Gary R, Helmut, List
Helmut – a CAS is not the same as the systems you outline. A CAS, to use a simple dictionary definition refers to how large numbers of interacting components/agents produce complex emergent behaviour and patterns that are not predictable from individual typology – and the system is self organizing. As for democracy- I suggest you read Karl Popper’s the Open Society and Its Enemies.
Gary R – I continue to disagree. You are positing two different cosmological outlines for Peirce; I see only one.
To begin- I do not consider that the ‘Nothing’ Peirce refers to prior to or before the spatiotemporal emergence of the universe is akin to Firstness. First – I consider that all three categories are foundational and fundamental as basic components of the Universe. [ie part of the universe not prior to it]. When Peirce, in 6.217 refers to the beginning of the universe, he says ‘We start with nothing’…and clarifies that this is absolutely undefined and unlimited possibility – boundless possibility. There is no compulsion and no law. It is boundless freedom”. This is not, in my view, akin to Firstness – and I note that at no time did Peirce ever define Firstness [or Thirdness] with the term of ‘Nothing. As he writes in 6.219 – that ‘nothing ‘necessarily resulted from the Nothing of boundless freedom….and says that ‘’what immediately resulted was that unbounded potentiality became potentiality of this or that sort – that is, of some quality’. Ah-- now we have Firstness!....Namely ‘the potentiality of this or that sort…of some quality’”[my emphasis]. This is the definition of Firstness – the term ‘quality’. That is not equivalent to ‘Nothing’. And I consider that this Firstness [quality] is post-universe, ie, with the emergence of the universe within spatiotemporal perimeters.
“Thus, the zero of bare possibility, by evolutionary logic, leapt into the unit of some quality”…6.220.. And this is ‘a particular tinge of consciousness’..a quale consciousness 6.221.
Then, his outline in 1.412 refers only to the prior universe as ‘the womb of indeterminacy’… and THEN ‘by the principle of Firstness, ‘there would have been something..which we may call a flash…and he continues that there would be ‘more flashes…obviously second..and then, the emergence of habits of organization’.
My understanding of the above is that the three categories emerged with the emergence of the spatiotemporal universe – never before. And the emergence of spatiotemporal matter emerged in this post-universe reality..with matter first as feeling [1ns] then as differentiated instantiations [2ns] and then, taking on habits of organization [3ns]. BUT – all three categories emerged with the universe and none existed before.
Now – with regard to the blackboard and your outline of Thirdness as both continuity – and primal. As Peirce notes 6.202, that there is no such thing as Thirdness on its own. “In order to secure Thirdness its really commanding function, I find it indispensable fully to recognize that it is a third, and that Firstness or chance and Secondness or Brute reaction, are other elements without the independence of which Thirdness would not have anything upon which to operate”.
That is – my point is that the origin of the Universe did not posit either Firstness or Thirdness as pre-functioning to its emergence.
The black board analogy is about ‘the beginnings of creation’ 6.203 ie – of material entities, not the emergence of the universe..and it refers to ‘the original vague potentiality, or at any rate, of some early stage of its determination”. This is indeterminate matter in the already existing universe. By drawing a chalk line on the board Peirce sets up a ‘discontinuity’…by which the original vagueness could have made a step towards definiteness’. And’ there is a certain element of continuity in this line”…and points out how the whiteness [of the chalk]is a Firstness,and also, a reference to Secondness [ the differentiation between the chalk mark and the blackboard]…but the ‘stay’ of the mark – suggests a habit…’a generalizing tendency” 204.
My point is that the blackboard analogy does not refer to the origin of the universe but the development of material spatiotemporal instantiations from the original post emergence potentiality – which he refers to as ‘The Aristotelian matter of indeterminacy from which the universe is formed” 6.206. That is – the post emergence universe is made up of ‘indeterminate matter’…which then takes on definitive form and habits.
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. That is, all three categories are foundational..and Thirdness rests on the existence of Firstness – but- again, this is NOT the same as the Nothing of the pre-universe.
As for your reference to continuity- there has to be some concept of WHAT is being or functioning as ‘continuous. Thirdness refers to continual’ habits of organization of matter… and not just to the abstract notion of ‘continuity’..and again, my point is that these three categories are all foundational and emerge with the emergence of the universe. Not prior to it.
I hope that this explains my understanding of Peirce’s analysis – which is indeed quite different from yours.
Edwina
On Oct 3, 2025, at 6:28 PM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]> wrote:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _List,
Over the many years that we've been discussing Peirce's speculative cosmology on Peirce-l, and my being especially interested in the topic -- and so having read as much about it as I've been able to get my hands on -- I have come to the conclusion that there is a shift in Peirce's speculative cosmology between the 1860's, '70's and early 80's, and his later writings of the 1890s, especially the Cambridge Lectures of 1898, then into the 20th century. I would further argue that he never dropped the earlier view, but developed, 'complicated', and reframed it, including as regards his three categories. First, I'll lay out the contrast between his earlier and later views as I see them, and then suggest how they might be integrated.
The early cosmology would seem to suggest an emergence from pure 1ns. In the 1860's, '70's, and especially in the 1880's (see: "A Guess at the Riddle," “Design and Chance,” "The Law of Mind"), Peirce described the universe as originating in a state of absolute nothingness. However, he defined this “nothing” not as a negation, but as a positive kind of pure potentiality associated with 1ns: sheer, unbounded possibility without law, relation, or determinacy.
From this initial 'chaos of feeling', the beginnings of 2ns: (brute action/reaction, resistance, etc.) gradually emerged, and then, over time, 3ns (regularities, habits, eventually general laws) began to form. So, this view is one of a world arising from formless possibility, with law and order as products of evolution
However, by the time of his 1898 Cambridge lectures, Peirce had begun to imagine something somewhat different. There, in his famous 'blackboard' analogy, he suggests that before any actual universe could come into existence that there must have been a kind of general continuity (what I've termed 'ur-continuity', 3ns) already in place, this analogous to the empty but (for the purpose of the analogy) continuous expanse of a blackboard on which marks might be made. This proto-universe is not a chaos of pure 1ns, but rather a background of continuity (3ns) and generality (3ns) in which certain possibilities and actualities could appear. So, instead of laws developing out of chaos, Peirce in 1898 stressed that the general (3ns) itself is primordial. What comes 'first' is not a 'nothing' teeming with 1ns, but rather the indefinite continuum of 3ns, an ur-generality that makes possible both the play of qualities and the clash of events. (I've occasionally pointed to the "Mathematics of Logic" paper as Peirce himself suggesting how difficult it is for some (especially some of the best minds, he remarks) to imagine 3ns as 1st (first); but top-down logic requires it.)
Can these two accounts be integrated? Well, I'm not sure of that, but I do think that they need not essentially contradict each other, that they rather represent a shift in emphasis. So:
In his earlier cosmological thinking (from the side of 1ns) Peirce underscores that the universe had to arise from a state prior to determination, from sheer spontaneity (1ns), vague possibility (1ns). Without this, nothing new could ever come about.
In his later view (from the side of 3ns), Peirce argues that possibility (1ns) cannot be considered except against the backdrop of a general continuity (3ns). Pure spontaneity, pure possibility would be nothing at all unless they subsist within a continuum, a field in which they can appear, disappear, reappear, connect, and stabilize. In short, the blackboard (3ns) provides the proto-condition for the manifestation of 1ns, while the chalk marks (the 'difference', 2ns) portend the proto-conditions for the brute emergence that will begin the process of cosmogenesis of a universe, viz., ours. (While I do not, some might want to think of this "brute emergence" initiating cosmogenesis as the Big Bang.)
What I am suggesting is that Peirce’s speculative cosmology might be read in a kind of dialectical overlay: pure 1ns affording the possibility of emergence in sheer spontaneity. However, this possibility only can become a cosmos within the more primordial field of general continuity (3ns, ur-continuity, the 'blackboard' on which potential qualities and reactions can begin to register).
The above is but a brief outline of what I've been thinking about for years regarding these two phases -- as I see it -- of Peirce's cosmological thinking. It is, of course, dependent on many sources too numerous to name, but here are a few:
Vincent Colapietro, Carl Hausman, Cheryl Misak, Richard Kenneth Atkins, Kelly A. Parker, Jon Alan Schmidt, Lucia Santaella.
Best,
Gary R
On Fri, Oct 3, 2025 at 3:17 PM Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:Gary R, list
I appreciate your attempt to bring disparate views together, but I think they must remain – disparate.
For example, I consider that JAS’s view of the universe and mine – are polar opposites.
I consider JAS’s outline with its top down framework to be a deterministic, a priori centralized process, ignoring Peirce’s outline of
- The formation of the universe from NOTHING [ 1.412,, 6.217, EP2:322] which means – there is no determinism, no specific focus – only a ‘desire’ to be instantiated. – which instantiations are always in a triadic set [EP2;394]
-
- The reality of Firstness as a basic categorical/organizational mode, which means that freedom and chance are a basic component of the universe. See the element of absolute chance in nature’ 7.514
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- - the reality of Thirdness, which means that self-organization of the ‘instantiations [in Secondness] of the universe operates by means of communal habits which enable both complex networks of relations and continuity of type - which in turn prevents entropic dissipation
-
- - the reality 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 of changing process, for, in both cerebral theory and molecular ‘”the non-conservative elements are the predominant ones”.- which makes sense, since the instantiations [ entities organized in Secondness] have finite life spans
-
- Given this brief outline – my view of the Peircean semiosis is that there is no ‘semiotic whole’ and certainly, no ‘constituent parts’. Instead, the universe is a CAS, a complex adaptive system of energy forming itself into matter,, as triadic instantiations or Signs, within all three categorical modes [1ns, 2ns, 3ns]which are networked with each other ….
Edwina
On Oct 1, 2025, at 8:59 PM, Gary Richmond <[email protected]> wrote:
List,
This thread seems to me to have the potential of possibly bridging some of the conceptual gaps between seemingly very different views regarding basic understandings of Peirce's semeiotic. So, thanks for introducing it, Gary F. and for providing links to the very relevant passages in your Turning Signs from which we read, for example:
GF: rather than think of meanings as built up from their component parts, we might better think of them as processes analyzed into those parts for semiotic purposes. Semiosis, even at the most primitive level, is always a process which must continue for some time in some direction (toward the making of some pragmatic difference such as a habit-change). Irreducible Thirdness is essential to it. With this in mind, Peirce gives a holistic top-down account of the relations between arguments, propositions and ‘names’ (i.e. ‘terms’), upending ‘the traditional view that a Proposition is built up of Names, and an Argument of Propositions.’
"… an Argument is no more built up of Propositions than a motion is built up of positions." CSP
Gary’s initial framing of the discussion as Peirce’s semeiotic holism might prove to be an important touchstone here reminding us that perceived objects can themselves be understood as 'artifacts of analysis' in much the same way that individual signs are abstractions from the general semeiotic flow. Gary's reference to current neurobiological research provides posteriori support for Peirce’s insight that at least the perceptual continuum precedes our analytic parsing of it.
GF: Unhealthy as it may be for a special interest or subsystem to dominate a system, there is a kind of temporary dominance which may be necessary for a complex system to act as a unit. For instance,
. . . . . . . .In human as well as nonhuman species, functions seem to be apportioned asymmetrically to the cerebral hemispheres, for reasons which probably have to do with the need for one final controller rather than two, when it comes to choosing an action or a thought. If both sides had equal say on making a movement, you might end up with a conflict – your right hand might interfere with the left, and you would have a lesser chance of producing coordinated patterns of motion involving more than one limb. — Damasio (1994)
. . . it's the left hemisphere's function to ‘break up the holistic fabric of reality’. In this way neuropsychology confirms Peirce's phenomenology which puts the wholeness of feelings First and analysis into parts Second. From this follows Peirce's holistic approach to ‘Logic, or the essence of Semeiotics.’
Jon takes this holism as ontologically fundamental: the universe is not assembled from elementary sign-units but is 'perfused with signs' within a vast continuum from which particulars are prescinded. This aligns with Peirce’s late cosmological vision of the cosmos as 'one immense sign'. In this view, both perception and reasoning begin as undivided wholes, and terms and propositions are artifacts of analysis.
Edwina pushes back against the idea of ontological priority for the whole stressing Peirce’s realism, that is, that there are real things whose characters are independent of our opinions, of our analyses. For her, semiosis is a matter of triadic processes constantly forming and dissolving real entities that exist for varying durations within a CAS. In her view (if I'm not mistaken), individuality is emergent, operating through networks of triadic relations.
Edwina’s view would seem to resonate with Peirce’s early/middle realism and the concreteness of triadic relations, while Jon’s view resonates more with Peirce’s late philosophy (including a cosmology of continuity, universe as sign, synechism, agapism, etc.) where the holism of semiosis is central. Still, Edwina is correct, I think, in arguing that Peirce never abandoned his 'critical' realism about real things and his insistence on the irreducibility of triadic relations in the generation of these things. In a word, Jon’s reading stresses Peirce’s synechistic holism, Edwina’s his insistence on real triadic relations.
Do Gary F's comments perhaps help bridge these positions? To me they suggest that Peirce’s holistic semeiotic can be grounded in both phenomenological analysis and empirical science, that Peirce’s insights can be seen to gel with contemporary scientific perspectives. Still:
GF: . . . neuropsychology confirms Peirce's phenomenology which puts the wholeness of feelings First and analysis into parts Second. From this follows Peirce's holistic approach to ‘Logic, or the essence of Semeiotics.’
Best,
Gary R
On Wed, Oct 1, 2025 at 5:10 PM Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:List_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _I disagree with the outline
the semeiotic whole is ontologically prior to its constituent parts (top-down); not the other way around, as if the former were assembled from the latter as its basic units in the reductionist sense (bottom-up). The entire universe is not composed of individual signs as its building blocks, it is instead perfused with signs (CP 5.448n, EP 2:394, 1906)--a vast symbol that involves indices and icons (CP 5.119, EP 2:193-4, 1903).
The above, in my view, is moving into romantic mysticism. In my understanding of Peirce’s semiosis, the universe, as a semiotic whole is not ontologically prior to its constituents, but is instead, totally composed in the ‘here and now’ of its constituent parts – which are triadic sets- functioning as semiosic processes. There is neither an ontological prior nor post reality; ie, no top down nor bottom up. .
Instead, as Peirce wrote, “There are Real things, whose characters are entirely independent of our opinions about them’..5.384. We must acknowledge this. This does not mean that individual entities exist ‘per se’ in the atomic materialist sense – which has long been debunked. Instead, it acknowledges that this semiosic universe operates as energy/matter constantly forming existentially distinct units. Each entity- which actually has a morphology of a triadic- hexadic set of relations- may last as such for a nanosecond to a hundred, thousands of years ; eg, an atom, a tree, a mountain… When we examine individuality further in its indexicality, we see how the individual unit operates only within a network of relations with other ‘individual entities’ – which relationships can be outlined in any of the ten basic classes of triads, or the more complex 28 hexadic relationships.
What does this mean? To me it means that the universe is a CAS, a complex adaptive system, a self-organized phaneron of energy-as-matter [aka signs], constantly developing new individual entities, operating within habits -of-morphological organization, which habits themselves evolve and adapt. The purpose? I’m afraid I go no further than ‘to prevent entropic dissipation of energy. ..and this is not an ’ontologically prior agenda’.
Edwina
On Oct 1, 2025, at 1:57 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> wrote:
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _Gary F., List:I appreciate the subject line, emphasizing that the semeiotic whole is ontologically prior to its constituent parts (top-down); not the other way around, as if the former were assembled from the latter as its basic units in the reductionist sense (bottom-up). The entire universe is not composed of individual signs as its building blocks, it is instead perfused with signs (CP 5.448n, EP 2:394, 1906)--a vast symbol that involves indices and icons (CP 5.119, EP 2:193-4, 1903).I have indeed regularly quoted that 1906 passage in R 295 (finally published at LF 3/1:234-5) to support my conception of the universe as one immense sign, a semiosic continuum, an ongoing inferential process--an argument from which we prescind facts as represented by propositions using names, those "smaller" signs thus being artifacts of analysis along with their associated objects and interpretants (see also CP 2.27, 1902). I also maintain that perception is likewise an undivided whole from which we prescind predicates, hypostasize some of them into subjects, and attribute others to those subjects in propositions, namely, perceptual judgments-- "the first premisses of all our reasonings" (CP 5.116, EP 2:191, 1903). I provide a few quotations from Peirce to support that understanding in section 3.5 of my "Semiosic Synechism" paper (https://philpapers.org/archive/SCHSSA-42.pdf).Regards,Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAStructural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian
On Wed, Oct 1, 2025 at 11:38 AM <[email protected]> wrote:If I may, I’d like to move on to some a posteriori reasoning (i.e. evidence from the “positive sciences” of phenomenology, neuropsychology and biology) that seems to support aspects of Peirce’s category-based semeiotics.
Helmut, some time ago you expressed some skepticism about my remark in a post that perceived objects are “artifacts of analysis” just as signs are. I didn’t have the time to clarify what I meant back then, but perhaps I can make up for that now, by offering this link: https://gnusystems.ca/TS/scp.htm#csptd .
I’m sure that 1906 passage has been cited here before (probably by JAS), but not the neurobiological work that supports it, which begins here: https://gnusystems.ca/TS/sdg.htm#x13 . That passage from Turning Signs also links to the one above.
Love, gary f
Coming from the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg
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