"Jon Alan Schmidt" <jonalanschm...@gmail.com>
wrote:
JD: At the beginning of the post, you note that Peirce engaged in "mathematical, phenomenological, semeiotic, and metaphysical" inquiries concerning time. Do you have any suggestions about how we might tease out the different threads? Each seems to involve somewhat different methods.
CSP: One opinion which has been put forward and which seems, at any rate, to be tenable and to harmonize with the modern logico-mathematical conceptions, is that our image of the flow of events receives, in a strictly continuous time, strictly continual accessions on the side of the future, while fading in a gradual manner on the side of the past, and that thus the absolutely immediate present is gradually transformed by an immediately given change into a continuum of the reality of which we are thus assured. The argument is that in this way, and apparently in this way only, our having the idea of a true continuum can be accounted for. (CP 8.123n; c. 1902)
CSP: 1. A time is a determination of actuality independent of the identity of individuals, and related to other times as stated below. According to the present proposition we may speak of the state of different things at the same time as well as of the states of the same thing at different times and, of course, of different things at different times and of the same thing at the same time.2. At different times a proposition concerning the same things may be true and false; just as a predicate may at any one time be true and false of different things. Time is therefore a determination of existents. (NEM 2:611; c. 1904-5)
CSP: I can hardly now see how time can be called a determination of actuality. It is certainly a law. It is simply a unidimensional continuum of sorts of states of things and that these have an antitypy is shown by the fact that a sort of state of things and a different one cannot both be at the same time. And in consequence of this antitypy a state of things varies in one way and cannot turn round to vary the other way. Or to state it better a variation between state A and state B is limited to occurrence in one direction, just as the form of a body in space is limited to one or other of two perverse positions in space. (NEM 2:611; 1908 Aug 13)
- Eternalism - past, present, and future all exist.
- Presentism - only the present exists.
- Growing Block - only the past and present exist.
KAP: The dynamical object in each successive representation in the process [of semeiosis] is necessarily different from that of its predecessor. The dynamical object of the first representation is the real universe at that time, and the immediate object is an abstraction consisting of some aspects of this reality. The next representation, however, cannot have exactly the same dynamical object. The real universe is at that point populated by at least one additional entity--the first representamen itself. Every successive representation in the semeiotic process thus has as its dynamical object not just the universe which the first representamen represented, but that universe plus the first representamen itself. (p. 148)
CSP: [1] I may mention that my chief avocation in the last ten years has been to develop my cosmology. This theory is that the evolution of the world is hyperbolic, that is, proceeds from one state of things in the infinite past, to a different state of things in the infinite future. [2] The state of things in the infinite past is chaos, tohu bohu, the nothingness of which consists in the total absence of regularity. The state of things in the infinite future is death, the nothingness of which consists in the complete triumph of law and absence of all spontaneity. [3] Between these, we have on our side a state of things in which there is some absolute spontaneity counter to all law, and some degree of conformity to law, which is constantly on the increase owing to the growth of habit ... [4] As to the part of time on the further side of eternity which leads back from the infinite future to the infinite past, it evidently proceeds by contraries. (CP 8.317; 1891)
Jon, List,
Consider what Peirce says about his cosmological conception of time in a letter to Christine Ladd-Franklin. For the sake of clarity, I'll separate and number the points he makes.
1. I may mention that my chief avocation in the last ten years has been to develop my cosmology. This theory is that the evolution of the world is hyperbolic, that is, proceeds from one state of things in the infinite past, to a different state of things in the infinite future.
2. The state of things in the infinite past is chaos, tohu bohu, the nothingness of which consists in the total absence of regularity. The state of things in the infinite future is death, the nothingness of which consists in the complete triumph of law and absence of all spontaneity.
3. Between these, we have on our side a state of things in which there is some absolute spontaneity counter to all law, and some degree of conformity to law, which is constantly on the increase owing to the growth of habit.
4. As to the part of time on the further side of eternity which leads back from the infinite future to the infinite past, it evidently proceeds by contraries. 8.316
Focusing on the points made in 3 and 4, how might we understand the contrast being made between our side of things, and the part of time that is on the further side of eternity?
A helpful approach, I think, is to start with a mathematical diagram. What kind of diagram might we use to clarify the hyperbolic evolution from the infinite past to the infinite future? Using this diagram, what is the contrast between our side of things and the further side of eternity?
--Jeff
Jeffrey Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354
From: Jeffrey Brian Downard
Sent: Wednesday, March 4, 2020 11:37:06 PM
To: peirce-l@list.iupui.edu
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] The Reality of TimeHello Jon, List,
At the beginning of the post, you note that Peirce engaged in "mathematical, phenomenological, semeiotic, and metaphysical" inquiries concerning time. Do you have any suggestions about how we might tease out the different threads? Each seems to involve somewhat different methods.
--Jeff
Jeffrey Downard
Associate Professor
Department of Philosophy
Northern Arizona University
(o) 928 523-8354
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