Jon, List,
Ok, so, again, a term problem. so, if habit is not exclusively a mental fact, I might agree. Like in cybernetics, there are catastrophic and counter-regulative circles, and when first a catastrophic circle starts to work, but then is inhibited by a regulative circle, but in the end the catastrophical start has permanently increased something (established it), this is habit? Ok, it makes sense to me, I agree, habit may be inanimate. It just is hard to see it as something fundamental, because you can analyse it, take it apart into smaller concepts, like I did above. But a system is said to be more than its parts, and maybe fundamentality does not have to mean atomtized part(icle).
Best,
Helmut
24. Januar 2017 um 22:18 Uhr
"Jon Alan Schmidt" <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wrote:
"Jon Alan Schmidt" <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wrote:
Helmut, List:
Keep in mind that for Peirce, "habit" is a much broader term than how we typically use it in ordinary conversation. Every law of nature is a habit; so indeed, stones, crystals, and sand dunes exhibit habits just as much as people, pea plants, and dogs. Peirce wrote that "habit is by no means exclusively a mental fact ... The stream of water that wears a bed for itself is forming a habit" (CP 5.492); that "matter is effete mind, inveterate habits becoming physical laws" (CP 6.25); that he held "matter to be mere specialized and partially deadened mind" (CP 6.102); that "what we call matter is not completely dead, but is merely mind hidebound with habits" (CP 6.158); 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).
Regards,
Jon
On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 3:03 PM, Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de> wrote:
Jon, list,OK, Peirce said so, but I have problems with seeing "habit" as something fundamental, because to me it seems like a quite complex affair. I even had thought, that habit-taking requires a memory, which is a solid with changeable spots, and in- and output connections, like a brain or a memory chip in a computer. In the realm of organisms, habit obviously does not require a brain, as biologists have found out lately, that a pea plant can be conditioned like a Pavlovian dog. But inanimate things like stones, crystals or sand dunes? I do not see that they habitize, I think they just obey to circumstance conditions (In case of a crystal the crystal itself belongs to its own circumstance conditions, the bigger it is, the faster it grows, but that has nothing to do with habit, just with its increasing exposed surface). So i just thought to replace or explain "habit" in case of inanimate, with "viability due to tautology/truth". Convince me otherwise.Best,helmut24. Januar 2017 um 21:27 Uhr"Jon Alan Schmidt" <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> wote:
Helmut, List:Rather than mathematics, tautology, or truth, Peirce identified the psychical law--the Law of Mind, generalization, the habit-taking tendency--as the primordial law, from which all physical laws are "derived and special" (CP 6.24). In "A Guess at the Riddle" (CP 1.412; 1887-1888), he wrote that the "second flash" came about "by the principle of habit"--which means that the latter must have already been in place. In fact, in an early draft of "A Neglected Argument" (R 842; 1908), Peirce acknowledged that "there must have been some original tendency to take habits which did not arise according to my hypothesis," crediting this correction to Professor Ogden Rood. If the tendency to take habits was truly "original," then 3ns must have preceded 1ns and 2ns in some sense--presumably more logical than temporal, per Clark's comments.Regards,Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran LaymanOn Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 2:09 PM, Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de> wrote:Edwina, list,If there are limitless possibilities in the beginning, and then evolve things, matter, laws, due to habit-taking, one might ask, on which grounds and basis does this selection takes place? One might say, that for instance mathematics is the basis for physics. But what is mathematics? A Platonian idea? No, it is an elaboration of tautology, I guess. If somebody would claim that "1+1=2" is only true in this universe, but in another universe "1+1=3", he would be wrong, because "2" is defined as "1+1". So maybe the one and only law that selects possibilities due to their viability, and thus is responsible for habits, is the law of truth, which is nothing but accordance to tautology. So maybe it is not even a law. But it is the only A-Priori: Truth is tautology, or it is what it is. Maybe even the categorical imperative is based on this not-law of identity. Maybe identity, tautology, truth are (universal) thirdness concepts which are there in the instant, secondness (something) is there? "Something", evolved secondness, sticks out of the Tohuvabohu by adressing itself "I am like I am, and remain so", permanent for some time in contrast to the brew of possibilities, which are not permanent, but just a turbulent mess. What I want to say, is, I agree with you that no God is necessary. But the self-explaining concept of Truth is, which is very simple: Tautology. But do religions say that God is not simple, or do they rather talk about almightiness, so may we just say that it is ok. to call Truth/Tautology, which obviously is almighty, and perhaps the only almighty thing/law, "God"? Ok, I guess that would be too simple and silly. It was just a "gedankenexperiment" of mine, having been gotten carried away somehow.Best,Helmut
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