1. (Archimedes sits down in the tub)
Icon
Index
Sign
(The water rises)
By resemblance
By contiguity
Ground
Interpretant
(“Eureka! I have calculated my volume!”)
Object
(Archimedes sits down in the tub)

2. Symbol
Sign:
D = M/V
By convention
Ground
Object:
Mass, Displaced Volume
Interpretant:
“It’s pure gold!”
Replica

3. Language, writing, math formulae
Symbol
Signs:
Language, writing, math formulae
By convention
Ground
Object:
Sentence: “Density equals mass over volume.”
Interpretant:
The meaning of the sentence.
Replica

4. Symbol
Index
Icon

5. Iconicity / Firstness: Qualitative Possibility
Symbolism / Thirdness: Triadic Phenomena (rules, laws, mediations, and representations)
Indexicality / Secondness: Reactive Objects
Iconicity / Firstness: Qualitative Possibility

6. In Peircean semiosis, how does signification move from the image above to its many possible meanings (dinner, a bird, a chicken, a modern-day dinosaur, the male of the species, a symbol of feistiness)

7. Some Implications and Questions
A sign is determined by the “boundaries” the perceiver puts around the object, not by any “elemental” quality. It can be anything: a letter, a word, a sentence, a photograph, or something in a photograph.
At the level of symbolic semiosis, how does Peirce’s system differ from Saussure’s? Does this make Peirce and Saussure complementary?
Symbols never exist in isolation.
The movement from firsts to thirds implies an infinite number of qualitative gradations in awareness, from the dimly perceived and unarticulate (yet powerfully felt) to the clearly perceived and well (but never fully) articulated (and powerfully comprehended)
Icons, indexes, and symbols are differentiated not only in terms of the ground that relates the object and sign, but in the quality of the interpretant that is derived. How is the interpretation of icons different qualitatively from the interpretation of symbols?
Is semiosis linear, or web-like?
Are there forms of signification that for human beings seldom or never become fully symbolic and consciously articulated?