Clark, List: CG: For Peirce chance both forms habits but also allows breaks from habit.
As I understand him, especially in his late writings, for Peirce chance *does not* form habits, it *only* facilitates breaking them; e.g., small deviations from the laws of nature. The habit-taking tendency (3ns) is "original," rather than a spontaneous development brought about by chance (1ns). According to my reading of CP 6.490 in particular, super-order is a *prerequisite *for being. CG: Again for Peirce the universe as a whole can be considered mind and the universe is thus a kind of argument that is preceding by thinking itself. As I understand him, for Peirce the universe as a whole is indeed an argument, "a vast representamen, a great symbol [3ns] of God's purpose," which (like every symbol) has "organically attached to it, its Indices of Reactions [2ns] and its Icons of Qualities [1ns]" (CP 5.119; 1903). So the one doing the thinking is not the universe *itself*, but God as "Pure mind, creative of thought" (CP 6.490). God's purpose, which the universe represents, is the *summum bonum*--the "development of Reason," which is the growth of knowledge about both God and the universe that He has created and continues to create (CP 1.615; 1903). Of course, I acknowledge that Edwina strongly disagrees with me on most or all of this. We have reached significant consensus on interpreting certain aspects of Peirce's semeiotic, but our interpretations of his metaphysics presumably remain very different. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Wed, Apr 5, 2017 at 3:13 PM, Clark Goble <cl...@lextek.com> wrote: > On Apr 5, 2017, at 1:43 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > I am not sure exactly how this bears on your entropy conversation, except > that entropy is often described as disorder; so from that standpoint, > uniformity and habit-taking both seem to be negentropic in nature. > > The question really is of chance. For Peirce chance both forms habits but > also allows breaks from habit. Mind is the capacity to form habits but > habits can be long term habits or short term habits. Again for Peirce the > universe as a whole can be considered mind and the universe is thus a kind > of argument that is preceding by thinking itself. However that means the > universe is at odds with thermodynamics, which Peirce thought applied only > to mechanistic deterministic systems. > > What Edwina is more or less saying (if I have her right) is that thinking > of all this in the idealist ways Peirce did is wrong. That is we should > appropriate Peirce more in a materialistic way. I don’t have any problem > with that, I should add. I think Peirce’s cosmology has always been > problematic. Both in terms of his arguments for his cosmology but also it’s > simply a view I think few people are comfortable with. There’s a reason why > platonism is often used disparagingly. I think appropriating Peirce and his > semiotics in a more narrow way is completely fine. We can talk about signs > quite well without buying into his objective idealism. Although there will > be places where this will cause problem precisely because Peirce saw an > unity to his own thought. > > I suspect the differences between you and Edwina in other contexts > ultimately is a manifestation of to what degree are we using Peirce and to > what degree are we attempting to understand Peirce on his own terms. I > think Edwina (and correct me if I’m wrong Edwina) gets frustrated in the > list is because there’s often been so much focus on Peirce’s ontology and > terminology related to that ontology rather than on application (where the > ontology matters far less). > > So for example if I’m talking about semiotics within chemistry Peirce’s > cosmology likely rarely matters. Ditto if I’m talking about systems > programming or AI. My guess is that Edwina wants to talk about firstness as > entropy because she’s limiting the discussion to a more narrow area. >
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