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}Gary R, list
Yes, I continue to stick by my interpretations - just as others
continue to stick by theirs - and no-one here has offered any new
evidence to make me change my interpretation. And I do add other
references - just as do others.
What I argue against is the notion that any of the three categories
are, on their own, primordial. That is - to say that 3ns is
primordial, as you and some others [not all] assert - is as
'emanational' as to assert that 1ns is primordial. I disagree that
3ns was 'already operative' - just as I disagree that 1ns or 2ns were
already operative.
Again, my view is that 'out of the womb of indeterminacy' - means
what it says: an action/mode which is 'indeterminate' and this is,
according to Peirce, an act of Firstness. [1.302] I note also that
Peirce writes, "Indeterminacy, then, or pure firstness and haecceity,
or pure secondness, are facts not calling for and not capable of
explanation" 1.405. That is - 'indeterminacy' does NOT mean
Thirdness but Firstness.
I don't add a linguistic term [womb] to this physical event and
declare that because this word [womb] is a symbol [as are all words]
that this means that 3ns is primary. I look at the meaning of the
words - and they refer to 1ns. I note also again that Peirce
considers that the term 'indeterminate' refers to 1ns and not 3ns
[which refers to generality]. See his outline in 1.373... and his
explanation of the term. And 1.405.
My view of Peirce's outline is that 'Nothing' means that none of the
three modal categories are primary or primordial or 'already
operative'. ALL three are necessary, are universal and develop,
necessarily, together, 'after the flash' so to speak. The word
itself, Nothing, as a linguistic term, is of course a symbol, but
that does not mean that what it refers to [its Object] is in a mode
of 3ns. As he says, these three are 'the fundamental elementary modes
of consciousness' 1.378..and I don't see any comments about 3ns as
primordial or already operative.
As Peirce says, 'There can, it is true, be no positive information
about what antedated the entire Universe of beings; because to begin
with, there was nothing to have information about. But the universe
is intelligible; and therefore it is possible to give a general
account of it and its origin. This general account is a symbol; and
from the nature of a symbol, it must begin with the formal assertion
that there was an indeterminate nothing of the nature of a symbol.
this would be false if it conveyed any information. But it is the
correct and logical manner of beginning an account of the universe.
As a symbol it produces its infinite series of interpretants, which
in the beginning were absolutely vague like itself....Vol 2, p323.
My reading of the above is that Peirce was not talking about the
PHYSICAL formation of the universe, but our 'giving a general account
of it and its origin'. This general account, in words and images,
that we - and indeed all peoples - give - is a symbol. That is, it is
a rhetorical, linguistic, figurative account of PHYSICAL events. But-
to then assert that because our rhetorical figurative accounts of
this origin are symbolic of that origin -that they are as figures of
linguistic rhetoric - symbols...that the actual physical events are
ALSO in a mode of 3ns, is, in my view, an error.
After all, Thirdness cannot function except as articulated within
matter - so, how could it be primordial or 'already operative'?
Thirdness, as mediation, is always relative...'mind objectified'. See
1.366, 1.369
After all - if we read 'Out of the womb of indeterminacy we must say
that there would have come something, by the principle of Firstness,
which we may call a flash. Then by the principle of habit there would
have been a second flash...." 1.412.
Well, if you claim that the 'principle of habit was 'already
operative' or primordial in this outline - well, then, so was the
Principle of Firstness!!
But my reading is that ALL THREE modes are necessary, universal -
and - co-emerged together 'at the flash'.
So- as I said - we continue to disagree - and we both do base our
views on Peirce. Therefore, I think that this kind of discussion has
to be allowed - without snide comments about whether our opponents
have the 'capacity to understand' or not.
Edwina
On Tue 27/08/19 1:51 PM , Gary Richmond [email protected]
sent:
Edwina, List,
Yes, you continue to stick to your interpretation of the situation
of the early cosmos and will probably continue to do so, even when
presented with new evidence, for example, the unpublished draft that
includes the Ogden Rood (not 'Nash' as I last wrote, my computer
having 'corrected' Ogden Rood to Ogden 'Nash'!) and Montgomery
references, and which Jon quoted. That manuscript is strong evidence
that whatever Peirce may have been thinking in 1891, he has by 1908
explicitly affirmed that 1ns could not "emanate" willy-nilly out of
sheer nothingness.
So, let's for a moment, for the purpose of argumentation, bracket
Jon's suggestion (with which, however, I tend to agree, but not
strongly) that even the 1891 analysis can be seen as containing,
albeit perhaps obscurely, a principle of habit formation. Let us
imagine, then, for argument's sake, that Peirce came to see himself
as just downright wrong in 1891-92, that he clearly and rather
obviously 'corrects' himself much later, certainly my 1908, for that
is what he seemingly does in this snippet (with commentary inserted)
of the passage in question which Jon quoted at greater length.
[D]uring the long years [from 1891 to 1908] which have elapsed since
the hypothesis first suggested itself to me, it may naturally be
supposed that faulty features [notably. the notion of the
'emanation' of 1ns out of nothingness] of the original hypothesis
have been brought [to] my attention by others and have struck me in
my own meditations [I commented in my last post, albeit
parenthetically, that Peirce more than once modified his ideas in
these ways].. Dr. Edward Montgomery remarked that my theory was not
so much evolutionary as it was emanational [that is, Peirce's
earlier suggestion that 1ns just sprung forth "out of utterly
causeless determinations of single - 1ns - events" made his theory
"emanational" ]; and Professor Ogden Rood pointed out that there must
have been some original tendency to take habits which did not arise
according to my [1891-92] hypothesis; while I myself was most struck
by the difficulty of so explaining the law of sequence in time, if I
proposed to make all laws developed from single events; since an
event already supposes Time ["before time yet existed"] (1908, most
emphasis is mine).
As Jon well put it, even in consideration of the 1891 musings:
JAS: 3ns--was already operative, which is why there could be "a
second flash ... resulting from" the first one. Peirce explicitly
acknowledged this aspect in a manuscript draft for "A Neglected
Argument," crediting Ogden Rood with bringing it to his attention.
You have given your position on this cosmological matter many times
over the years, making the same arguments, employing the same
references for the most part, while more or less ignoring other and
later cosmological discussions by Peirce -- and there are quite a
few!-- which others, including me, have pointed to; and there are
several, including the last of the 1898 lectures and, now, the 1908
draft manuscript Jon quoted from. If Peirce could modify his thinking
-- if that's indeed what he did -- then further reflection on
material you have seemingly ignored perhaps might modify yours too.
The experiment is yours to make.
Meanwhile, as in his post today, I see that Jon is further
developing his argument in ways which I find compelling.
Best,
Gary R
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication StudiesLaGuardia
College of the City University of New York
On Tue, Aug 27, 2019 at 9:30 AM Edwina Taborsky wrote:
Gary R
I'll continue to support my reading of Peirce - which disagrees with
your outline. I know that some on this list have, graciously, defined
me as 'intelligent' - but, alas, also declared that my being
intelligent does not necessarily include the ability to Understand
Peirce. However, I'll stand by my own admittedly fallible assessment
that I can understand Peirce.
I continue to read Peirce's 1.412, not as 'incomplete and
misleading' [I have been accused of such an assessment of this
passage] but as a valid explanation of Peirce's cosmology - and
fitting in quite well with his other outlines in 6.193-217 etc.See
also 7.514-5.
Therefore - I disagree with your view that 3ns is primordial. I read
Peirce in my own admittedly fallible readings, that 'in the infinitely
distant past in which there were no laws" 7.514, and 'the initial
conditions, before the universe existed, was not a state of pure
abstract being. On the contrary, it was a state of just nothing at
all, not even a state of emptiness, for even emptiness is something"
6.215.
My reading of the above is that Nothing - none of the three
categories - is primordial. All three are necessary and one can't
conclude that any one of them is 'more necessary' than the other.
Therefore - as he outlines in 1.412, 'out of the womb of
indeterminacy we must say that there would have come something, by
the principle of Firstness, which we may call a flash. Then by the
principle of habit there would have been a second flash....etc"
I don't read the above to mean that any one of the three categories
is primordial; all three emerged and co-developed at the same
time..as time began. Before this - there was - Nothing. Therefore -
I don't read that 3ns is 'presupposed' - all three are necessary to
life. So- there is not only a 'universal tendency towards
habit-forming' - but a universal tendency towards
chance/sporting/deviation - and a universal tendency to instantiation
into discrete units. ALL Three are 'universal tendencies'. To consider
that only 3ns is primordial moves one, I think, close to
necessitarianism [see 6.59 etc for Peirce's argument against this
view].
After all - to say that 'womb of indeterminacy' is a symbol and
therefore, describes 3ns, is not an infallible reading. As a
metaphor, the linguistic phrase is certainly a symbol, but the
physical action of a 'flash' is most certainly not a symbol but an
indexical physical act. After all - the phrase 'rosy-fingered dawn'
is another metaphor and thus, a linguistic symbol, but the physical
act of the sun's 'rising' is not a symbol but a physical action.
Peirce's outline of Firstness [see 1.302 and on] as not being
determined, 'that which has not another behind it, determining its
actions" [ie indeterminate] - that is, indeterminate means that
there is no "prospect of its sometime having occasion to be embodied
in a fact, which is itself not a law or anything like a law" 1.304.
Then, Secondness introduces determination, 'causation and statical
force' 1.325. Causation includes determination, where one force
affects and determines results of another. Thirdness introduces not
indeterminacy or determinacy but continuity. ..and such terms as
"generality, infinity, continuity, diffusion, growth, and
intelligence" 1.340.
I think that these interpretations - my own which sees all three
categories as necessary and none as primordial, and yours and others
which sees Thirdness as primordial - are obviously incompatible. I
will suggest that we can only continue the exploration of Peirce -
even within these two opposing views - but that we do not, on this
forum at least, insist that one or the other is the FINAL TRUTH.
Edwina
On Mon 26/08/19 10:03 PM , Gary Richmond [email protected] [2]
sent:
Jon, John, List,
JFS: Although Jon prefers to quote other passages, Peirce never
denied CP 1.412.
JAS: "I have never claimed that Peirce denied CP 1.412. What I
have maintained is that we should interpret it in light of later
passages, which presumably reflect Peirce's more considered views.
Besides, upon careful examination of what that text actually says, it
turns out to be fully consistent with those subsequent writings."
Jon, thanks for putting to (fallible) rest, at least in my mind,
this controversial (at least on this list) issue of whether Peirce
saw flashes of 1ns -- a kind of aboriginal "sporting," or, 3ns -- as
"a tendency to take habits," as primordial in his musings on the
origins of the universe.
Bringing pertinent quotations together, as well as your incisive
commentary, make it clear enough that not only was the latter
Peirce's mature understanding but, further, that "Peirce's more
considered views" (1908) were not inconsistent with his earlier ones
(1887-88) such that 3ns, and not 1ns, is seen as incipient at the
birth of the cosmos. In short, it was Peirce's considered view that
continuity, "the tendency to take habits," 3ns, was first, that is,
original before time was, so to speak.
[An aside: In his work in phenomenology (and in places with
reference to logic and metaphysics), Peirce makes clear that, except
for the purposes of certain types of analysis, that the three
categories appear together, that one may be prescinded from another
but not disassociated. Also, from one categorial vectorial standpoint
(involution: 3ns -> 2ns -> 1ns), the categories 1ns and 2ns are
necessarily involved in 3ns such that they are not built up from
1ns, but that 3ns is always presupposed.]
As you noted, Jon, in his earlier reflections on the earliest
cosmology Peirce writes: "Then by the principle of habit there would
have been a second flash." 1887-88 (emphasis added). "Habit" as
employed here in 1887-88 at least suggests that both the first and
the second, and presumably all 'subsequent' flashes, are 'grounded'
in this "principle of habit."
Then, in the last of the 1898 Lectures (RLT), as both you and I (and
others) have argued, in presenting the 'blackboard' metaphor, Peirce
makes this explicit such that the 'sporting' of 1ns 'occurs' upon a
pre-cosmic blackboard, so to speak, representing a kind of
ur-continuity, that "principle of habit," a primordial continuity
which is the sine qua non of Peirce's early cosmology in my view.
Finally, in his last, or at least penultimate, thinking on the
matter Peirce would write that the development of laws occurred ". .
. under a certain universal tendency toward habit-forming. . ." 1908
As he remarked, and you noted, Jon, the idea that the original
sporting of 1ns could not have arisen out of nothing, was brought
home by Professor Nash's pointing out " that there must have been
some original tendency to take habits " 1908. [There are other places
where Peirce comments that there were facets of his philosophy of
which he early on had but a vague sense, but which he then later
clarified -- or, in some cases, corrected --as in the diamond thought
experiment -- or he is led to a clearer understanding by something
he's read, typically by another scholar, as in this case of Nash's
suggestion, or by the natural development of his own thought.] But,
again, and as you pointed out, even as early as 1887-88 Peirce had
introduced a "principle of habit taking" in principio.
Moving to another matter, you write regarding John Sowa's diagram of
Peirce's classification of the sciences:
JAS: " This is very disappointing--despite all of the recent on-List
complaints about attributing views to someone apart from verbatim
quotations, the attachment still falsely claims that it presents
Peirce's classification of the sciences. As I pointed out several
months ago, it does not--there is no passage whatsoever where he
employed the term "Formal Semeiotic," and also no passage whatsoever
where he situated any aspect of Semeiotic under Phenomenology."
This is indeed very disappointing as it seems to me that JFS employs
a double standard at such moments, that he himself seemingly has no
trouble whatsoever "attributing views to someone apart from verbatim
quotations" (as if every scholar under the sun -- including Peirce!
-- didn't do such things, and as if he didn't himself do this in his
books and articles), but complains about others, esp. you, Jon,
attributing views to Peirce in this way. I have tended to see this
critique as so much nonsense when I didn't see it as actual
intellectual harassment.
But further, while I have not seen you attributing views to Peirce
which I do not myself find in the numerous and not infrequently
lengthy quotations and groups of quotations which you provide in
support of your interpretation, JFS's diagram clearly does do that in
a way which I think few Peirce scholars would find legitimate as John
has clearly injected aspects of his own revisionist understanding of
the classification, one which is clearly at odds with Peirce's own
clear statements and diagrams of it. Most egregious in John's diagram
of the classification is his placing a "formal semeiotics" (whatever
that is) where he does. For, as you wrote, there is "no passage
whatsoever where [Peirce] situated any aspect of Semeiotic under
Phenomenology." No passage whatsoever. Rather, it seems to me like a
misguided attempt to put semeiotics at, or near, the head of
cenoscopic philosophy.
Best,
Gary R
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical ThinkingCommunication StudiesLaGuardia
College of the City University of New York
On Mon, Aug 26, 2019 at 2:41 PM Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
John, List:
JFS: Although Jon prefers to quote other passages, Peirce never
denied CP 1.412.
I have never claimed that Peirce denied CP 1.412. What I have
maintained is that we should interpret it in light of later passages,
which presumably reflect Peirce's more considered views. Besides,
upon careful examination of what that text actually says, it turns
out to be fully consistent with those subsequent writings.
CSP: Our conceptions of the first stages of the development, before
time yet existed, must be as vague and figurative as the expressions
of the first chapter of Genesis. Out of the womb of indeterminacy we
must say that there would have come something, by the principle of
Firstness, which we may call a flash. Then by the principle of habit
there would have been a second flash. Though time would not yet have
been, this second flash was in some sense after the first, because
resulting from it. Then there would have come other successions ever
more and more closely connected, the habits and the tendency to take
them ever strengthening themselves, until the events would have been
bound together into something like a continuous flow. We have no
reason to think that even now time is quite perfectly continuous and
uniform in its flow. The quasi-flow which would result would,
however, differ essentially from time in this respect, that it would
not necessarily be in a single stream. (CP 1.412, EP 1:278;
1887-1888)
The situation "before time yet existed," whatever that could mean,
was "the womb of indeterminacy"--i.e., a symbol as 3ns (cf. EP 2:322;
1904). The "principle of habit"--i.e., the law of mind (CP 6.23;
1891), also 3ns--was already operative, which is why there could be
"a second flash ... resulting from" the first one. Peirce explicitly
acknowledged this aspect in a manuscript draft for "A Neglected
Argument," crediting Ogden Rood with bringing it to his attention.
CSP: At the same time, as well as I can make out, it is impossible
to form any rational philosophy of cosmology without admitting that
violations of the true laws of nature, in swarms [of] numberless
though excessively minute violations, are happening every second of
time. In the years 1891-3, I defended this position in six articles
in the Monist under the name of tychism; but only in one of the six
did I allude to any other conception of them than that [of] events
occurring by absolute chance. I there contended that the laws of
nature, and, indeed, all experiential laws, have been results of
evolution, being (such was my original hypothesis,) developments out
of utterly causeless determinations of single events, under a certain
universal tendency toward habit-forming, conjoined with a survival of
the fittest; the fitness of habits, or "laws," of things consisting
in their growth not essentially tending to produce characters which
would necessarily remove any objects that should come to possess them
from the sphere of experience. The supposed tendency to take habits,
that is to say, to repeat former modes of action would itself grow by
virtue of itself into a stronger habit of habit-forming. It will at
once be seen that this could very well have been the way in which
some laws of nature might have originated, and that it is a
hypothesis well worthy of examination whether all laws may not have
come to pass in this way. But during the long years which have
elapsed since the hypothesis first suggested itself to me, it may
naturally be supposed that faulty features of the original hypothesis
have been brought [to] my attention by others and have struck me in my
own meditations. Dr. Edward Montgomery remarked that my theory was not
so much evolutionary as it was emanational; and Professor Ogden Rood
pointed out that there must have been some original tendency to take
habits which did not arise according to my hypothesis; while I myself
was most struck by the difficulty of so explaining the law of sequence
in time, if I proposed to make all laws develope from single events;
since an event already supposes Time. (R 842:111-114[125-128]; 1908)
Peirce's cosmology requires the "tendency to take habits," the
psychical law, to be original--i.e., primordial--rather than
something that arose. This is the very explanation that the physical
law itself calls for (cf. CP 6.613; 1893). Moreover, "an event
already supposes Time," so from that standpoint it is problematic to
treat the beginning of time as an event--i.e., a singularity.
Instead, Peirce consistently held that it did not have any definite
beginning.
JFS: For the relationships of cosmology, physics, metaphysics, and
religion, see the attached cspscience.jpg, which shows Peirce's
classification of the sciences of discovery.
This is very disappointing--despite all of the recent on-List
complaints about attributing views to someone apart from verbatim
quotations, the attachment still falsely claims that it presents
Peirce's classification of the sciences. As I pointed out several
months ago, it does not--there is no passage whatsoever where he
employed the term "Formal Semeiotic," and also no passage whatsoever
where he situated any aspect of Semeiotic under Phenomenology.
Instead, Peirce consistently treated Semeiotic--including all three
of its branches--as a generalization of Logic under Normative
Science; most notably, within the very text cited as the diagram's
alleged source.
CSP: Phenomenology is, at present, a single study.Normative Science
has three widely separated divisions: (i) Esthetics; (ii) Ethics;
(iii) Logic.
Esthetics is the science of ideals, or of that which is objectively
admirable without any ulterior reason. I am not well acquainted with
this science; but it ought to repose on phenomenology. Ethics, or the
science of right and wrong, must appeal to esthetics for aid in
determining the summum bonum. It is the theory of self-controlled,
or deliberate, conduct. Logic is the theory of self-controlled, or
deliberate, thought; and as such, must appeal to ethics for its
principles. It also depends upon phenomenology and upon mathematics.
All thought being performed by means of signs, Logic may be regarded
as the science of the general laws of signs. It has three branches:
(l) Speculative Grammar, or the general theory of the nature and
meanings of signs, whether they be icons, indices, or symbols; (2)
Critic, which classifies arguments and determines the validity and
degree of force of each kind; (3) Methodeutic, which studies the
methods that ought to be pursued in the investigation, in the
exposition, and in the application of truth. Each division depends on
that which precedes it. (CP 1.191, EP 2:260; 1903)
In Peirce's classification of the sciences, Phenomenology is a
single study, and thus has no branches at all. Logic as the third
branch of Normative Science is "the science of the general laws of
signs"--i.e., Semeiotic--and depends on Ethics (which depends on
Esthetics), as well as Phenomenology and Mathematics. Speculative
Grammar, which I assume corresponds to "Formal Semeiotic," is the
first branch of Logic. Anyone is welcome to hold, advocate, and
defend the personal opinion that it belongs under Phenomenology
instead, but no one can legitimately ascribe such a view to Peirce.
JFS: Note that metaphysics depends on mathematics and phenomenology
for its principles.
Metaphysics also depends on Logic for its principles, since
"Metaphysics consists in the results of the absolute acceptance of
logical principles not merely as regulatively valid, but as truths of
being" (CP 1.487; c. 1896).
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAProfessional Engineer, Amateur
Philosopher, Lutheran Laymanwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [3] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [4]
On Sun, Aug 25, 2019 at 10:49 PM John F Sowa wrote:
Gary F, Jeff, Edwina, Ben, Gary R, Jerry, Helmut, and Jon,
When talking about cosmology, we should remember that Benjamin P.
was a professor of math *and* astronomy. Charles learned both at
his father's knee, and his first real job was as an astronomer.
That led to the research for the only book he published in his
lifetime. When writing about cosmology, Peirce brought insights
from every aspect of his philosophy, but he always depended on his
background in mathematics, physics, and astronomy for the details.
GF
> I don’t see how Peirce’s cosmology, which is essentially
> metaphysical (i.e. based on logical principles), has any bearing
> on the Big Bang theory, which is strictly a physical hypothesis
> testable only by means of physical observations.... I don’t
think
> it would necessitate a modification of his cosmology, nor would
> his cosmology imply a denial that the Big Bang happened at the
> beginning of the physical universe as we know it.
For Peirce's version of the Big Bang, see CP 1.412 copied below.
Although Jon prefers to quote other passages, Peirce never denied
CP 1.412. It's consistent with modern science. His guidelines
of synechism, tychism, and evolution are also consistent with
most of the modern hypotheses.
For the relationships of cosmology, physics, metaphysics, and
religion, see the attached cspscience.jpg, which shows Peirce's
classification of the sciences of discovery.
Note that metaphysics depends on mathematics and phenomenology for
its principles. But the content of experience includes everything
observed, felt, or imagined in any way. Therefore, the contents of
the physical, psychical, and practical sciences influence
metaphysics.
Since Peirce classified religion as a practical science, religion
also influences metaphysics.
JBD
> Peirce often seems to be considering a wide range of hypotheses,
> many of which appear to be competing with each other. Some of the
> metaphysical hypotheses fit better with the best physical science
> of his day, but he is well aware that those theories were filled
> with vague ideas, had enormous gaps, and would likely be amended
> or replaced with better theories as inquiry proceeded.
I agree. Your citations to Peirce and to modern physicists support
Gleiser's remark about cosmology: "we humans are like a fish in
a bowl trying to figure out the nature of the ocean." Even though
Peirce's guesses are better than most, he called them guesses. None
of us can claim anything stronger than a guess.
JBD
> Peirce engages in inquiries that fall under the headings
"cosmological
> metaphysics" and "cosmological physics." See, for example, CP
6.213
Yes. Note the following excerpt from that paragraph:
> The subject of mathematical metaphysics, or Cosmology, is not so
very
> difficult, provided it be properly expanded and displayed. It
deeply
> concerns both physicist and psychist. The physicist ought to
direct
> his attention to it, in order that he may be led to contemplate
the
> intellectual side of his own science. Especially the chemist,
whose
> attention is forced to theory, needs above all to study the theory
> of theorizing. Psychologists have not yet dropped their excellent
> habit of studying philosophy; but I venture to think that they are
> not fully alive to all the value for their science of certain
higher
> mathematics and to the virtues of mathematical thinking...
CP 6.214 ff are also important. Note the excerpt from CP 6.216:
> Religion is a practical matter. Its beliefs are formulae you will
> go upon. But a scientific proposition is merely something you take
> up provisionally as being the proper hypothesis to try first and
> endeavor to refute... It is a damnable absurdity indeed to say
that
> one thing is true in theology and another in science. But it is
> perfectly true that the belief which I shall do well to embrace in
> my practical affairs, such as my religion, may not accord with the
> proposition which a sound scientific method requires me
provisionally
> to adopt at this stage of my investigation.
Religion may be useful for inspiration (as in the Neglected
Argument),
but it has no observable facts that could contradict the physical
aspects of cosmology.
ET
> Interesting - that Hawking proposed a cosmology where the universe
> emerged 'out of nothing'. This seems similar to the outline of
Peirce
> in 6.217 - the nothing that is 'absolutely undefined and unlimited
> possibility - boundless possibility. There is no compulsion and no
law.
> It is boundless freedom".
Yes. But note that there is no sudden discontinuity. It's
consistent with CP 1.412 and with synechism. The paragraphs
from CP 6.214 to 216 are also relevant. (Copies below)
BN
> the following article by Jaime Nubiola may offer some guidance in
> the current discussion of Peirce's metaphysics:
>
https://www.academia.edu/19624309/What_a_Scientific_Metaphysics_Really_Is_According_to_C._S._Peirce
[5]
GR
> I have long followed Nubiola's work ... [and] have especially
> benefited from reading his papers on science, logic (esp., the
> logic of abduction) and metaphysics, but also on such diverse
> topics as the relationship of Peirce to Whitehead, to
> Wittgenstein, and to Searle among others.
Yes. I first met him at a conference on Peirce & Whitehead in
1999. His comparison of Peirce and Whitehead is also useful for
this thread: https://philarchive.org/archive/NUBPAWv1 [6]
> JFS: 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.
>
> JLRC: This claim is not true. One issue is the nature of time.
> The postulate of the cyclic nature of cosmological events is
> equally valid, according to many.
Hypotheses about cycles don't rule out some major event that
occurred about 13.8 billion years ago in our current cycle.
JLRC
> If one reads CSP more carefully, one finds strands of science,
> especially math and chemistry, in almost every sentence. The unity
> of his thinking appears to me to be the bedrocks from which his
> sentences take form.
Yes. As an example, I would cite "Man's Glassy Essence" (EP 1:334-
351, CP 6.238-271). Peirce wrote a good summary of physics and
chemistry as they were known in 1890.
His insights in logic and semeiotic are as valid as ever. But
in biology and neuroscience, so much more has been discovered in
the past century that his vague analogies aren't convincing.
HR
> Maybe, when the universe becomes too big, its shape becomes
unstable,
> and it calves, or separates into smaller universes, and in each
smaller
> universe it looks like there has been a big bang, but has not?"
Physicists have proposed and analyzed hypotheses that are similar
to that. In an interview "Science’s Path From Myth to
Multiverse",
Steven Weinberg, who won a Nobel Prize for some of those theories,
discusses them:
https://www.quantamagazine.org/steven-weinberg-on-the-history-of-physics-20150317/
[7]
In effect, a multiverse is a universe in which there are many big
bangs,
each of which produces one space-time region that contains a kind of
subuniverse that is isolated from all the others.
The analogy with soap bubbles is very good. The entire multiverse
is
like a foam of a large number of bubbles. Some are tiny and survive
for just an instant (according to some Multiverse Universal Time,
MUT).
Others, like our universe, may be huge and last for a very long time
according to MUT. And some may be huge, but misshapen lumps that
explode very quickly. See that interview with Weinberg or just
Google "multiverse".
JAS
> the (untestable) assumption that the laws of nature have remained
> unchanged over all that time...
The most widely accepted theories about the Big Bang make strong
predictions that the laws of nature evolved very rapidly during
the first second. They don't rule out small changes since then,
and many physicists have developed methods for testing those
assumptions. So far, they have concluded that some changes may
be occurring even today, but if so, they are below the threshold
of sensitivity of currently available tests.
JAS
> Peirce declined to assign any date to the "beginning" at all,
> based on his assumption of "thorough-going evolutionism." ...
> The definite and discontinuous parts that are thus created are
> not real constituents of the continuum in itself.
Physicists today have many hypotheses about cosmology that are
consistent with Peirce's version of continuity and evolution.
Nobody knows what he might have said if he had seen the
data and theories of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The newer instruments are able to get data from earlier and more
distant parts of the universe. Each new data set serves as a test
of the old hypotheses and suggests new ones. They *never* assume
that the laws of nature don't evolve.
See the interview with Weinberg, for example. Read Hawking's
book about the first few seconds after the Big Bang. And there
are many more publications since Hawking died.
Short summary: Peirce had an amazing insight into many of the
issues, but he always insisted that his hypotheses had to be
tested against observations. His intuitions about synechism,
tychism, and evolution are still good guidelines.
But they are too vague to predict the details or to show clear
preferences among the many wildly different modern hypotheses
that are consistent with his intuitions.
To repeat Gleiser's warning, we are like fish swimming in a bowl
who are trying to imagine the ocean outside.
John
________________________________________________________________
CP 1.412. Our conceptions of the first stages of the development,
before time yet existed, must be as vague and figurative as the
expressions of the first chapter of Genesis. Out of the womb of
indeterminacy we must say that there would have come something, by
the principle of Firstness, which we may call a flash. Then by the
principle of habit there would have been a second flash. Though
time would not yet have been, this second flash was in some sense
after the first, because resulting from it. Then there would have
come other successions ever more and more closely connected, the
habits and the tendency to take them ever strengthening themselves,
until the events would have been bound together into something like
a continuous flow. We have no reason to think that even now time
is quite perfectly continuous and uniform in its flow. The quasi-
flow which would result would, however, differ essentially from time
in this respect, that it would not necessarily be in a single
stream.
CP 6.214. Metaphysics has to account for the whole universe of
being.
It has, therefore, to do something like supposing a state of things
in which that universe did not exist, and consider how it could have
arisen. However, this statement needs amendment. For time is itself
an organized something, having its law or regularity; so that time
itself is a part of that universe whose origin is to be considered.
We have therefore to suppose a state of things before time was
organized. Accordingly, when we speak of the universe as "arising"
we do not mean that literally. We mean to speak of some kind of
sequence, say an objective logical sequence; but we do not mean
in speaking of the first stages of creation before time was
organized,
to use "before," "after," "arising," and such words in the temporal
sense. But for the sake of the commodity of speech we may avail
ourselves of these words.
215. The initial condition, before the universe existed, was not
a state of pure abstract being. On the contrary it was a state
of just nothing at all, not even a state of emptiness, for even
emptiness is something. If we are to proceed in a logical and
scientific manner, we must, in order to account for the whole
universe, suppose an initial condition in which the whole universe
was non-existent, and therefore a state of absolute nothing.
216. You must not let this interfere with or be interfered
with by any religious belief. Religion is a practical matter.
Its beliefs are formulae you will go upon. But a scientific
proposition is merely something you take up provisionally as
being the proper hypothesis to try first and endeavor to refute.
The only belief you -- as a purely scientific man -- have about
it is that it is adopted in accordance with a method which must
lead to the truth in the long run. It is a damnable absurdity
indeed to say that one thing is true in theology and another in
science. But it is perfectly true that the belief which I shall
do well to embrace in my practical affairs, such as my religion,
may not accord with the proposition which a sound scientific
method requires me provisionally to adopt at this stage of my
investigation. Later, both the one proposition and the other may
very likely be modified; but how, or which comes nearer to the
ultimate conclusion, not being a prophet or a magician, I cannot
yet say.
Links:
------
[1]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'[email protected]\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[2]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'[email protected]\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[3] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[4] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[5]
https://www.academia.edu/19624309/What_a_Scientific_Metaphysics_Really_Is_According_to_C._S._Peirce
[6] https://philarchive.org/archive/NUBPAWv1
[7]
https://www.quantamagazine.org/steven-weinberg-on-the-history-of-physics-20150317/
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