Scientific Visualization versus Scientific Interpretation: a Semiotic Reading

Abstract

This article is a brief reading of Scientific Visualization, as a very important branch of scientific activities in the contemporary context. It applies some concepts of Charles S. Peirce’s semiotic theory. This analysis, specially based on the Interpretants theory, intends to review semiotically the concept of Scientific Visualization, and the possibility to understand it as Scientific Interpretation, an update for that concept, that under this denomination makes explicit its semiotic foundation. The relevance of performing a reading of scientific visualization based on Peirce’s semiotics is related to his definition of the science of signs. Peirce understands a sign as a triadic relation and this is the only way to describe the expression of thought and, therefore, what is expressed in scientific visualization. As a scientific activity, Visualization is an interpretation process with a communicative goal. Thus, the article focuses on the analysis of the interpretant, constitutive element of semiosis or sign action, which sets the finality and finalization of the sign or mediation. In the process of semiosis, three levels of Interpretants occurs: the Immediate, the inherent sign interpretability, which represents the very scope of Scientific Visualization; the Dynamic Interpretant, produced in each visualization act, and the Final, which represents the scientific character of Truth Ideal in the signs of Scientific Visualization. This analysis seeks to highlight the peculiar semiotic character of integrated scientific visualization contribution, when it comes to the contemporary scientific and technological environment.