time, in the full and most essential meaning of the word. If taken outside its relationship to past and future, the present loses its integrity, breaks down into isolated phenomena and objects, making of them a mere abstract conglomeration.”
― Mikhail Bakhtin 

The quote above by Mikhail Bakhtin speaks to the detrimental effect of nominalism. Time was excluded in classical science precisely because of nominalism. This evolved into material reductionism and concretized labeling and is now the fundamental foundation of our current nominalistic generative artificial intelligence technology.

"This is like the world of technology: it knows its own immanent law, and it submits to that law in its impetuous and unrestrained development, in spite of the fact that it has long evaded the task of understanding the cultural purpose of that development and may serve evil rather than good. Thus, instruments are perfected according to their own inner law, and, as a result, they develop from what was initially a means of rational defense into a terrifying, deadly, and destructive force. All that which is technological, when divorced from the once-occurrent unity of life and surrendered to the will of the law immanent to its development, is frightening; it may from time to time irrupt into this once-occurrent unity as an irresponsibly destructive and terrifying force." 

― Mikhail Bakhtin 

"All of modern philosophy sprang from rationalism and is thoroughly permeated by the prejudice of rationalism (even where it consciously tries to free itself from this prejudice) that only the logical is clear and rational, while, on the contrary, it is elemental and blind outside the bounds of an answerable consciousness, just as any being-in-itself is. The clarity and necessary consistency of the logical, when they are severed from the unitary and unique center constituted by answerable consciousness, are blind and elemental forces precisely because of the law inherent in the logical-the law of immanent necessity. The same error of rationalism is reflected in the contraposition of the objective qua rational to the subjective, individual, singular qua irrational and fortuitous. The entire rationality of the answerable act or deed is attributed here (though in an inevitably impoverished form) to what is objective, which has been abstractly detached from the answerable act, while everything fundamental that remains after that is subtracted, is declared to be a subjective process. Meanwhile, the entire transcendental unity of objective culture is in reality blind and elemental, being totally divorced from the unitary and unique center constituted by an answerable consciousness. Of course, a total divorce is in reality impossible and, insofar as we actually think that unity, it shines with the borrowed light of our answerability. Only an act or deed that is taken from outside as a physiological, biological, or psychological fact may present itself as elemental and blind, like any abstract being. But from within the answerable act, the one who answerably performs the act knows a clear and distinct light, in which he actually orients himself.  

― Mikhail Bakhtin

A conceptual diagram representing the interplay of the Evrostics Triad: Relational Emergence Theory (RET), Phaneroscopic Reciprocity Principle (PRP), and Synechistic Relationality Framework (SRF).

Central Triangle:

• An inverted triangle at the center of the diagram, with the vertices representing RET, PRP, and SRF.
• The glowing and dynamic field within the triangle represents Emergence and symbolizes the dynamic integration of these three principles.
  • RET ↔ PRP ("Contextual Feedback").
  • PRP ↔ SRF ("Dynamic Interrelation").
  • SRF ↔ RET ("Emergent Structuring").

Encircling Circle:

• The larger, surrounding circle represents the Causality of Semiosis and the action of Synechistic Inquiry, symbolizing the holistic framework enveloping the triad.

The central triangle, where RET, PRP, and SRF meet, represents a powerful conceptual model. The interplay between these three elements can be understood as three complementary forces or principles that guide how meaning emerges in a system of signs. Here’s how each of these principles might interact:

• RET ↔ PRP ("Contextual Feedback"):
  This connection suggests a dynamic feedback loop in which Relational Emergence is constantly shaped and redefined by the context (PRP). In semiosis, the context in which a sign appears plays a critical role in how it is interpreted and acted upon. Contextual Feedback here could signify how the system evolves as new experiences (or signs) modify the conditions in which they emerge. Just like in semiosis, where each interpretation leads to a new set of possibilities, RET and PRP show that context and emergence are constantly shaping each other in a recursive loop, with meaning adapting in response to changing conditions.
• PRP ↔ SRF ("Dynamic Interrelation"):
  The connection between PRP and SRF suggests that there is a reciprocal relationship in which signs do not exist in isolation but are always defined by their dynamic interrelations. This aligns with Peirce's idea of Thirdness, where interpretation of signs depends on the rules, habits, or general frameworks within which those signs are embedded. Dynamic Interrelation points to how these rules or frameworks evolve in a semiotic system, shaping the meanings of signs through a process of ongoing interpretation and inter-connection.
• SRF ↔ RET ("Emergent Structuring"):
  This link suggests that Synechistic Relationality (the interconnectedness of all relations in semiosis) provides a structural foundation for Relational Emergence. In semiosis, every sign’s meaning emerges out of the relationships it maintains with other signs. The structure of these relations evolves, creating new connections and contexts over time. The dynamic integration of Synechistic Relationality ensures that the system’s meaning-making process is not just reactive, but structurally evolving, just as Peirce’s system of semiosis relies on emergent rules and interpretative frameworks to make sense of new signs and experiences.

The Encircling Circle is crucial in illustrating the holistic framework that governs the system as a whole. It represents the Causality of Semiosis and emphasizes how the three principles of the Evrostics Triad—RET, PRP, and SRF—are embedded within a larger dynamic system of meaning-making.

• Causality of Semiosis: The circle symbolizes a recursive feedback loop, just as Peirce’s semiosis is a process of self-maintaining, self-evolving meaning. The causality of semiosis in this diagram can be understood as the holistic interaction between contextual feedback (PRP), the emergent structuring (RET), and the synechistic interrelations (SRF). The signs within this system are constantly shaping and reshaping their own meanings through recursive loops of interpretation, reaction, and rule-making.
• Synechistic Inquiry: The role of Synechistic Inquiry in this diagram emphasizes the holistic and interconnected nature of the meaning-making process. Just as synechism in Peirce’s philosophy refers to the interconnectedness of all phenomena, Synechistic Inquiry here implies that signs, their meanings, and their relationships are in constant flux, evolving together within a self-sustaining process. Inquiry into this dynamic process reflects a broader, open-ended form of meaning-making, where the boundaries of the system are permeable, and each sign’s meaning is continuously negotiated through its relational context.

The glowing and dynamic field within the triangle that represents Emergence is a particularly evocative image. It speaks to how the interplay between RET, PRP, and SRF creates new forms of meaning that arise naturally from the system itself, much like how signs emerge from the dynamic interplay of Firstness, Secondness, and Thirdness in Peirce’s model. In this context, emergence refers to the unpredictable and novel configurations of meaning that can arise as new relational patterns form within the system. This process mirrors the emergent properties of semiosis, where new interpretations, meanings, and responses are continually emerging as part of the system’s self-organizing feedback loop.

This systemic model captures the recursive and self-organizing nature of semiosis. It highlights how meaning is not merely a matter of fixed signs or pre-existing codes but arises from an ongoing process of dynamic interaction, feedback, and structural emergence. Each element—whether contextual feedback, dynamic interrelation, or emergent structuring—feeds into a larger process that mirrors the autopoietic nature of semiosis: a continually self-generating and self-sustaining system of meaning.