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}JAS, list
And Peirce referred to cognition, to Thirdness, as an action.
Synthetic consciousness, mediation, is not a passive consciousness
[which is 1ns] but is active. 1.377/8
That is, semiosis as a process does not confine action to dyadic
act-react kinesis between two existential things. Thirdness is in my
understanding of Peirce a dynamic process, which is to say, an
action. As such, it mediates, it synthesizes, it generalizes. These
are all actions - powerful actions.
"Not only will meaning always, more or less, in the long run mould
reactions to itself, but it is only in doing so that its own being
cosists. For this reason I call this element of the phenomenon or
object of thought the element of Thirdness. It is that which is what
it is by virtue of imparting a quality to reactions in the future"
1.343.
"The third is that which is what it is owing to things between which
it mediates and which it brings into relation to each other" 1.356
This action, of bringing things into mutual relationships is a
frequent description by Peirce, of Thirdness.
Now - to me, such is an action... A plural interaction mediating and
generating the commonalities among separate things
I am not sure if we should continue this discussion, since we both
hold to different views and are probably boring the list.
Edwina
On Thu 09/08/18 3:18 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
Edwina, List:
ET: I think that JAS uses the term 'interact' to refer only to an
action between two actualities, two existent 'things'.
Yes, and why is that? Because Peirce used the term "interact," as
well as "act" and "react," to refer only to an action between two
actualities, two existent "Things"; especially when he was being
careful to differentiate the three Categories or Universes. Again,
that has been my only point throughout this particular exchange.
Regards,
Jon S.
On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 1:46 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
JAS, list
What is going on here, is a situation where two people are using the
same word - each with a different usage. So- we are talking past each
other, and that's hardly productive.
I use the term 'interact' to mean that two or more forces act on and
have an effect on each other. But a key point: I do not confine the
nature of these forces to actualities and so, I include the effect
that a law can have on a particular object.
I think that JAS uses the term 'interact' to refer only to an action
between two actualities, two existent 'things'.
Again, Jon, your quotes that you provided do not, in my view,
contradict my use of the term 'interact'. I have always acknowledged
that the general, the law, has no separate actuality in itself but is
'embodied' in an individual morphology. This is basic Peirce [and
Aristotle]. BUT, I consider that the general, the law, as embedded,
does act as a genuine informational force, and so it as itself, as
its generality, acts, interacts...with individual morphologies. And
this is not simply an act of constraint, but, in my view, of actual
generative formation. That enables the increase of complexity - a
basic conclusion for Peirce.
This is something about which we have a basic disagreement.
Edwina
On Thu 09/08/18 2:28 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
[2] sent:
Edwina, List:
The point is that according to Peirce, as demonstrated by those
quotations, only existential particulars can interact, and only with
other existential particulars. A general cannot interact with
anything as a general, so it does not interact with existential
particulars; instead, it governs them.
CSP: But a law necessarily governs, or "is embodied in"
individuals, and prescribes some of their qualities. (CP 2.293, EP
2:274; 1903)
CSP: By a proposition, as something which can be repeated over and
over again, translated into another language, embodied in a logical
graph or algebraical formula, and still be one and the same
proposition, we do not mean any existing individual object but a
type, a general, which does not exist but governs existents, to which
individuals conform. (CP 8.313; 1905)
Regards,
Jon S.
On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 12:06 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
JAS, list
I'm not sure of the point of your post. I suggested that we'd simply
have to agree-to-disagree. Providing lists of quotations, all of which
I fully agree with, doesn't change my view [and none contradict my
view] - which I'll repeat below:
" I don't agree that it implies that the "Type exists apart from its
Tokens'. My view is that both are informationally functional and
interact informationally - and this doesn't imply a separate
individual existence for each. Informational action between
information encoded as a general and information encoded as a
particular is, in my view, quite possible."
That is - Reality, which functions as a generality, DOES, in my
view, interact with the existential particular.
Edwina
On Thu 09/08/18 12:52 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
Edwina, List:
Any word with "act" as its root implies actuality, which is 2ns.
CSP: Let us begin with considering actuality, and try to make out
just what it consists in. If I ask you what the actuality of an
event consists in, you will tell me that it consists in its happening
then and there. The specifications then and there involve all its
relations to other existents. The actuality of the event seems to lie
in its relations to the universe of existents ... We have a two-sided
consciousness of effort and resistance, which seems to me to come
tolerably near to a pure sense of actuality. On the whole, I think we
have here a mode of being of one thing which consists in how a second
object is. I call that Secondness. (CP 1.24; 1903)
CSP: That conception of Aristotle which is embodied for us in the
cognate origin of the terms actuality and activity is one of the most
deeply illuminating products of Greek thinking. Activity implies a
generalization of effort; and effort is a two-sided idea, effort and
resistance being inseparable, and therefore the idea of Actuality has
also a dyadic form. (CP 4.542; 1906)
CSP: The second Universe is that of the Brute Actuality of things
and facts. I am confident that their Being consists in reactions
against Brute forces ... (CP 6.455, EP 2:435; 1908)
CSP: Another Universe is that of, first, Objects whose Being
consists in their Brute reactions, and of, second, the facts
(reactions, events, qualities, etc.) concerning those Objects, all of
which facts, in the last analysis, consist in their reactions. I call
the Objects, Things, or more unambiguously, Existents, and the facts
about them I call Facts. (EP 2:479; 1908)
Only Existents (2ns)--including Tokens--act, react, or interact; and
they do so only on/with other Existents. For Peirce, this was
literally the defining attribute of existence.
CSP: The modern philosophers ... recognize but one mode of being,
the being of an individual thing or fact, the being which consists in
the object’s crowding out a place for itself in the universe, so to
speak, and reacting by brute force of fact, against all other things.
I call that Existence. (CP 1.21; 1903)
CSP: The existent is that which reacts against other things. (CP
8.191; c. 1904)
CSP: Whatever exists, ex-sists, that is, really acts upon other
existents, so obtains a self-identity, and is definitely individual.
(CP 5.429, EP 2:342; 1905)
CSP: ... I myself always use exist in its strict philosophical
sense of "react with the other like things in the environment." (CP
6.495; c. 1906)
From such a standpoint, strictly speaking, Possibles (1ns) and
Necessitants (3ns)--including Tones and Types, respectively--do not
act, react, or interact on/with anything. That is why any Dynamic
Interpretant (Experiential Information)--an actual feeling, effort,
or further Sign-Replica--is always the result of a "then-and-there"
Instance of the Sign (Token), while the Final Interpretant
(Substantial Information) pertains to the non-temporal/non-spatial
Sign itself (Type), and the Immediate Interpretant (Essential
Information) pertains to the qualities/characters of its expression
within a given system of Signs (Tone). Consequently, I do not see
how anything except Tokens could "interact informationally" or engage
in "informational action."
Regards,
Jon S.
On Thu, Aug 9, 2018 at 8:26 AM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
JAS, list
I wasn't referring at all to the difference between reality and
existence - and as I said in my post, I was indeed talking about
Thirdness as mediation in a Legisign role. Obviously, then, I agree
that the Representamen in a mode of Thirdness within the triadic
semiosic process does not 'exist but governs existents'....So- I'm
unsure of the reason for your comment.
With reference to your problem with my use of the word
'interaction', which you confine to a mode of Secondness - I guess
we'll just have to each agree to differ in our use of the word. I
don't agree that it implies that the "Type exists apart from its
Tokens'. My view is that both are informationally functional and
interact informationally - and this doesn't imply a separate
individual existence for each. Informational action between
information encoded as a general and information encoded as a
particular is, in my view, quite possible.
Edwina
On Thu 09/08/18 9:11 AM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
Edwina, List:
I suppose we can say that a Type depends on its Tokens for its
existence, but certainly not for its Reality, because the mode of
Being of a Type is not reaction (2ns) but mediation (3ns).
Consequently, I still think we should avoid saying that a Type
"interacts" with its Tokens, because this implies that the Type
exists apart from its Tokens, such that it can react with them. As
the quote below from Peirce states, a Type "does not exist but
governs existents" (CP 8.313; 1905, emphasis added); the Sign's
unchanging ideal Final Interpretant logically/semiotically determines
(constrains) its various actual Dynamic Interpretants, not the other
way around.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [3] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [4]
On Wed, Aug 8, 2018 at 8:39 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Gary R, JAS, list
1] I question the claim that "The Type is not dependent on its
Tokens--past, present, or future--any more than the hardness of a
diamond is dependent on its ever actually being scratched. Such is
the nature of a Real "would-be."
My view is that the Type - which I understand as a general, as laws,
is most certainly dependent on being articulated as a Token, for
generals do not exist except as articulated within/as the particular.
And it is the experiences of the particular instantiation that can
affect the Types and enable adaptation and evolution of the
general/laws.since, as we know, growth and increasing complexity is
'the rule' [can't remember section..]
"I do not mean any existing individual object, but a type, a
general, which does not exist but governs existents, to which
individuals conform" 8.313.
That is - I think the relation between the law/general and the
instantiation is intimate and interactive [there's that terrible word
again!].
2] Symbols grow' - which to me, means that they become more complex
in their laws and their networked connections with other Signs. But I
will also suggest that symbols must have the capacity to implode as
well!
Edwina
Links:
------
[1]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'tabor...@primus.ca\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[2]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'jonalanschm...@gmail.com\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[3] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[4] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
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