Alfred Korzybski, in his General Semantics, makes the cogent observation (one of the few I'll credit hiim with) that the human ability for sign-making (unique in degree among the animals) makes humans time-binding creatures. As with other epiphanies, this began in Eden.

Via a sign, Adam refers Eve to an observable existing elsewhere at the time of reference. Or, via a sign, Adam or Eve can infer existence of an observable no longer existing at time of reference. Thus, sign-making BINDS (along the TIME CONTINUUM) FRAGMENTS OF EXPERIENCE FOR EXPLICATING THE "PRESENT".

The American mathematician and philosopher, Charles Saunders Peirce (name rhymes with "purse", x-y), created semiotics: the theory or study of signs. (The original meaning of "semiosis" in Latin was "symptom".) Eve and Adam unwittinginly used the semiotic signs.

By the linguistic trope of metonomy (part evoking whole), Adam anticipates phenomena (possibly) not under human control via the sign Peirce labeled indicator (indexical sign). (I consider an indicator to be an ordered couple of signs: the first is HIGHLY OBERVABLE but of LOW INFORMATIONAL CONTENT; the second is LOW OF OBSERVABLY but HIGH IN INFORMATIONAL CONTENT. And I define a signal as indicator under physical and linguistic control -- an extension of Peirce's definition, which only vaguely spoke o "control".)

Thus, lighning is an indicator to Eve and Adam of a storm in the offing.

After exile from Eden, little Abel's fevered brow is symptomatic of (indicative of) a potential sickness.

Today we use litmus paper to test acidity of liquid in a test tube: degree of redness of litmus paper indicates degree if acidity.

And tears, laughter, sighs, murmurs, screams are indicators of internal stress. Initially, these signs provided the only recognizable communications (of internal mood) emitted by one of Eve's babies.

Consider a thermometer (mercury or alcohol in a thin closed glass tube) , which can be calibrated with signs to indicate degrees of temperature of whatever touches the thermometer. This is achieved by the coupling of the liquid in the thermometer with the heat intensity resulting from the speedy molecules of the test subject. Similarly, humans can couple with the natural intensity of a material object, of a process, of a living being, and become a calibrated instrument, singing out: "Storm! Fever! Lion! Oh, yum-yum! Yecch, stinkum!"

Later, descendants of Eve and Adam learned to put some indicators under some degree of physical control. And, in time, a coding was devised, putting these indicators under linguistic control. And these two controls (physical and linguistic) TRANSFORMED THE CONTROLLED INDICATORS INTO SIGNALS.

Thus, drumbeats resounding through the jungle night. Puffs of smoke rising in mountain air. Semaphore flags furling between ship and shore. Pulses from a telegraph key sending Morse Code along an electric wire. (This, too, began in Eden.)

And humans discovered signs which resembled their referents, which Peirce labeled "icons". (Computer programmers readily adopted these signs -- such as a drawing of a waste basket for "delete".) Illiterates and small children can understand them. (Our small son, Chris, at age five helped his mother shop in a supermarket by recognizing icons on standard brands.) And literates sometimes read them faster or more easily than alphabetic letters. (Compare a highway sign with a slash mark through a truck drawing with the writing "no trucks".)

So Eve delightedly discovers that she can use onomatopoeic words (iconic sounds) to communicate with her baby.

"Bow-wow. Meeow. Boohoo. Tick-tock, Choochoo. Peep-peep. Quack-qack. Bang. Ecch."

And, looking at the pristine surface of the water, Eve could read the icons in the momentary condition of her face.

Humans began to scrawl iconic signs on the walls of caves (as kids scrawl or paint graffiti on walls and fences). For example, the beautiful "Stone Age" drawings on the Altamira cave, which some have interpreted as "sympathic magic". (By linguistic control of the cave drawing to indicate successful hunting, this might extend to physical control in a later hunt.)

Icons have been discovered on papyrus or on stone tablets, as in the hieroglyphs of The Rosetta Stone. Icons abound in the various ideographs and Chinese "characters" of ancient languages, conveying meaning so much more succinctly and evokatively than phonic alphabetic symbols.

But this is a TRADE-OFF: readability of the ICON is achieved by singlarity of reference, resulting in a plethora of ICONS to SIGNIFY the plethora of INFORMATION bits required. This problem is solved by the other sign Peirce taught us to consider: THE SYMBOL, WHICH REFERS BY FIAT OR BY AGREEMENT. Decimal numeration and alphabetic symbols are prime examples.

This completes the quartet of primary signs which Peirce taught us. I encapsulate this under my own acronym, ISIS: I(ndicator)S(ignal)I(con)S(ymbol). And I derive from this TWO STRATEGIES.

• THE STRATEGY OF SCIENCE IS TO SEARCH FOR INDICATORS AND TRY TO TRANSFORM THEM INTO SIGNALS.

• THE STRATEGY OF EDUCATION IS TO USE ICONS AS A BRIDGE TO SYMBOLS. (On another Website, I note this is a generalization of what I learned from the eminent Literacy Teacher, Dr. Frank Laubach.)

Possessing this richness of signs, when tribesmen encounter strangers, they communicate by material or behavioral samples of words in their language, and the strangers do likewise. Thus, smacking his lips and rubbing his belly, Hofar the Nomad conveys to Leeto the Farmer the referent of Hofar's word "seka" (bread). Understanding, Leeto hands back a loaf baked by his wife, saying, "olam". By continuing this interchange, Hofar calibrates Leeto in Hofar's nominal measurement scale; and, similarly, Leeto caliabrates Hofar in Leeto's nominal measurement scale. This established, they go onto to calibrate each other in the respective typological and ordinal mesurement scales.

For this training started in Eden and East of Eden, when Adam and Eve watched for fairly reliable indicators of wind, sky, ocean, growing plants, prowlng animals, and various maters of concern. Their descendants learned to watch of indicators of indicators of .... -- as in "housing starts" as an economical indicator, in turn an indicator of personal income, in turn ....

Today, programs are written for the computer to carry on these activities in speedy and complicated fashion for "pioneering purposes", ignoring that this started in Eden. Unfortunately, our educators and teachers also ignore this. And ignore that small children go through similar "Edenic" stages in learning language and in learning to live. Most of this background is completely ignored or bypassed in our traditional education!

Do you believe in signs? We all do, in some way. But a SIGN is in the eye of the beholder.