Steven, In regard to your post that started this thread, first two suggestions about word choice:
"it is the logicians that concerned themselves" - change to - "it is the logicians who concerned themselves" "it is a surprise to many that use logic everyday in their education" - change to - "it is a surprise to many who use logic every day in their education" I'm sympathetic to the "cosmic view" that you take about the role of living intelligence. Back in 2005 in one of my, umm, wilder and woolier posts, I said, "Amid life, a sink of unforgotten things grows sophisticated & we call it intelligence. This minor 'basin' learns how to arrange for itself to be a basis, a recognition, determined semeiotically by deep & powerful things. It takes over from biological evolution & plays architect & re-designer with its world of source, mediative stream, intervening living open system, & itself. It has, perhaps, barely begun & is fallible." I'm not sure about calling this conditional destiny "nature's plan" like you do, but it does seem to point to the actualization of some essential matrix of possibilities in nature. But...I do get a sense of grandiosity from how you wrote it up in the post commencing this thread, Your remark "It amuses me, in any case.", in its context, The speculation above, that we can discover something so profound that it will not only have a broad impact upon the entire species but that the universe itself cannot proceed without it, will give philosophers something to talk about for generations. It amuses me, in any case. [....] sounds a bit, just a bit, like Miles Gloriosus in _A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum_. Well, also the word choice "proceed" where maybe you should say something like "advance to higher levels" which I admit sounds corny but the point is "proceed" is very easily taken to mean "continue to work or exist" and I think that you mean something more than that. Even "evolve" is not strong enough a word in speaking of the universe without more ccntext since "evolve" can connote any sort of more-or-less gradual process. To suggest that the universe cannot continue to exist without the actualization of the profound things that you hypothesize would be grandiose, and would also not be what (I think) you mean. Also, it sounds like you're saying that we humans, here on Earth, could make a discovery so profound that that discovery would impact the whole universe - the observed portion alone contains billions of galaxies, quadrillions of stars, etc., spread across billions of light years. If current physics holds, you're talking about a program that would take so many billions of years that much of the currently observed universe will have expanded out of our heirs' reach before the program makes serious spatial progress. At this point such a project is highly conjectural and you make it sound grandiosely like a practical concern rather than, say, a perspective attained by projecting a practical concern to some theoretical limit. All of this may be a matter of the stylistics and word choices that you make, I'm not sure that you really think those things. I know you want to say, "hey, folks, this is really important," a position that I've often been in, but I think you're straining somehow, as I've done sometimes. Best, Ben ----- Original Message ----- From: "Steven Ericsson-Zenith" To: <PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU> Sent: Tuesday, March 06, 2012 12:58 PM Subject: Re: [peirce-l] Proemial: On The Origin Of Experience Dear Cathy, Let us ignore for a moment the contents of the book, which presents for a general audience a theory dealing with the foundations of logic and apprehension, considered by many audiences on first sight to be a tired subject. Today's audience will require some motivation to read the book in the face of an education and professional dogma that considers that work in logic is complete. In the face also of late twentieth century presentations of logic in the media, whose ambassador is Star Trek's Spock, where logic is ridiculed as an art, the domain of aliens, lacking the passion of the human endeavor. Is it not the case that life created by an evolved intelligent species and placed into environments in which it would not otherwise appear suggests that such species may play a role in the bigger picture, that in fact, it may be necessary for the universe to evolve and realize its potential? How many times in the unfolding of life in the universe will such an opportunity appear? If we are presented with it how can we, how dare we, ignore it? To suggest such a thing seems no more outrageous than Copernicus proposing that our planet is not the center of things or Newton suggesting that the observations made before him suggest a universal previously unconsidered. Of course, I am well aware of the reluctance to make such associations, they appear arrogant and immodest. But must we not be immodest to challenge received authority and dream of new and grander conceptions? The observations upon which the arguments of Copernicus and Newton are founded are no less compelling that recent advances in biophysics. The veil is being lifted and whether it be my theory or another that enables it, it now seems inevitable that we will understand the nature of living systems to the degree possible in order to create them by our design and for our purpose. This view is surely more plausible than the alternative in popular culture, which is to see this potential in descendants of current computing systems and robotics, which relies upon sterile machines to awaken and tell us what to do. I understand the caution, and in large part it is the reason for my seeking feedback outside of my immediate circle. It is a simple and startling observation. As I note, it is one that amuses me but is none-the-less seriously made. How does one know such a thing? It is an abduction, a speculation from current circumstance. The bigger question is, can it be verified or falsified by science? And surely, it can. It is not merely plausible in the fictional sense, it is plausible in fact. To which discipline must we turn to ensure this verification or denial? Who has given greater and deeper consideration to the operation of the senses, to the function of the mind, if it is not the logicians, and especially Peirce? How does one understate such a thing? With respect, Steven -- Dr. Steven Ericsson-Zenith Institute for Advanced Science & Engineering http://iase.info On Mar 5, 2012, at 7:52 PM, Catherine Legg wrote: --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You are receiving this message because you are subscribed to the PEIRCE-L listserv. To remove yourself from this list, send a message to lists...@listserv.iupui.edu with the line "SIGNOFF PEIRCE-L" in the body of the message. To post a message to the list, send it to PEIRCE-L@LISTSERV.IUPUI.EDU
