Kirsti, you make a sensible observation. Speaking for myself, it looks like I have become a bit sloppy in my wording... I used to write "mind-body unity" but have become lazy, shortening it to "mind-body", assuming that people will take the "unity" part for granted. But is there an alternative to writing "mind-body unity" every time? I like Ken Wilber's use of the word "holon", but not everybody knows what that means. I suppose the word "entity" is an alternative to "holon" and I've seen that used in the past. Cheers sj
-----Original Message----- From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Wednesday, 16 September 2015 3:23 PM To: Clark Goble Cc: PEIRCE-L Subject: Re: [peirce-l] [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:8863] The problem with instinct - it's a category Dear list, I sincerely do find talk about "mind-bodies" basically twisted. A modern division, a split, is thereby taken for granted, taken as the starting-point. - A being, be it a human being, or a bee, should remain as the starting point. Best, Kirsti Clark Goble kirjoitti 15.9.2015 21:13: > Apologies - I just found out I’d sent this to the old Peirce list > rather than the new one. My apologies for the problem. Apple Mail > appears to autosuggest based upon what emails you have archived. > Sometimes this leads to the old list getting picked up. Unfortunately > Mail’s UI also doesn’t display the full email unless you click on it. > So unless I click on the Peirce-L name I occasionally get the wrong > email. When I’m posting regularly I always remember. When I’m posting > infrequently (as has of late been the case) then I can forget. Once > again my apologies again. > > On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 12:03 PM, Clark Goble <[email protected]> wrote: > >> On Sep 8, 2015, at 1:36 PM, Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Stephen, >> you wrote: "The axiomatic principles of cognition (Peirce’s >> categories) will establish how mind-bodies define the things that >> matter." >> Again, I think that we have different concepts of the term "know" or >> "cognition". In my understanding, cognition does not appear in the >> three categories from the start, but is a matter of subcategories. I >> agree, that everything underlies the three categories >> possibility/quality, actuality/relation, representation/continuity. >> Secondness has two modes, and thirdness has three modes. These modes, >> or subcategories, again have submodes, or subcategories as before. I >> think, that knowledge is a matter of eg. thirdness of thirdness of >> thirdness, or something like that. >> >> It seems to me Peirce adopts a position where things are more >> mind-like or more matter-like as a matter of degree rather than kind. >> I’m not sure it relates directly to the categories beyond the idea of >> consciousness seems tied to firstness in certain ways. >> Yet the categories are always at play in an irreducible way. >> >> At times Peirce appears to see the more mind-like as what is less >> constrained. So evolution is leading to the development of substance >> as a kind of permanence. Up to that time there is more “swerve” >> and that swerve, when seen from the inside, is likely traditional >> phenomenal mind. >> >> This ontology of Peirce is probably the most controversial aspect of >> his thought but it does lead to all sorts of interesting >> considerations. An analogy someone else brought up recently was >> Richard Feynman’s QED really being thinking what it must be like to >> be an electron. In this conception there’s always an inside and >> outside and Peirce isn’t quite so divorced from Kant as people >> assume. Yet in taking this inner view we don’t have the thing in >> itself in quite the same fashion. If only because Peirce lets >> firstness create a sign. Indeed remembering our experience of a >> phenomena is always a sign (thirdness) in response to firstness. >> >> That may be what you mean by modes or subcategories though. (Forgive >> me - haven’t yet caught up on my reading of the list) >> >> On Sep 8, 2015, at 12:18 PM, Stephen Jarosek <[email protected]> >> wrote: >> >> Bees are conscious in accordance with the same principles that we are >> conscious. This is one important aspect of the axiomatic framework >> that I base my thinking on. That is to say, Peirce’s categories apply >> to _all_organisms, even cells. >> >> Pierce says bees have mind. I’m not sure he means by that they are >> conscious in any strong way. It seems a matter of degree for Peirce. >> >> >>> Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in the >>> work of bees, of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world; >>> and one can no more deny that it is really there, than that the >>> colors, the shapes, etc., of objects are really there. >>> Consistently adhere to that unwarrantable denial, and you will be >>> driven to some form of idealistic nominalism akin to Fichte’s. >>> Not only is thought in the organic world, but it develops there. >>> But as there cannot be a General without Instances embodying it, so >>> there cannot be thought without Signs. We must here give “Sign” a >>> very wide sense, no doubt, but not too wide a sense to come within >>> our definition. Admitting that connected Signs must have a >>> Quasi-mind, it may further be declared that there can be no isolated >>> sign. Moreover, signs require at least two Quasi-minds; a >>> Quasi-utterer and a Quasi-interpreter; and although these two are at >>> one (i.e., are one mind) in the sign itself, they must nevertheless >>> be distinct. In the Sign they are, so to say, welded. >>> Accordingly, it is not merely a fact of human Psychology, but a >>> necessity of Logic, that every logical evolution of thought should >>> be dialogic. You may say that all this is loose talk; and I admit >>> that, as it stands, it has a large infusion of arbitrariness. It >>> might be filled out with argument so as to remove the greater part >>> of this fault; but in the first place, such an expansion would >>> require a volume - and an uninviting one; and in the second place, >>> what I have been saying is only to be applied to a slight >>> determination of our system of diagrammatization, which it will only >>> slightly affect; so that, should it be incorrect, the utmost certain >>> effect will be a danger that our system may not represent every >>> variety of non-human thought. (“Prolegomena to an Apology for >>> Pragmaticism CP 4.551) >> Whenever you have signs, even physical signs, you have a quasi-mind. >> So of course thirdness applies to them the same as it does us. The >> question of feeling or firstness seems a bit more tricky. >> >> As I recall to the degree he talks about consciousness it’s the inner >> aspect of the “swerve” or chaos. In other places he says we have >> consciousness to the degree we have self-control. I think this aspect >> of his ontology is among the most controversial of his views. I think >> one can adopt most of his system without adopting this particular >> thread. (Which I think comes out of the remnant of Kant’s “in-itself” >> that survives no external thing-in-itself) >> >>> …whatever is First is _ipso facto _sentient. If I make atoms swerve >>> - as I do - I make them swerve but very very little, because I >>> conceive they are not absolutely dead. And by that I do not mean >>> exactly that I hold them to be physically such as the materialists >>> hold them to be, only with a small dose of sentiency superadded. For >>> that, I grant, would be feeble enough. But what I mean is, that all >>> there IS, is First, Feelings; Second, Efforts; Third, Habits - all >>> of which are more familiar to us on their psychical side than on >>> their physical side; and that dead matter would be merely the final >>> result of the complete induration of habit reducing the free play of >>> feeling and the brute irrationality of effort to complete death (CP >>> 6.201) >>> >>> What further is needed to clear the sign of its mental associations >>> is furnished by generalizations too facile to arrest attention here, >>> since nothing but feeling is exclusively mental. >>> But while I say this, it must not be inferred that I regard >>> consciousness as a mere “epiphenomenon”; though I heartily grant >>> that the hypothesis that it is so has done good service to science. >>> To my apprehension, consciousness may be defined as that congeries >>> of non-relative predicates, varying greatly in quality and in >>> intensity, which are symptomatic of the interaction of the outer >>> world,— the world of those causes that are exceedingly compulsive >>> upon the modes of consciousness, with general disturbance sometimes >>> amounting to shock, and are acted upon only slightly, and only by a >>> special kind of effort, muscular effort,— and of the inner world, >>> apparently derived from the outer, and amenable to direct effort of >>> various kinds with feeble reactions, the interaction of these two >>> worlds chiefly consisting of a direct action of the outer world upon >>> the inner and an indirect action of the inner world upon the outer >>> through the operation of habits. If this be a correct account of >>> consciousness, i.e., of the congeries of feelings, it seems to me >>> that it exercises a real function in self-control, since without it, >>> or at least without that of which it is symptomatic, the resolves >>> and exercises of the inner world could not affect the real >>> determinations and habits of the outer world. I say that these >>> belong to the outer world because they are not mere fantasies but >>> are real agencies. (Pierce, Pragmatism EP 2.418-419) >> >> As I said this is controversial. At the time it put Peirce quite at >> odds with the mechanistic determinacy that was taken for granted in >> physics. Today we allow chance or swerve, yet it seems a kind of >> deterministic probability that still is at odds with Peirce’s notion >> of control. >> >> It would seem that Peirce would allow sentiency to even an electron >> in some degree yet it seems the ability to control ones behavior and >> form habits that makes for the degree of consciousness.
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