Helmut, Jon, List, For me one of the prime questions arising in consideration of the question of the primordial primacy of mind or matter (or both, as Edwina has been arguing) is: Did matter exist at or just after the Big Bang?
Of course there can be no definitive answer to this from either the philosophical nor the scientific standpoints. However, if you look on the website of CERN (the European Organization for Nuclear Research), "one of the world's largest and most respected centers for scientific research," you'll find their, I would imagine, tentative answer to the question. In the first moments after the Big Bang, the universe was extremely hot and dense. As the universe cooled, *conditions became just right to give rise to the building blocks of matter – the quarks and electrons of which we are all made.* ... As the universe continued to expand and cool, things began to happen more slowly (emphasis added). https://home.cern/science/physics/early-universe Now this immediately gives rise to another question: *What* was "hot and dense" before the cooling that brought into being "*the building blocks of matter –the quarks and electrons** of which we are all made*"? There have been a number of hypotheses proposed by physicists including that it was a kind of potential energy governed by quantum mechanics or a super-dense singularity containing all the potential energy and spacetime of the universe. In any event, at least according to CERN, it was *not* matter, not even the quarks and electrons that are "the building blocks of matter." Well, if not matter, then *what*? Another question (and suggestion of an answer by Peirce) emerges, one outlined in my recent post addressed to Jon regarding the blackboard diagram (I erroneously referred to it as the "blackboard metaphor") found in *The Cambridge Conference Lectures* (1898): What preceded the putative 'Big Bang'? Some have answered, "absolutely nothing," or some version of that such as Stephen Hawking's "no-boundary proposal." But if it were *not* "absolutely nothing," I have found Peirce's musings in the last of those lectures quite thought-provoking and not at all unrelated to the question of what followed upon the putative Big Bang before the "building blocks of matter" were formed. If you are interested in these questions, I highly recommend Jon's discussion in section 5 of this paper intriguing (which includes a kind of hypothetical development of some of those Peircean suggestions in the Blackboard diagram): See: "A Neglected Additament: Peirce on Logic, Cosmology, and the Reality of God" ( https://tidsskrift.dk/signs/article/view/103187). Best, Gary R “Let everything happen to you Beauty and terror Just keep going No feeling is final” ― Rainer Maria Rilke *Gary Richmond* *Philosophy and Critical Thinking* *Communication Studies* *LaGuardia College of the City University of New York* On Sat, Sep 25, 2021 at 12:30 PM Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de> wrote: > Jon, List, > > well, your point too to me makes sense. I think, it is due to belief. With > scientific methods like telescopes we only can look into the past when > there already was matter, because photons have mass, are matter (they just > don´t have rest mass). So is mind without matter hypothetical? But > plausible, reminds of God, maybe it is the same topic? > > Best, Helmut > > > > > 25. September 2021 um 18:04 Uhr > "Jon Alan Schmidt" <jonalanschm...@gmail.com> > wrote: > > Helmut, List: > > > HR: That matter is a subclass of mind (effete mind), doesn´t mean, that > mind is primordial, if it cannot exist without its subset matter. > ... Given, that "primordial" means being able to exist alone, and not being > a higher level of classification. > > > Peirce prepared the entry for "primordial" in the *Century Dictionary*, > and his first definition is the relevant one here--"First in order; > earliest; original; primitive; existing from the beginning." Hence, that > matter is a subclass of mind (effete mind) *does *mean that mind is > primordial--first there was mind, and then some of it *became *matter. > > Again, according to Peirce, in the indefinite beginning there was *only *mind, > the psychical law *alone *as primordial. Some of that mind *became *matter, > the physical law as derived and special--a peculiar sort of mind, effete > mind, mere specialized and partially deadened mind, mind so completely > under the domination of habit as to act with almost perfect regularity and > to have lost its powers of forgetting and of learning. These are *Peirce's > own words*, so anyone who claims that mind is impossible without matter > is straightforwardly disagreeing with him. > > Regards, > > Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA > Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian > www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt > > On Sat, Sep 25, 2021 at 10:40 AM Helmut Raulien <h.raul...@gmx.de> wrote: > >> Edwina, List, >> >> To me your points make sense. That matter is a subclass of mind (effete >> mind), doesn´t mean, that mind is primordial, if it cannot exist without >> its subset matter. That it cannot exist without matter, makes sense, as it >> is triadic. The sign triad too cannot exist without any of its three >> correlates. Given, that "primordial" means being able to exist alone, and >> not being a higher level of classification. >> >> Best, >> Helmut >> > _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ ► PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or > "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. 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