John, List: JFS: An amazing event occurred around 13.8 billion years ago.
Again, that estimated time frame relies on the assumption that the laws of nature have remained essentially unchanged for the entire duration--a presupposition that Peirce rejected in favor of "thorough-going evolutionism" (CP 6.14; 1891), since "law itself requires an explanation" (CP 6.613; 1893). JAS: Peirce's synechism, tychism, and (objective) idealism together conceive the entire universe as fundamentally a semeiosic continuum--a continuum of mind, including matter as "effete mind" JFS: The word 'fundamentally' is inappropriate. Peirce's hypotheses were vague. The term 'effete mind' is vague, and his translation of Schelling's term 'erloschene Geist' as "extinct mind" is just as vague ... At best, both terms are colorful metaphors. Any inferences from them are unsubstantiated speculations. Fortunately, Peirce did not leave us with *only *those terms. He immediately explained "effete mind" as "inveterate habits becoming physical laws" (CP 6.25, EP 1:293; 1891). In the previous paragraph, he defined idealism as "the physical law derived and special, the psychical law alone as primordial" (CP 6.24, EP 1:292; 1891). He elaborated elsewhere that his "Schelling-fashioned idealism ... holds matter to be mere specialized and partially deadened mind" (CP 6.102, EP 1:312; 1892); "that what we call matter is not completely dead, but is merely mind hidebound with habits" (CP 6.158, EP 1:331; 1892); that "physical events are but degraded or undeveloped forms of psychical events ... the phenomena of matter are but the result of the sensibly complete sway of habits upon mind" (CP 6.264, EP 1:348; 1892); that "we must ... regard matter as mind whose habits have become fixed so as to lose the powers of forming them and losing them" (CP 6.101; 1902); and that "matter is nothing but effete mind,--mind so completely under the domination of habit as to act with almost perfect regularity & to have lost its powers of forgetting & of learning" (R 936:3; no date). All of these passages, especially taken together, make it unmistakably clear that Peirce considered the "stuff" of the universe to be *fundamentally *mind, from which matter is *derived*. CSP: Philosophy tries to understand. In so doing, it is committed to the assumption that things are intelligible, that the process of nature and the process of reason are one. (CP 6.581; c. 1905) JFS: Most scientists today would agree with that quotation. Just for the record, Gary F. informed me off-List that the Peirce Edition Project dated that quote to 1890 and included it in W6 accordingly (p. 392). It is not clear why the CP editors thought that Peirce wrote it some 15 years later. JFS: There is a huge amount of speculation about cosmology by scientists, theologians, and people who have backgrounds in both. They have a century more information than Peirce had. Yet they can't make any definite claims. Of course--again, my interpretation of Peirce is that the "beginning" itself was indefinite, just like any individual mind's "first" cognition of an external object. Such is the nature of any truly *continuous *process. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Thu, Aug 22, 2019 at 11:04 PM John F Sowa <s...@bestweb.net> wrote: > On 8/21/2019 1:18 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote: > > I suggest that [Peirce] could have offered an argument against > > [the Big Bang] -- in fact, against any theory that posits a finite > > age and definite beginning of the universe... > > No. Peirce insisted on following the evidence. An amazing event > occurred around 13.8 billion years ago. There are many hypotheses > about what it might have been, but no physicist or astronomer > seriously claims that it didn't happen. > > > Peirce's synechism, tychism, and (objective) idealism together > > conceive the entire universe as fundamentally a semeiosic continuum > > -- a continuum of mind, including matter as "effete mind" > > The word 'fundamentally' is inappropriate. Peirce's hypotheses were > vague. The term 'effete mind' is vague, and his translation of > Schelling's term 'erloschene Geist' as "extinct mind" is just as vague. > > The noun 'Geist' could be translated as spirit, mind, psyche, intellect. > The adjective 'erloschene' could be applied to an extinct volcano, > a flame that went out, or a family that had no heirs. That isn't > much different from the word 'effete', which by etymology means > not fruitful. At best, both terms are colorful metaphors. Any > inferences from them are unsubstantiated speculations. > > > CSP: Philosophy tries to understand. In so doing, it is committed > > to the assumption that things are intelligible, that the process > > of nature and the process of reason are one. (CP 6.581; c. 1905) > > Most scientists today would agree with that quotation. The other > quotations by Peirce are reasonable, but none of them contradict > any science of the 20th or 21st c. > > In any case, many hypotheses about the Big Bang do not assume that > it originated from nothing. For example: > > 1. Time itself is an emergent property. The Big Bang is the name > of one boundary of space-time. Outside that boundary, there is > no time, and the word 'before' is meaningless. > > 2. There was a universe before the Big Bang. But it collapsed in > a Big Crunch -- a gigantic black hole. But that black hole was > so huge that it was unstable, and it exploded in what we call > the Big Bang. > > 3. Our current universe is one component of a multiverse with > an open-ended variety of universes with different values for > the fundamental physical constants. Most of those universes > are so weird that galaxies and stars as we know them could not > exist, and life as we know it would be impossible. > > There is a huge amount of speculation about cosmology by scientists, > theologians, and people who have backgrounds in both. They have a > century more information than Peirce had. Yet they can't make any > definite claims. I strongly endorse a comment that was published > in _Physics Today_: > > > When it comes to fundamental questions of existence — in this case, > > the existence of our universe and its properties — we humans are > > like a fish in a bowl trying to figure out the nature of the ocean. > > It’s wiser to accept our ignorance with humility and embrace > > uncertainty than to claim certainty with blind arrogance and risk > > future embarrassment. > > This is an excerpt from a book review by Marcelo Gleiser, a professor > of physics and astronomy at Dartmouth College. See the URL below. > > John > _____________________________________________________________________ > > Book: _A Fortunate Universe: Life in a Finely Tuned Cosmos_ by > Geraint Lewis and Luke Barnes. > > A review of that book by Marcelo Gleiser: > https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/full/10.1063/PT.3.3765 >
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