Russ,
A am at least tempted by what I see in Peirce as a weird kind of reductive panpsychist: Mind is everywhere, but it consists in the that fact that one entity stands in relation to a relation between two other entities. This is not, however, something that I am prepared to go to the wall about, either to say that it is correct, OR that it is a correct understanding of Peirce. Have to bail on this for a few days. Best, Nick From: Russ Abbott [mailto:russ.abb...@gmail.com] Sent: Monday, April 09, 2012 2:06 PM To: Nicholas Thompson Cc: The Friday Morning Applied Complexity Coffee Group Subject: Re: [FRIAM] Peirce and teleology Nick, Please see below. -- Russ On Mon, Apr 9, 2012 at 12:14 PM, Nicholas Thompson <nickthomp...@earthlink.net> wrote: Well, "relation to a relation" is my way of talking, not Peirce's. he uses the word "sign", but he uses that term in such contorted and ephemeral ways that I have started to try to understand him WITHOUT using it. [Russ] Does this mean that we are no longer talking about whether feeling is synonymous with relation to a relation? Sorry, I didn't mean to be snarky. It is "inner" and it is a kind of "sanctum", isn't it? The second meaning from Dick.com is "A private or secret place to which few other people are admitted." Isn't that a fair reading of your position with respect to emotions and motivations? IE., that our behaviors arise from such a privileged causal place? [Russ] I don't think I said much about emotions or motivations specifically. I generally talk about subjective experience. That includes the experience of having emotion. Motivation may be something else. I don't think of my subjective experience as "A private or secret place to which few other people are admitted." Although as far as I know, it's not possible for anyone else to share my subjective experience -- at least given current technology. It may be in the future thought. That's not very sanctum-like -- although if we ever do develop technology that allows people to share other people's subjective experience, it will certainly raise many privacy issues. I think Peirce imports teleonomy into biology, but not teleology. You recall that my general position is that everybody else but me confuses causality at a lower level with structure at a higher level. I.e., when we say that joe wants a hot fudge Sunday, we are not referring to an inner causal demon who is pressing Joe toward the Sunday shop, rather we are referring to an organization of Joe's behavior over time with respect to icecream shops and the presense of some triggering even that sets that structure in motion in the present instance. On my account, thinking that joes Sundae hunger cause his sundae eating is hypostization. I think Peirce would agree with this position. [Russ] Merriam-Webster defines teleonomy (nice word; I didn't realize there was a word for that) as "the quality of apparent purposefulness of structure or function in living organisms due to evolutionary adaptation." I already have what I think is a good explanation of teleonomy: mutation produces what in effect is some functionality in the world, which happens enhance survival. I see that as applying to biological organisms in general. If that's what you and Peirce are saying, I guess we agree. Otherwise, I'm not sure where we are. I wouldn't disagree with your description of Joe's behavior. [Russ] This seems to be drifting into a discussion of "free will" rather than subjective experience. Sam Harris recently gave quite a convincing talk about "The Illusion of Free Will <http://goo.gl/FQFMc> ." As far as I'm concerned, though, denying free will does not require denying the reality of subjective experience. Rushing, but not snarky, Nick
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