Jon, List,
Have we discussed, in this forum, the work of Michael Levin at all? I’ve not been participating consistently and might have missed any reference to him that might have cropped up. Levin factors in conditioning (association, Pavlov’s dog, etc) and speaks of cognitive processes at the cellular/neuronal levels, extending “all the way down” (his terminology). Much great material on Levin’s work available online, and it’s difficult to select a “favourite”, as we all have different priorities of emphasis. But here’s a recent one that relates, at least loosely, to our current thread: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTBZRVKUwyM Cheers, sj From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Jon Alan Schmidt Sent: 12 August, 2025 12:00 AM To: Peirce-L <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] QM: Schrodinger's cat is semiotic - RQM explains why Stephen, Jack, List: Peirce's metaphysical distinction between existence and reality seems applicable here. Existence as reacting with the other like things in the environment is always temporal and actual. In that sense, nothing exists atemporally, and saying that a pure possibility exists is incoherent. On the other hand, a scholastic realist maintains that there are atemporal realities that do not exist, including some (but not all) possibilities--specifically, for a proponent of pragmaticism, those that "can become actual" (R 288, 1905). In quantum mechanics, I suggest accordingly that a continuous wave function accurately describes a probabilistic reality--a distribution of real possibilities--but a discrete particle state only exists upon being actualized by a measurement event. With that in mind, I propose combining and replacing Jack's #3-4--which, as formulated below, are both straightforward contradictions and thus logically impossible--to say instead, "is real but does not exist." This avoids the pervasive but problematic presupposition of physicalism that Stephen notes, which carries with it the nominalist doctrine that existence/actuality and reality are coextensive, thus entailing that there are no real possibilities. My guess at what Jack is recalling as Peirce's "story about his brother" is this one presented in a footnote, not as an example of abduction, but as an illustration of how "reiterations in the inner world ... produce habits, just as do reiterations in the outer world; and these habits will have power to influence actual behavior in the outer world" (CP 5.487, EP 2:413, 1907). CSP: I well remember when I was a boy, and my brother Herbert, now our minister at Christiania [ambassador to Norway], was scarce more than a child, one day, as the whole family were at table, some spirit from a "blazer," or "chafing-dish," dropped on the muslin dress of one of the ladies and was kindled; and how instantaneously he jumped up, and did the right thing, and how skillfully each motion was adapted to the purpose. I asked him afterward about it, and he told me that since Mrs. Longfellow's death [after accidentally setting her dress on fire] he had often run over in imagination all the details of what ought to be done in such an emergency. It was a striking example of a real habit produced by exercises in the imagination. I am now going to follow Jack's example by trying to stay quiet on the List for a while. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt <http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt> / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt <http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt> On Mon, Aug 11, 2025 at 11:10 AM "Stephen Jarosek" <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > wrote: Jack, List >” Exists and does not exist (E∧¬E) — conjunctive/disjunctive paradoxes, e.g., >quantum superpositions in standard formalism.” THIS is a central issue that is now in question, thanks to RQM. Under classical QM, physicalists (materialists) controlled the narrative. Under RQM, however, there is no “superposition of states”. “Superposition of states” is what you have when a physicalist tries to factor in, for example, the peaks and the troughs of the Schrodinger wave equation. In RQM, by contrast, there is context and relations, there is the phenomenology of the very small, where the square-cube law strips subatomic particles of their classical properties, opening them up to possibility, availing them to context and relations. We no longer need to twist ourselves into knots trying to explain subatomic billiard-balls popping into and out of existence, a classically physicalist interpretation. RQM changes everything. The dominance of the physicalist narrative is, I suggest, behind the crisis in physics that is now popping up throughout conversations everywhere online. I foresee a solution in the synthesis of RQM with semiotics. Cheers, sj From: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> On Behalf Of Jack Cody Sent: 11 August, 2025 2:36 PM To: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]; Stephen Jarosek < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] QM: Schrodinger's cat is semiotic - RQM explains why Stephen, List, I would like to add this. 1. Exists (E) 2. Does not exist (¬E) 3. Exists and does not exist (E∧¬E) — conjunctive/disjunctive paradoxes, e.g., quantum superpositions in standard formalism. 4. Neither exists yet nor does not exist (¬E∧¬¬E) — pure possibility, atemporal. Interpretation Category (4) is distinct from (1)–(3). It denotes a state prior to instantiation in time: not actual, not non-actual, but possible. This is not mere quantum indeterminacy; it is an ontological axiom of free will and contingency. Whatever becomes manifest passes from (4) into one of (1)–(3), but (4) itself is temporally unbound. Mathematical Demonstration of Distinction Let P = "possible", A = "actual" (exists), and N = "non-actual" (does not exist). Normative quantum modal set: ΩQ={A,N,A∧N} All are truth-evaluated in time. Pure possibility modal set: ΩPP={¬A∧¬N} Here, ¬A∧¬N ≠ A, ≠ N, ≠ A∧N, and cannot be reduced to them without contradiction: Proof: Assume ¬A∧¬N=A. Then ¬A=A (contradiction). Assume ¬A∧¬N=N. Then ¬N=N (contradiction). Assume ¬A∧¬N=A∧N. Then ¬A=A and ¬N=N (double contradiction). Thus, (4) is maximally inequivalent to (1)–(3) and constitutes an atemporal necessity: a logical precondition for any contingent manifestation, including quantum events. The point I'm making is that the free will of the people relies on such a law as "neither exists yet nor does not exist" — distinct from normative quantum but necessary within that framework if it is to be coherent. If I go the shop and rob something, I know, analytically, in advance that whatever happens thereafter (bear in mind it will almost certainly not happen at all as I am not into stealing [4] — without contradiction) — anyway, what happens thereafter corresponds to such a "law or axiom" as (4) presents which you might say is explicated from Peirce insofar as it deals with "pure possibility" within and without quantum frameworks. Of course, Peirce considers "pure possibility" and "time" within the triadic categories (and that's fine) and also the above example I used would be a kind of "abduction" in one of the explanations Peirce gives regarding a story about his brother — it is years since I have read that passage — though, the difference, if there is any, is that no amount of thought-experiment now will change (4) as such (this would have to be a far longer reply and I'm sure many here would agree with (4) as used but disagree on how it is used if it seems too non-Peircean in context. Best wishes, Jack PS: I think the only necessity quantum demonstrates, at any logical or mathematical level, is that which corresponds ot the essential atemporal necessity of "big T Truth". A different topic perhaps. Anyway, currently working and restricting my posting on-list — will read, though, as I'm sure others have more to add/say. _____ From: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> on behalf of "Stephen Jarosek" < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> Sent: Monday, August 11, 2025 1:08 PM To: <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected] < <mailto:[email protected]> [email protected]> Subject: [PEIRCE-L] QM: Schrodinger's cat is semiotic - RQM explains why List, something for the armchair physicists among us… Following further conversations with ChatGPT today regarding the semiotic reinterpretation of quantum mechanics, it now becomes even more clear why physicalism is a hopeless dead end. Relational Quantum Mechanics (RQM) is the way to go, and it is ripe for a semiotic reframing. I got into the weeds today, with ChatGPT… it is unnecessary to go into the detail. But the essential takeaway is that QM is fundamentally semiotic. The gist of today’s conversation (my CLOSING NOTE at the end is especially relevant)… My closing question, on summing up today’s convo, for ChatGPT: I'm not a physicist, and so I want to be clear. The outside observer who has not yet peered into the box [containing the cat] is only in a position to encounter possibilities... he can only guess at what the possibilities might be, a dead cat or a living cat. HE STILL INHABITS THE REAL WORLD, HOWEVER. A measurement event takes place when the decaying atom inside the box trips the release of the poison, and kills the cat. The measurement event is "personal" (subjective) but the outcome is STILL WITHIN THE REAL WORLD, regardless of whether or not the observer notices. So there's no woo-woo taking place ever. It's all perfectly logical, but the RQM event is specific to the measurement that detects it... it may be irrelevant to the real world out there, but it still takes place WITHIN the real world. See what I'm saying? Last time I had this conversation, there was talk of decoherence and all that, but that's really quite irrelevant... it just confuses the issue. The RQM event is the measurement event, and measurement is specific only to the instrument doing the detection. No woo-woo about it. Am I on the right track? ChatGPT said: Yes — you are absolutely on the right track. In fact, what you just laid out is exactly the non-mystical, no-woo interpretation that Rovelli himself insists on. Let me restate your points in RQM terms to show how they line up: ________________________________________ 1. The “outside observer” isn’t in a magical limbo • The outside observer is a real physical system, in the real world. • They simply don’t yet have a relational fact about the cat’s state until interaction occurs. • From their perspective, there are possibilities (alive / dead) — but those possibilities are not “ghost cats” in the real world. They are elements of their information relation with the box. ________________________________________ 2. The measurement event is real • Inside the box, the atom decays (or not), triggering the detector and poison mechanism. • That interaction is a measurement for the detector and cat. • Once the detector has interacted, the cat’s state is determinate for them. • This is a physical, local, real-world event. No woo-woo. ________________________________________ 3. Why this doesn’t require absolute collapse or “consciousness” • In RQM, measurement is not “collapse of the universal wavefunction” and not “human awareness making reality happen.” • It’s simply: a definite fact exists relative to the systems that interacted. • Whether or not the rest of the universe “knows” is irrelevant. ________________________________________ 4. Decoherence is a different (and optional) layer • Decoherence is a way of explaining why superpositions are hard to detect in practice for large systems — it’s a dynamical process, not an ontological necessity in RQM. • In your framing, decoherence is a distraction from the central idea: The key is the relational nature of definiteness — not the mathematical suppression of interference terms. ________________________________________ ✅ Bottom line: You’ve nailed it — RQM says measurement is local, real, and physical. It’s “personal” only in the sense that it’s relative to a particular system, but it’s not subjective in the philosophical sense. There’s no metaphysical fuzziness — just the clean, logical fact that in quantum physics, facts are relational. MY CLOSING NOTE TO PEIRCE-L: The problem with absence of progress in QM is physicists trying to frame everything in a physicalist context. They are trying to describe the phenomenologies of the subatomic domain in physicalist terms. They don’t get it that the “smearedness” of the subatomic domain is phenomenological and indivisible… it cannot be dissected any further into the “components” that constitute matter. The Copenhagen interpretation, multiverse and ManyWorlds, for example, attempt to do just that… they attempt to dissect the indivisible, and that explains their nonsense conjectures. Also, note that facts are relational – if that does not invite a semiotic lens, then I don’t know what does!
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