Jon, List,
I agree completely, but think, that "habit" can be seen differently, according to which final causation it is formed. The habit of sand or water to form waves or dunes can be explained by efficient causation, cybernetically, with amplifying versus inhibiting circles, equilibrium, and so on. Where is the final cause in inanimate mechanics? Stan says it is the big chill. I donot believe in it, I rather think, that in inamate contexts there is no final cause, or, by interpreting final cause as emergence, in inanimate world this emergence is only a weak one. Or there is no inanimate world, because the universe has a mind, and the final cause is the need or the wish of the universe to create organisms: to let so many weak final causes happen over so much time, membrane bubbles enclosing self-reproducing molecules, that by chance suddenly at some place an organism pops up. An organism has a need, and this need is the basis for the organism´s final cause, and for it´s habit takings. Next step, i think, is the nervous system, and with it, wishes occur: A network of neurons can depict and imagine. This makes a new kind of final causation: The goal is no longer a preprogrammed need (like to have to drink), but is chosen by the organism: Tea or coffee? To me this difference is big enough to give this causation a new name: Example causation or causa exemplaris. I think, all three causations together are the causes for everything, but in inanimate mechanics the agents (sand, wind, gravity...) react due to efficient causation only, the other two causations are those of the (mindful) universe. Organisms without neurons have their own final cause (their needs), and their own efficient causation affairs due to the forces inside their body they are exposed to. Causa exemplaris plays a role for them too, but it is located outside their bodies (like they are samples of a species type). An animal with a nervous system has all three causes incorporated in itself: Forced by efficient cause, having needs (final cause), and wishes (example cause). So I think, that all three causations are there in the mindful universe, but inanimate reactions and their habits contain only efficient cause in themselves, though they are due to the other two as well, but these other two work externally from the inanimate reaction. No-brain-organisms and their habits have incorporated efficient and final causation (forces and needs), and nervous animals have incorporated all three causations. "Incorporated" does not mean, that they are not influenced anymore by the three causations of the universe. I think to call the three causations (efficient, final, example) also force reason, need reason and wish reason. And habit is a general, but has different qualities or characters. Phew- What I wanted to say is: Having identified "habit" or anything else as a general or as something fundamental does not mean that we have come to the end of the story and may write a full stop, thats why I have written this long story. Maybe this "example causation" is not necessary, but it makes a nice triad out of the causations.
Best,
Helmut
24. Januar 2017 um 23:45 Uhr
"Jon Alan Schmidt" <jonalanschm...@gmail.com>
"Jon Alan Schmidt" <jonalanschm...@gmail.com>
Helmut, List:
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .My understanding of Peirce is that he emphasized final causation, such that habit and (especially) continuity are in some sense more fundamental than the individuals that they govern, while recognizing that efficient causation is also necessary.
CSP: Efficient causation is that kind of causation whereby the parts compose the whole; final causation is that kind of causation whereby the whole calls out its parts. Final causation without efficient causation is helpless; mere calling for parts is what a Hotspur, or any man, may do; but they will not come without efficient causation. Efficient causation without final causation, however, is worse than helpless, by far; it is mere chaos; and chaos is not even so much as chaos, without final causation; it is blank nothing. (CP 1.220)
So we are now right back where we started--mere chaos, efficient causation without final causation, spontaneity and reaction without habit, 1ns and 2ns without 3ns, is blank nothing.
Regards,
Jon
On Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 4:29 PM, Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de> wrote:
Jon,I think my problem is that I see "habit" and "continuity" as phenomena, or effects, and ask myself: Effects of what? In my experience (or is it ideology?), effects/phenomena are caused by something, and I always suspect this more or less unknown something to be more fundamental (more general) than the effect. Because of that I seek the fundaments of habit in things like memory, cybernetic circles, and so on, and donot believe, that "habit" is the end of an analysis, or the basis, the first premiss of a hypothesis reversely engineered. As I said, to me habit seems like a complex affair. But maybe it is western analytic arrogance to always want to take things apart instead of not accepting complex affairs for fundamental or general? I dont know. An analogy in quantum physics may be: When you take particles apart, the parts first are smaller than the original particle. But from a certain smallness on they (the parts) start gettin bigger than the splitted thing. Maybe with causality it is the same?Best,Helmut24. Januar 2017 um 22:55 Uhr
"Jon Alan Schmidt" <jonalanschm...@gmail.com>Helmut:It is not so much that habit itself is fundamental, but that the tendency to take habits--i.e., generalization and continuity--is primordial.CSP: I make use of chance chiefly to make room for a principle of generalization, or tendency to form habits, which I hold has produced all regularities. (CP 6.63)CSP: This habit is a generalizing tendency, and as such a generalization, and as such a general, and as such a continuum or continuity. 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. (CP 6.204)Regards,JonOn Tue, Jan 24, 2017 at 3:35 PM, Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de> wrote: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,Helmut24. Januar 2017 um 22:18 Uhr
"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,JonOn 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
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to peirce-L@list.iupui.edu . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to l...@list.iupui.edu with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
