This post continues my analysis of the digital spreadsheet as a meaning-making technology operating globally. It addresses two issues that have hindered my previous research progress – substitution and action. How do “signs” of things and people substitute for the real world? Also, how do spreadsheets lead to actions and decisions?

Consequently, I have reached further into semiotic and post-structural theories to introduce and examine two conjuncted terms, “writing-as-substitution,” and “computation-as-symbolic-action.” They will be used as frameworks to analyze the epistemological workings of spreadsheets, and even extrapolate to other spreadsheet-like technologies, such as financial terminals like the Bloomberg “Box.”[1]

The post develops a comparative semiotic framework for understanding how spreadsheet-based and algorithmic systems govern human and institutional behavior through substitution and computation-as-symbolic-action. Drawing from Charles Sanders Peirce’s triadic semiotics and Jacques Derrida’s notion of différance and trace, it argues that media systems such as spreadsheets, dashboards, and AI models are not neutral tools but semiotic infrastructures that produce and enforce meaning through symbolic substitution, deferral, and interpretive feedback, enabling a form of technocapitalist governance grounded in semiotic abstraction.[2]

By situating formulas, metrics, and predictions within the dynamics of Peircean interpretants and Derridean traces, this post offers a critical perspective on the growing power of algorithmic systems to structure visibility, automate judgment, and inscribe control in modern information and communications technologies.

Constructed Knowledge Through Substitutional Systems

Semiotic scholars point out that language and writing remove the visible from sight, replacing it with a conceptual or textual substitute (or trace). For Charles Sanders Peirce, every sign exists within a triadic relationship consisting of a Representamen (the sign itself), the Object (what it refers to), and an Interpretant (the understanding or effect produced in a mind or subsequent sign). The interpretant is not a static meaning but a mediating process. Meaning unfolds through a recursive chain of interpretations rather than being fixed in any single instance.

In the context of spreadsheets, each numerical or textual cell can be understood as a representamen that stands for an external reality, such as a mortgage, a barrel of oil, or a share price. The interpretant occurs when an analyst, trader, or algorithm reads this value, interprets its significance, and transforms it into a new action or representation (e.g., an updated forecast, a buy/sell signal, or a risk model).

Writing recovers the world as Derrida’s trace. Where Peirce’s interpretant emphasizes continuity, Derrida’s trace emphasizes absence. For Derrida, every sign carries within it the trace of other signs that it both recalls and excludes. Meaning is not generated by correspondence but by difference and deferral (différance). The trace marks what is not present. It marks the remainders of prior substitutions and the anticipation of future ones.

Spreadsheets work through entering alphanumerical symbols that make something visible on the spreadsheet that is materially, but not entirely, absent.[3] This inherently means that words and numbers substitute for presence — they represent something absent, creating a system where presence is always deferred through representation.[4] Language becomes a ghosting of presence. For Derrida, the thing represented is hidden, but its representation remains.

In semiotic parlance, the spreadsheet is a gridwork of signs where each cell is an empty container waiting to receive inputs that substitute for real-world quantities, relationships, or categories. As Ferdinand de Saussure argued, language operates not through a natural bond between a word (signifier) and its object (signified), but through arbitrary, differential relationships within a structured system.[5] Spreadsheet cells gain meaning not in isolation, but by their position within a grid (row/column), the labels assigned in headers, and their formulaic relations.

In Derrida’s spreadsheet, each number or letter also bears the logic of the trace. A cell labeled “Revenue” or “SOFR” seems to present a concrete fact. Still, in Derridean terms, it is a deferred presence, a placeholder for a complex, deferred chain of other inscriptions. These could include contracts, transactions, data feeds, and institutional protocols. The number “5.25%” in a Bloomberg cell, for instance, is not an empirical reality but a symbolic residue of an entire infrastructural network of rate submissions, calculations, and policy expectations. Where Peirce’s interpretant focuses on how signs generate meaning through interpretation, Derrida’s trace reveals how meaning is haunted by what cannot be fully represented. The messy, material world that must be abstracted away to make computation possible.

In the spreadsheet, writing becomes substitution. Jacques Derrida would identify this substitution as the “trace.” The number “125” in a cell is not an object itself (e.g., 125 cows or units of revenue) but a symbolic stand-in: a visible mark that references an absent event, transaction, or condition. As Derrida noted in Of Grammatology, writing is “a substitute which inscribes absence.”[6] The spreadsheet thus removes the visible (the real-world referent) from sight and replaces it with a structured trace. The spreadsheet governs through symbols that don’t mean directly, but produce meaning through absence. Words, in this framework, do not point directly to what they mean, but to a network of traces — each word carries the echo of another. This absence is not a deficiency but a condition that allows for interpretation and meaning to emerge. Writing is not secondary to speech; rather, it demonstrates the displacement of the referent.

In spreadsheets, this process of knowledge construction unfolds through several processes.

– List labeling (column headers like “Net Profit,” “Customer Churn,” or “Risk Tier”)

– Formulaic logic (statistical functions like standard deviation (stdev) =STDEV, financial models using =NPV, etc.)

– Conditional computation (e.g., =IF, =VLOOKUP, =INDEX/MATCH)

These processes substitute conceptual abstractions for real-world activities such as sales, behaviors, failures, and strategies. In an organizational or personal productivity context, these elements are translated into a symbolic, calculable form. In this system, meaning is never fixed, and what appears “present” is only ever a trace. The written word functions not by presenting, but by replacing presence with representation—leaving behind traces of what is no longer visible.

How Functions and Formulas Operate Semiologically

Formulas and functions are types of writing. A formula such as =SUM(B2:B5) is a syntactic construction written in a symbolic language. They substitute for material reality and use formulas to stand in for an action. A substitution of the act of summing for an observable process. It replaces manual calculation with a rule-based trace. The value the formula returns is not immediately visible in the formula itself. Rather, it is calculated in absence, echoing Derrida’s idea that signification is always deferred and built upon an invisible referent.

Spreadsheets act relationally. Much like Saussure’s linguistic signs, formulas derive their value by referring to other cells (e.g., B2:B5), which in turn may themselves contain signs or substitutions. Derrida’s différance plays out materially in spreadsheet logic as each function defers meaning by referencing other parts of the sheet. The result is a trace of invisible logic, embedded in visual structure.

The formula result references absent and mutable data. It is a deferred, procedural statement whose outcome is dependent on other absent or invisible data. Spreadsheet grid logic organizes and constrains sign use. A formula like =IF(D3>100,”High”,”Low”) is not a result, but a script for producing conditional presence. Meaning is always deferred. Derrida invented the term différance to refer to the production of meaning through dependencies, ranges, and conditionalities.

The digital spreadsheet is a semiotic and epistemological technology, combining writing-as-substitution with computation-as-action within a structured symbolic field. It does not merely reflect the world; it replaces, structures, and governs it. Through formulas and functions, it mediates between symbol and action, data and decision, absence and presence. It constructs reality in grids, calculates from traces, and produces futures through procedural substitutions. In this way, the spreadsheet is not just where information is stored; it is where information becomes action, knowledge becomes structure, and representation becomes rule.

Jacques Derrida reoriented Saussure by emphasizing that writing is not a mirror of speech or presence. Writing is a trace, a mark of absence, and an act of deferred meaning. In spreadsheet logic, a formula like =VLOOKUP(D5,Table,2,FALSE) is a grammatological trace. It invokes a value not immediately present, referencing an array of values elsewhere. The value that appears in the cell is not the thing itself, but the outcome of a substitution chain.

Thus, the spreadsheet calculates from traces, not from essences. As Derrida would argue, every function is a gesture of absence, producing presence through reference to the elsewhere. Spreadsheet returns and an act of symbolic dislocation are made manifest through computation. The spreadsheet is not a passive record but a machine of deferrals, where value is always calculated in relation, never in isolation, and fully present in its textual inscription.

Thus, Chandler’s insight exposes the spreadsheet as a reality filter. It reifies the calculable, delegitimizes the unquantified, and normalizes visibility within a structured symbolic grammar. In a spreadsheet, data becomes visible only if it can be quantified, categorized, or calculated. What cannot be structured — emotion, ambiguity, contradiction — is rendered invisible in the abstraction process. A spreadsheet template enforces schema over substance: even subjective data must be shaped to fit predefined cells (e.g., “Employee Satisfaction: [1–10]”). Sign systems do not passively reflect reality. They construct it through symbolic choices and structures.

Lucian Bagiu’s analysis of structuralism vs. deconstruction illuminates how symbolic systems determine what can be made visible.[7] The spreadsheet, in this light, does more than represent data. It functions as an epistemological technology that enforces a regime of visibility. What appears in the cell is not “truth” but truth-as-structured-by-symbols. Conditional formatting, pivot tables, and data validation create layers of symbolic control, filtering what is emphasized, hidden, flagged, or acted upon. Bagiu helps us see that this is not a neutral process. It is an act of symbolic governance. The spreadsheet decides what counts as knowledge, what is ignored, and what is actionable.

Summary

This blog post argues that spreadsheets, dashboards, and AI models are not neutral tools but powerful “semiotic infrastructures” that actively construct and govern reality. It introduces two key concepts to explain this process: “writing-as-substitution” and “computation-as-symbolic-action.”

Drawing on the semiotic theories of Jacques Derrida and Charles Sanders Peirce, the post explains that a spreadsheet cell doesn’t just hold data; it substitutes a simple symbol for a complex, absent reality. This number or text is a “trace” that makes the world calculable by stripping away its messy, unquantifiable details.

The post then describes how formulas and functions act as a form of “computation-as-symbolic-action.” A formula like =SUM or =IF is not just a calculation but a script that automates a decision or judgment based on these symbolic traces. This process creates a chain of meaning where value is determined by its relationship to other cells, always deferring to absent data.

Ultimately, it concludes that these technologies function as systems of governance. By defining what can be measured and calculated, the spreadsheet filters reality, rendering things like emotion or ambiguity invisible. It doesn’t just reflect the world; it replaces, structures, and enforces a specific, calculable version of it.

Citation APA (7th Edition)

Pennings, A.J. (2025, Sep 03) Peirce and Derrida on the Logic and Power of Spreadsheets and Dashboards. apennings.com https://apennings.com/technologies-of-meaning/peirce-and-derrida-on-the-logic-and-power-of-spreadsheets-and-dashboards/

Notes

[1] This was a real baseline post for me although I only finished it recently. While reviewing a paper on spreadsheets in mid-July 2025 that was written with Patrick Rose, I ran across a mention of “substitution.” This started a whole new trajectory of inquiry that resulted in the conceptualization of the SACT stack.
[2] Peirce, C.S. (1955). Philosophical Writings of Peirce. Dover. Derrida, Jacques. Positions. Translated and annotated by Alan Bass. University of Chicago Press, 1982.
[3] Peirce, C.S. (1955). Philosophical Writings of Peirce. Dover.
[4] Chandler, Daniel (1995). The Act of Writing: A Media Theory Approach. Aberystwyth: University of Wales. Also see Chandler, D. (2002). Semiotics: The Basics. London: Routledge. Chandler built one of my favorite websites on semiotics. I use it in my Visual Rhetoric and IT class.
[5] F. de Saussure. 2nd trans.: Roy Harris, trans. (1983) Course in General Linguistics. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court.
[6] Derrida, J. (1976). Of Grammatology. Johns Hopkins University Press. Available at https://bit.ly/3L0yAKu
[7] Bagiu, L. (2009). Writing in Deconstruction vs Speech in Structuralism (Jacques Derrida vs Ferdinand de Saussure). Transilvania, XXXVII (CXIII)(8), 79-87. http://www.revistatransilvania.ro/nou/ro/anul-editorial-2009/doc_download/26-numrul-82009.html

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Anthony J. Pennings, PhD is a professor at the Department of Technology and Society, State University of New York, Korea and a Research Professor for Stony Brook University. He teaches AI and broadband policy, visual rhetoric, and engineering economics. From 2002-2012, he taught digital economics and information systems management at New York University. He also taught in the Digital Media MBA at St. Edwards University in Austin, Texas, where he lives when not in Korea.

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Category: artificial intelligence, digital spreadsheets, enabling frameworks, enterprise systems, financial technology, meaning makers, technologies of meaning, visual literacy and rhetoric
Tags: AI > Algorithmic Governance > Charles Sanders Peirce > computation-as-symbolic-action. > Dashboard > Derrida > Différance > Interpretant > Jacques Derrida > Peirce > Peircean interpretants > Semiotics > spreadsheet > Trace > triadic semiotics > writing-as-substitution

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