Edwina, list,
I don´t know, why you wrote twice "I dont´ know", now I can only repeat what I already wrote: If the universe is a CAS, and a CAS as a whole is adaptive, then the question is, to what it adapts. It does not have a spatial environment to adapt to, therefore that, what it adapts to, usually referred to as "environment", must be inside. Because, due to being spatially inside, this is not a spatial environment, it must be a functional environment, similar to such one Luhmann has described. Elements, that have undergone an emergence, have thus emancipated from the system, may be called the system´s "environment". The question is, how does, or can, the system universe keep control over the emerged elements, or can´t it. This question is not only about the universe, but e.g., also about the human sphere, and if it (the humans) can keep control over AI.
The question is also: May it happen, that a system is not more than its parts, but less than them? Of course, this may be, if the system has integrated already emerged elements. But, if the emergence of elements has taken place with elements, that already have been parts of the system, then what. If the pre-emerged elements are not integrated, but produced by the system, then also what.
Best, Helmut
7. Oktober 2025 um 20:43
"Edwina Taborsky" <[email protected]>
wrote:I don’t know where you are getting your definition of a CAS, but ‘adaptivity' is not only a property of emergent elements, but is a property of the system as a whole.
I don’t know what you mean by an’environment’ being spatially inside’.
A CAS refers to a cohesive system operating within a particular spatial and temporal domain, whose individual members of the system [ examples are biological cells, animal and bird swarms, bees, ants, people, economic markets etc] network with each other, creating feedback, leading to patterns of. behaviour that can’t be predicted ..but this behaviour is self-organized within the system [ ie - not by a central authority], the individual agents in the system adapt, evolve, develop new interactions..again, from within the system not from a higher authority, not from a top-down organization, but from within the system itself…..., all agents are highly connected but not ‘leading the way’..ie, the system self-organizes and can develop novel properties...…; the system as a whole is ‘far-from-equilibrium, ie, it is not stable or static;
Nothing to do with morality or….
Again, the research on CAS is huge -
Edwina
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . ► UNSUBSCRIBE FROM PEIRCE-L . But, if your subscribed email account is not your default email account, then go to https://list.iu.edu/sympa/signoff/peirce-l . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.On Oct 7, 2025, at 12:17 PM, Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> wrote:
Edwina, List,if the adaptivity is only a property of emergent elements, but not of the system as a whole, then Wikipedia and some others too are wrong, and the term "complex adaptive system" is false. Unless an environment may be spatially inside, as I wrote after Luhmann. My question is, if there is a system, that has elements, which have undergone an emergence towards self-organization and adaptivity, is it guaranteed then, that the system itself is emergent, complex, and adaptive, or do the elements then belong to its environment, and if so, can the system -guaranteedly- adapt to this spatially inner, but functionally outer, environment? In Luhmann-speak: Is the structural coupling effective? Goethe, with his tale "The sorcerer´s apprentice" obviously feared, that this cannnot be taken for granted, and today many people have the same fear about artificial intelligence. The theological question, whether the good will at last prevail over the evil, is also about this, with a more optimistic, but for me too terminal narrative (I don´t want to wait until judgement day). My attempt to reduce this question to boolean logic may be too trivial. In Boolean, a "plus" is "or", but to handle this question, the Peircean categories have to be regarded too. I think, the question is quite important, and I can not answer it right away.Best, Helmut_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Helmut; list6. Oktober 2025 um 21:25"Edwina Taborsky" <[email protected]>wrote:_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . ► UNSUBSCRIBE FROM PEIRCE-L . But, if your subscribed email account is not your default email account, then go to https://list.iu.edu/sympa/signoff/peirce-l . ► PEIRCE-L is owned by THE PEIRCE GROUP; moderated by Gary Richmond; and co-managed by him and Ben Udell.
Now _ I’m confused. Yet another new thread. Am I allowed to post a comment?I will only say- Helmut, your definition of a CAS as ‘adapting to its environment’ is incorrect! The definition of a CAS is the focus on the internal energy/matter of the system, which is operating in self-organization.I recommend Stu Kauffman’s excellent book: The Origins of Order: self-organization and selection in Evolution’. And particularly his Ch 5: Self-Organization and Adaptation in complex systems …where he outlines the emergence of order within systems…He even uses terms of ‘ordered, complex and chaotic' which suggests 2ns, 3ns and 1ns….The research field of complex adaptive systems is vast , with its focus on emergent properties, anticipatory computation, self-organization, far-from-equilibrium state…etc. Check out the Santa Fe Institute which is devoted to it.Edwina
On Oct 6, 2025, at 12:59 PM, Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> wrote:
List,We, I too, have different opinions, whether the universe is a CAS or not. A CAS adapts to its environment, so I have read at Wikipedia and others. Now, does the universe have an environment? My opinion is: The universe consists of its qualities, its spatiality, and of its functionality (categories 1 to 3). For the environment-question, spatiality and functonality are critical. The universe does not have a spatial environment, as far as we know. Does it have a functional environment?Detour "Luhmann": For Luhmann, a social system consists of communications, and the communicating units, humans, psychological systems, belong to the social system´s environment. I am not sure, if this is agreeable, Luhmann is a bit special.But if we transform this idea, we might say: The phaneron consists of signs, and the individuals that use the signs belong to its environment. So the phaneron may be adaptive, may be a CAS, as it has an environment to adapt to. Further, we might say, that the universe functionally consists spatially of individuals and other entities, and functionally of the phaneron. Now, can a system, that functionally partially consists of a CAS, be itself not a CAS?Logically, if A is C, B is not C, U is A or B, then U is not necessarily C. But if U is A and B, then U is C. But is the universe (U) either "A and B" or "A or B"? What does "to consist of" mean, "and" or "or"? At this point, logic leaves me. Is the universe a CAS? I don´t know.Best, Helmut6. Oktober 2025 um 14:12"Edwina Taborsky" <[email protected]>wrote:List, Gary R,
A few things- but I think this is a thread-that-goes-nowhere as we are each working within different hypotheses about Peircean cosmology.
I am taking as granted, that Peirce is analysing the universe within the fundamental laws of physics, in particular of thermodynamics.
The First Law refers to the conservation of energy – ie that energy can’t be created or destroyed. This means that the universe has ‘its energy’ and can neither increase nor decrease it – but, with reference to the Second Law, it CAN reduce the operational functionality of this energy by dissipation of ‘what holds it’ to the least complex cohesive forms. That is - all closed systems – and the universe is such – naturally tend towards maximum entropy and minimum useful energy. The goal of the three categories as I see it – is to prevent this end state.
I reject that Thirdness is primary; that essentially says that the most complex of the methods of organization of energy/matter is primary in agency and authoritative action. How can this be? After all- if you posit that Thirdness is primary, you then have to ask: where would this most complex system get both its energy content and its complex organization of this energy? Not from less energy content and less complex formats since you’ve ruled this out by defining Thirdness as ‘first’.or the most basic. So- you are setting up a teleological or ‘prior agency’ causal supposition to this modal category- and I don’t see the evidence for this in Peirce..
Instead – as I understand Peirce, Thirdness develops internally within and by the categorical modes…
- - the reality is that Thirdness as the laws of organization evolves and changes, A habit might have evolved by chance [ 7: 521] ‘the first germ of law was an entity, which itself arose by chance, that is as a First”…but, this habit would then become a continuity of organization for[ 7.515 ], “a law can evolve or develop itself…with a ‘generalizing tendency”. See also7.512 ‘the laws of nature are the results of an evolutionary process’..which is ‘still in progress’ 7.514.
- As he writes” the laws of the universe have been formed under a universal tendency of all things toward generalization and habit-taking [7.515]. This means – that these laws are formed within and BY the universe itself as a semiosic process- and- that this is a dynamic changing process,
And he refers to continuity [Thirdness] ‘It must have its origin in the original continuity which is inherent in potentiality. Continuity as generality, is inherent in potentiality, which is essentially general. 6.204. So, Thirdness is a legitimate result of both Firstness and Secondness and develops its emergent order [ a feature of a CAS] from the actions of these less complex modes.. I see little differentiation between what some are saying is the early cosmology and the later – an original chaos or lack of determinacy – and a later indeterminant generality’.
What is the function of the three categories? As I see it-To organize energy into matter such that entropy of the universe is prevented. The method of Firstness has several actions – first – it gathers and compresses energy into a short spatial and temporal reality – eg a ‘burst of light’. This is in present time, an experience of ‘nowness’, and short-lived and will on its own rapidly dissipate. And as I said – Firstness as freedom and chance, frees energy from closed perimeters. But Secondness, operating in perfect or discrete and linear or connected time sets up this energy within distinct spatial and temporal horizons – which provides more stability to energy preservation. What it adds is indexical or actual physical connexions with other instantiations. These physical links serve to expand and maintain energy and provide a mode of stability. That is – initially independent modes of energy become integrated into larger organizations by indexical connections. Then Thirdness, the most complex, operating in progressive or continuous time and non-local space organizes energy/matter by means of, not local horizons and mechanical connections, as with 2ns, but within non-local quasi-mind general patterns of organization of morphological organization – which serve to expand the spatial territory and temporal duration of this matter.
None are primary; all are foundational and indeed, emerge within each other. . So- ….that’s where it’s at…We differ in our interpretations.
As for the concept of a CAS [Complex Adaptive System] I’d only suggest that before making assertions about them, that you check out what a CAS really is -
Edwina
On Oct 6, 2025, at 1:26 AM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]> wrote:
Jon, List,JAS: In accordance with my label of the first cosmological "layer" as the constitution of being, you are correct that it would apply to any possible universe. However, as I see it, there is no reason to suspect that any other universes exist except our own; in fact, since such a conception has no practical bearings, it is "meaningless gibberish" (CP 5.423, EP 2:338, 1905).GR: From a strictly Peircean pragmatic sense that may be so. But 'practical bearings' sometimes occur following a leap into what earlier seemed like "meaningless gibberish." There are myriad examples of 'crazy ideas' (wild hypotheses) which once realized (e.g. quantum mechanics) proved to have considerable "practical bearings." That is to say that in the 21st century I don't believe that we need to cling so closely to 19th and early 20th century cosmologies since missions like the James Webb Space Telescope Program has shown our cosmos to be truly incomprehensibly large, complex, and sometimes 'weird'. Just consider the size of it! There are an estimated 2 to 20 trillion galaxies in the observable universe, and a total of approximately 200 sextillion stars (200 billion trillion stars) in the observable universeIn any event, there are conjectures offered by modern cosmologists suggesting that there may be other universes than our own, or there may have been in the past, or there may be in the future. For one random example, the theory of eternal inflation (to which I don't necessarily subscribe) suggests that while inflation ended locally (that is, created our observable universe), it continues elsewhere, generating countless “bubble” universes, each potentially with different physical laws (a different selection of Platonic ideas?)JAS: Put another way, the inexhaustible continuum (3ns) of indefinite possibilities (1ns) indeed transcends our universe, but those possibilities that have been actualized (2ns) constitute our universe. After all, Peirce posits multiple "Platonic worlds" but only one "actual universe of existence," which is the one "in which we happen to be" (CP 6.208, 1898).GR: Yet as just suggested above, other possibilities, other 'Platonic worlds', may have given birth to any number of other universes. God only knows. If these exist can we ever know them? That seems even more unlikely than our knowing in any significant detail any of the trillions of galaxies in our universe. How pragmatically 'real' are they for us?JAS: My use of "complete chaos" to describe the initial state of things also comes directly from Peirce. "The original chaos, therefore, where there was no regularity, was in effect a state of mere indeterminacy, in which nothing existed or really happened" (CP 1.411, EP 1:278, 1887-8). "The state of things in the infinite past is chaos, tohu bohu, the nothingness of which consists in the total absence of regularity" (CP 8.317, 1891). "So, that primeval chaos in which there was no regularity was mere nothing, from a physical aspect" (CP 6.265, EP 1:348, 1892). "In the original chaos, where there was no regularity, there was no existence. ... This we may suppose was in the infinitely distant past" (CP 1.175, c. 1897).GR: All these examples cited are dated before the 1898 lecture series. I would maintain that they principally apply to the first, earlier phase of Peirce's cosmological thinking. I do not see 'chaos' as mentioned in the 'blackboard' lecture. Rather, as I see it, the selection of those "Platonic ideas" which would become our own universe had a sort of primal logic -- not chaotic at all.As I see it, in the 1898 lectures Peirce replaces the imagery of chaos with exactly that of an indeterminate continuum of generality, the blank blackboard on which marks can be drawn and erased, redrawn, stabilized, etc. Here, the proto-cosmos originates not from “chaos” (unstructured randomness) but from generality or continuity (3ns) that can generate particularity and reaction (1ns and 2ns).JAS: To clarify, Peirce explicitly describes the universe as "a vast representamen," but he does not directly connect his remarks about a "perfect sign" to the universe, and I am not aware of any writings where he refers to a "semiosic continuum." That is why the subtitle of my "Semiosic Synechism" paper is "A Peircean Argumentation," not "Peirce's Argumentation"; I believe that my synthesis is faithful to his insights, but I recognize that he never spelled it out that way himself.GR: Thanks for the clarification on this point: I must have incorporated your synthesis into my thinking; and for your clarifying two other related points in the conclusion of your post.Best,Gary R
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _On Sun, Oct 5, 2025 at 8:56 PM Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> wrote:_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Gary R., List:In accordance with my label of the first cosmological "layer" as the constitution of being, you are correct that it would apply to any possible universe. However, as I see it, there is no reason to suspect that any other universes exist except our own; in fact, since such a conception has no practical bearings, it is "meaningless gibberish" (CP 5.423, EP 2:338, 1905). Put another way, the inexhaustible continuum (3ns) of indefinite possibilities (1ns) indeed transcends our universe, but those possibilities that have been actualized (2ns) constitute our universe. After all, Peirce posits multiple "Platonic worlds" but only one "actual universe of existence," which is the one "in which we happen to be" (CP 6.208, 1898).My use of "complete chaos" to describe the initial state of things also comes directly from Peirce. "The original chaos, therefore, where there was no regularity, was in effect a state of mere indeterminacy, in which nothing existed or really happened" (CP 1.411, EP 1:278, 1887-8). "The state of things in the infinite past is chaos, tohu bohu, the nothingness of which consists in the total absence of regularity" (CP 8.317, 1891). "So, that primeval chaos in which there was no regularity was mere nothing, from a physical aspect" (CP 6.265, EP 1:348, 1892). "In the original chaos, where there was no regularity, there was no existence. ... This we may suppose was in the infinitely distant past" (CP 1.175, c. 1897).I agree that the entire universe cannot possibly be a complex adaptive system without existing within an environment to which it is adapting itself, and that 1ns encompasses not only qualities but also "Freedom, or Chance, or Spontaneity" (CP 6.200, 1898).GR: Peirce’s grand semeiotic vision in which the universe itself is conceived as a vast sign, a perfect sign, and a semiosic continuum from which facts (and events?) are prescindedTo clarify, Peirce explicitly describes the universe as "a vast representamen," but he does not directly connect his remarks about a "perfect sign" to the universe, and I am not aware of any writings where he refers to a "semiosic continuum." That is why the subtitle of my "Semiosic Synechism" paper is "A Peircean Argumentation," not "Peirce's Argumentation"; I believe that my synthesis is faithful to his insights, but I recognize that he never spelled it out that way himself.As for your reference to "facts (and events?)," Peirce seems to maintain that we only prescind facts, because he defines an event as "an existential junction of incompossible facts ... The event is the existential junction of states (that is, of that which in existence corresponds to a statement about a given subject in representation) whose combination in one subject would violate the logical law of contradiction" (CP 1.492&494, c. 1896). This is consistent with his remark a decade later, "A fact is so highly a prescissively abstract state of things, that it can be wholly represented in a simple proposition" (CP 5.549, EP 2:378, 1906).Peirce also takes exception with "the idea that a cause is an event of such a kind as to be necessarily followed by another event which is the effect" (CP 6.66, 1898). On the contrary, "So far as the conception of cause has any validity ... the cause and its effect are two facts" (CP 6.67). "Now it is the ineluctable blunder of a nominalist ... to talk of the cause of an event. But it is not an existential event that has a cause. It is the fact, which is the reference of the event to a general relation, that has a cause" (CP 6.93, 1903). We prescind two different facts and recognize that the earlier one is a cause, the later one is its effect, and the change from one state of things to the other is an event.Regards,Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAStructural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
On Sat, Oct 4, 2025 at 11:00 PM Gary Richmond <[email protected]> wrote:Jon, List,
We are clearly in agreement on one matter: that while Peirce initially conceived the universe as beginning with 1ns (possibility, “boundless freedom”), he later came to see 3ns (generality, continuity, habit-taking) as primordial. Categorial involution—that is, that 3ns involves 2ns & 1ns, and 2ns involves only 1ns—adds logical support to that later view. Additional support comes from your arguing the cosmological integration of these three as a continuum (3ns) of indefinite possibilities (1ns), only some of which become actualized (2ns), with the sequence of events unfolding as spontaneity (1ns), reaction (2ns), and habit (3ns). As you argue, this reinforces an underlying evolutionary trajectory from chaos, through process, toward regularity (ultimately, complete regularity in Peirce’s view).JAS: My own attempt at integrating these two accounts or phases was to suggest that the constitution (or hierarchy) of being is an inexhaustible continuum (3ns) of indefinite possibilities (1ns), some of which are actualized (2ns); while the sequence of events in each case when this happens consists of spontaneity (1ns) followed by reaction (2ns) and then habit-taking (3ns). The resulting overall evolution of states is from complete chaos (1ns) in the infinite past, through this ongoing process (3ns) at any assignable date, toward complete regularity (2ns) in the infinite future. These three "layers" conform respectively to your categorial vectors of representation, order, and process. (Emphasis added, GR)
You seem to be arguing that your three layers (italicized above): the constitution of being, the sequence of events, and the overall evolution of states all apply to our existing universe. I don't agree. As I've been arguing, the blackboard metaphor suggests to me that your first layer, the constitution of being, does not apply only to our universe, but to any possible universe that might come into existence. Indeed, in my view 'being' is not 'constituted' in the proto-universe represented by the blackboard at all -- that's why I refer to it as a proto-universe. There is, no doubt, a reality moving towards existence; but in my reading of the lecture in which the blackboard analogy appears, out of the infinite number of 'Platonic ideas' any number of different ones might have been 'selected' so that some other universe different from ours might have come into existence (who knows? has come into existence).I would also not call the proto-world foreshadowing our existent cosmos "complete chaos". The ur-continuity of the blackboard already suggests that there is something in the cosmic schema that has the capacity and intelligence to select just those Platonic ideas which can be and will be realized in an actual, existential, evolutionary cosmos such as ours. What seems at all 'chaotic' to me is that infinite number of Platonic 'ideas' (characters, qualities, dimensions, categories, etc.) But do those possibilities actually represent chaos?But to return for a moment to a different cosmological disagreement, it has been pointed out before by several on the List including both of us, that the universe as a whole cannot qualify as a complex adaptive system because it does not exist within a larger environment to which it must constantly adapt. For example, in Peirce's cosmology 1ns corresponds not essentially to qualities but to pure possibility and “boundless freedom.” In his 1898 blackboard analogy Peirce explicitly does not confine these categories to the spatiotemporal universe; instead, he refers to “Platonic worlds” of infinite possibilities, some of which become the characters of a universe which will come into being. He is clear that this particular universe in which we live and breathe and have our being came out of one such Platonic world, which may even suggest, as I and others have noted, an early multi-universe model.
The two later developments in Peirce’s thought which you say shaped your own synthesis, Jon: (1) the topical conception of continuity which sees a continuum as an undivided whole of indefinite parts, and (2) Peirce’s grand semeiotic vision in which the universe itself is conceived as a vast sign, a perfect sign, and a semiosic continuum from which facts (and events?) are prescinded—further explicates and extends Peirce’s cosmology.
Best,
Gary R
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