Helmut, Dan, list
Koichiro Matsuno, a bioengineer, and Peircean scholar, has written
extensively on the notion of time, which he refers to as present,
perfect and progressive [comparable to 1ns,2nd, 3ns]…
I suggest you google his name, and on for example,
Researchgate.net, you'll find articles dealing with time in
physico-chemical and biological semiosis.
For example.
1]How does Time Flow in Living Systems:
2]Temporality Naturalized [ where "The Schrodinger equation for
quantum mechanics, which is approachable in third-person description,
takes for granted tenseless time that does not distinguish between
different tenses such as past, present and future….
3] Time from Semiosis: E-series Time for Living systems. " We
develop a semiotic scheme of time, in which time precipates from the
repeated succession of punctuating the progressive tense by the
perfect tense. The underling principle is communication among local
participants. Time can thus be seen as a meaning-making, semiotic
system in which different time codes are delineated....
4] The Quest for a Unified Theory of Information
5] Google: Koichiro Matsuno- AltExploit. 'Abstract Expressions of
Time's Modalities
He is a phenomenal scientist and scholar.
Edwina
On Fri 06/03/20 2:31 PM , "Daniel L. Everett"
danleveret...@icloud.com sent:
All very intriguing. It is fascinating in light of this to think of
the many ways that languages choose to divide/classify time.
English, for example, has no morphological future tense (thus one
must say “will go”), though it has morphological past (went) and
present tenses (go). Other languages have as many as five distinct
past tenses, one present and one future (there are many variations,
but so far as I know languages will have more past tenses than future
tenses if they have multiples). Other languages choose not to mark
time at all morphologically (e.g. on the verb) and also have very few
words for precise times (e.g. yesterday, today, tomorrow).
There are many attempts/theories of how natural language encodes
time/temporal relations. Peirce’s concept of time has been
underexploited (to put it mildly) in linguistics and clearly the
connection of time theory to natural language tense theories could be
quite a fecund area of exploration.
Admitting the orthogonal nature of these remarks to the mainline of
discussion,
Dan
On Mar 6, 2020, at 2:20 PM, Helmut Raulien wrote:
Jon, List, I think, the question is, whether time is a
continuum, like an ether, in which all events and entities sort of
swim, or is a produce of the permanence of systems, with its
universality provided by the systems´ coupling. The permanence of
a system, I think, is provided by the re-entry of thirdness into
firstness, like in a semiosis (a semiotic system) the interpretant
becomes the new representamen. Or like in consciousness: Peirce´s
Primisense- Altersense- Medisense model, where the Medisense, the
thinking, re-enters the Primisense, the first iconic perception: We
have a picture of our thoughts. I guess it would be hard to
assume, that this re-.entry and permanence as such produce time,
because a re-entry and a permanence are only then possible, if a time
already exists. But maybe it is a bilateral dependency: Time and
systems only exist together. In the beginning of the universe
(assuming there was a big bang), the "new" born universe was the only
system, and "before" the big bang there was no time. I put "new" and
"before" in quotation marks, because without a preceding time, these
words cannot really be applied. Best, Helmut 06. März 2020 um
18:32 Uhr
"Jon Alan Schmidt"
wrote: Jeff, List: 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. I agree that each
involves different methods, and I have made several attempts (so far
unsuccessful) to start writing a paper (or two) with the goal of
teasing out those different threads. Peirce himself seems to think
that we can "harmonize" them (his word) by recognizing the continuity
of time; in fact, our direct perception of the continuous flow of time
in phenomenology is what prompts our retroductive hypothesis of a
true continuum in mathematics, which we then explicate deductively
and evaluate inductively in other sciences. 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) Logic then
provides a plausible explanation for the so-called "arrow of time."
Peirce initially wrote the following in one of his notebooks. 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) A few years later, he offered a correction
on the opposite page, which is otherwise blank. 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) Peirce here maintains the mathematical
characterization of time as "a unidimensional continuum," but
describes its parts as "sorts of states of things" and affirms the
phenomenological fact that time flows in only one direction. Turning
to metaphysics, one thing that occurred to me just this week is that
these different threads at least loosely correspond to the three main
theories about time in the current philosophical literature.
*Eternalism - past, present, and future all exist.
*Presentism - only the present exists.
*Growing Block - only the past and present exist.
If we substitute reality for existence, these correspond
respectively to Peirce's mathematical, phenomenological, and
logical/semeiotic conceptions of time--a one-dimensional continuous
whole, isomorphic to a line figure (cf. CP 1.273; 1902); an
indefinite moment that involves memory, confrontation, and
anticipation (cf. CP 7.653; 1903); and an ongoing process by which
the indeterminate becomes determinate (cf. CP 5.459, EP 2:357-358;
1905). I have come to believe that #3 is closest to his overall view
and can incorporate the insights of the other two. It is unfortunate
that there is not a more formal name for it; one recent dissertation
suggests "accretivism," but I doubt that this will catch on. My
tentative name for Peirce's version of it is temporal synechism. It
seems noteworthy that the basic idea of the "growing block" is that
reality itself is getting "larger," which is reminiscent of a passage
in Kelly A. Parker's book, The Continuity of Peirce's Thought. 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) The object that
determines the sign is different from the object that determines the
interpretant, because the interpretant's object includes the sign
itself. Likewise, the past that determines the present is different
from the past that determines the future, because the future's past
includes the present itself. Moreover, the object affects the sign
and interpretant, but not vice-versa; and likewise, the past affects
the present and future, but not vice-versa. As ongoing and
continuous processes, both semeiosis and time are irreversible
because they conform to Gary R.'s vector of determination
(2ns→1ns→3ns, object→sign→interpretant,
past→present→future); and once the universe as a vast quasi-mind
becomes more determinate, it cannot become less determinate again.
This leads us to the passage that you quoted in your second post.
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) The
cosmological basis for the "arrow of time" is Gary R.'s vector of
process (1ns→3ns→2ns). The universe is evolving from an
absolutely indeterminate state of things at the hypothetical instant
corresponding to "the commencement of all time" (NEM 3:1075; c.
1905), when everything would have been in the future, toward an
absolutely determinate state of things at the hypothetical instant
corresponding to "the completion of all time" (ibid), when
everything would be in the past. As I said at the end of my initial
post, what is always realized in the present is an indefinitely
gradual state of change, and this terminology conveniently lends
itself to another categorial analysis--the present is an indefinitely
gradual state of change in its 1ns, an indefinitely gradual state of
change in its 2ns, and an indefinitely gradual (i.e., continuous)
state of change in its 3ns. Returning to mathematics, in a List
post [1] last September I proposed five properties that are jointly
necessary and sufficient for a true Peircean continuum.
(Incidentally, I am pleased to report that my essay based on that and
several related List discussions, "Peirce's Topical Continuum: A
'Thicker' Theory," has been accepted for publication in Transactions
of the Charles S. Peirce Society .) The first was regularity, which
I now prefer to call rationality--every portion conforms to one
general law or Idea, which is the final cause by which the
ontologically prior whole calls out its parts (cf. CP 7.535; 1899 and
CP 7.535n6; 1908). I now suggest that time is a real Peircean
continuum, and that an indefinitely gradual state of change is the
one general law or Idea to which every lapse of it conforms; i.e.,
every moment when it is present . Since this has gotten quite
lengthy, I will try to take up your specific questions in a later
post. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [2] - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[3] On Thu, Mar 5, 2020 at 1:56 AM Jeffrey Brian Downard
wrote:
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 [5]
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] The Reality of Time
Hello 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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