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}JAS, list
I don't know where you get the idea that a key assumption of the Big
Bang theory is that the laws of nature have been unchanged since that
second. To my understanding, the physical laws are understood as
universal - but, the formation of matter as life forms and the
biological laws that develop these life forms are adaptive and
evolving - with no defined future mode.
I don't think that this scientific outline differs from that of
Peirce -
And again - I have NOT been arguing for the primordial primacy of
both Mind and Matter. I have been arguing that Peirce's hylopathic
monism means that both modes of reality, 'emerged' at the same time
and are correlates; they function together; neither is primary or
primordial.
Edwina
On Sat 25/09/21 3:43 PM , Jon Alan Schmidt jonalanschm...@gmail.com
sent:
Gary, List:
GR: 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?
I suppose that this is a prime question for those who affirm the
"big bang" hypothesis, but not for those seeking to understand
Peirce's cosmology. As I have pointed out before, one of the key
assumptions underlying the "big bang" hypothesis is that the laws of
nature have remained essentially unchanged ever since the very first
minuscule fractions of a second after that alleged event. By
contrast, Peirce was quite adamant that the laws of nature as we
observe them today are just as much the results of evolution as
anything else. Accordingly, his "hyperbolic" scheme posits complete
indeterminacy in the infinite past and complete regularity in the
infinite future, not as actual states, but as ideal limits.
CSP: We look back toward a point in the infinitely distant past when
there was no law but mere indeterminacy; we look forward to a point in
the infinitely distant future when there will be no indeterminacy or
chance but a complete reign of law. But at any assignable date in the
past, however early, there was already some tendency toward
uniformity; and at any assignable date in the future there will be
some slight aberrancy from law. (CP 1.409, 1887-8)
Hence, it seems highly unlikely that Peirce would have endorsed any
finite estimate of the "age" of the universe. Instead, according to
him, its creation "did not take place during a certain busy week, in
the year 4004 B.C"--nor, for that matter, at an instant of time
roughly 13.7 billion years ago--"but is going on today and never will
be done" (CP 1.615, EP 2:255, 1903).
CSP: You think all the arbitrary specifications of the universe
were introduced in one dose, in the beginning, if there was a
beginning, and that the variety and complication of nature has always
been just as much as it is now. But I, for my part, think that the
diversification, the specification, has been continually taking
place. (CP 6.57, EP 1:307, 1892)
CSP: That first moment of time was of course infinitely long ago.
But more than that, although it was but one moment, it was infinitely
longer than any number of ages. It contained as great a multitude of
ages as there are points upon a continuous line. In one sense this
continuum was not time, it is true, because it all occupied but a
moment of time. But it was not only strictly analogous to time, but
it gradually and continuously developed into time; so that it was of
one continuous nature with time. All that follows from the principles
of continuity. (NEM 4:149, 1898)
CSP: I am inclined to think (though I admit that there is no
necessity of taking that view) that the process of creation has been
going on for an infinite time in the past, and further, during all
past time, and, further, that past time had no definite beginning,
yet came about by a process which in a generalized sense, of which we
cannot easily get much idea, was a development. (CP 6.506; c. 1906)
As Peirce writes elsewhere, "philosophy requires thorough-going
evolutionism or none" (CP 6.14, EP 1:289, 1891), and his own
synechism "carries along with it the following doctrines: first, a
logical realism of the most pronounced type; second, objective
idealism; third, tychism, with its consequent thorough-going
evolutionism" (CP 6.163, EP 1:333, 1893).
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USAStructural Engineer,
Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran
Christianwww.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt [1] -
twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt [2]
On Sat, Sep 25, 2021 at 1:09 PM Gary Richmond wrote:
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 [4]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 ThinkingCommunication StudiesLaGuardia
College of the City University of New York
Links:
------
[1] http://www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt
[2] http://twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
[3]
http://webmail.primus.ca/javascript:top.opencompose(\'gary.richm...@gmail.com\',\'\',\'\',\'\')
[4] https://home.cern/science/physics/early-universe
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