Gary F., Lists, Although I found came upon the quotation below in searching for texts on "genuineness" in Peirce, I've decided to give this post a new subject line as it seems only tangentially related to dicisigns.
The passage (copied below) has interested me for years, so much so that at one point I made extensive notes on it and some related passages in preparation for writing a paper having the working title, "Peirce and Chirality," but I got distracted by life and never finished it. Yet I remain as interested in "handedness" as ever and, in truth, have been ever since, in my twenties I believe, I read a marvelous piece of popular science by Martin Gardner titled *The Ambidextrous Universe,* which in it latest updated version has been re-titled *The *New* Ambidextrous Universe: Symmetry and Assymmetry from Mirror Reflections to Superstrings. *I would like to get into Peirce and chirality at some point after the NP seminar if there's interest in that topic and will then refer to some of the sources the Gardner book took me to. The Peirce passage, a long paragraph which I've broken up into several smaller ones, is of some interest in relation not only to chirality but to several topics which have recently been discussed on these lists,and especially to the problem of the origin of life. In segment (a). Peirce writes that he has not found a single "genuine triadic relation" which is not "an intellectual relation" or one concerned with the "phenomena of life." This would seem to argue against a pre-biological semiosis *if* genuine triadic relations are considered sine qua non for semiosis (but are they?) But then he offers by way of "brute, inorganic" example, chirality, and argues that L- R-handedness (d) "could not be caused by the inorganic action of dynamical law": (e) . . . the only way in which the laws of dynamics involve triadic relations is by their reference to second differentials of positions. But though a second differential generally involves a triadic relation, yet owing to the law of the conservation of energy [. . .] which has been sufficiently proved for purely inorganic phenomena, the dynamic laws for such phenomena are expressible in terms of first differentials. It is, therefore, a non-genuine, or, as I phrase it, a "degenerate" form of triadic relationship. So, given that the pervasive holochirality in the universe seems inexplicable unless 'chance' be offered as its explanation, while (d) "it is a question whether absolute chance -- pure tychism -- ought not to be regarded as a product of freedom, and therefore of life," Peirce concludes that in consideration of "the problem of how life first came about" that (e). . the problem of how genuine triadic relationships first arose in the world is a better, because more definite, formulation of the problem of how life first came about; and no explanation has ever been offered except that of pure chance, which we must suspect to be no explanation, owing to the suspicion that pure chance may itself be a vital phenomenon. Of course since his time there have been other explanations offered. What interests me for now is that in that earlier comment in (d) as to whether absolute chance "ought not to be regarded as a product of freedom, and therefore of life" Peirce adds a remarkable phrase modifying 'life', namely, "not necessarily physiological." Thus, the complete snippet reads: . . . it is a question whether absolute chance -- pure tychism -- ought not to be regarded as *a product of freedom, and therefore of life, not necessarily physiological*. (emphasis added) But what can that phrase "not necessarily physiological" be pointing to? Still, and mainly, Peirce offers "the problem of how genuine triadic relationships first arose in the world" as being "a better, because more definite, formulation of the problem of how life first came about." It would appear that this matter of "genuineness" really might be a key to resolving a number of issues currently under discussion, and I'm glad you brought it up Gary. Here's the complete passage referred to: a. For forty years, that is, since the beginning of the year 1867, I have been constantly on the alert to find a genuine triadic relation -- that is, one that does not consist in a mere collocation of dyadic relations [. . . ] which is not either an intellectual relation or a relation concerned with the less comprehensible phenomena of life. I have not met with one which could not reasonably be supposed to belong to one or other of these two classes. b. As a case as nearly brute and inorganic as any, I may mention the form of relationship involved in any screw-form which is definitely of the right-hand, or occidental, mode, or is definitely of the Japanese, or left-handed, mode. Such a relation exists in every carbon-atom whose four valencies are saturated by combination with four atoms of as many different kinds. But where the action of chance determines whether the screw be a right-handed or a left-handed one, the two forms will, in the long run, be produced in equal proportions, and the general result will not be definitely, or decisively, of either kind. c. We know no case of a definitely right-handed or left-handed screw-phenomenon, where the decision is not certainly due to the intervention of a definitely one-sided screw in the conditions of that decision, except in cases where the choice of a living being determines it; as when Pasteur picked out under the microscope the two kinds of crystals of a tartrate, and shoved those of one kind to the right and those of the other kind to the left. d. We do not know the mechanism of such choice, and cannot say whether it be determined by an antecedent separation of left-handed screws from right-handed screws or not. No doubt, all that chance is competent to destroy, it may, once in a long, long time, produce; but it is a question whether absolute chance -- pure tychism -- ought not to be regarded as a product of freedom, and therefore of life, not necessarily physiological. It could not be caused, apparently, by the inorganic action of dynamical law. e. For the only way in which the laws of dynamics involve triadic relations is by their reference to second differentials of positions. But though a second differential generally involves a triadic relation, yet owing to the law of the conservation of energy, which has been sufficiently proved for purely inorganic phenomena, the dynamic laws for such phenomena are expressible in terms of first differentials. It is, therefore, a non-genuine, or, as I phrase it, a "degenerate" form of triadic relationship which is involved in such case. In short, the problem of how genuine triadic relationships first arose in the world is a better, because more definite, formulation of the problem of how life first came about; and no explanation has ever been offered except that of pure chance, which we must suspect to be no explanation, owing to the suspicion that pure chance may itself be a vital phenomenon. In that case, life in the physiological sense would be due to life in the metaphysical sense. . . . CP 6.322 Best, Gary R.
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