Bill
Obviously we can't refer to 'eternal laws' or even 'no eternal laws'. And as to whether the current laws are the same - we can't say other than to rationally examine that IF they were different, then, how and why did they change. And presumably, there would be residual examples of matter formed in now defunct laws.
And can we really say that 'we stipulate it because it works... or should we instead say: 'It works and therefore we stipulate it'. That is, the laws are hierarchically dominant over our individual lives.
As to whether the laws might change according to a law that we will never know - I think that's introducing magic into the scene. And I don't think that our knowledge of a law 'makes' the law existential, so to speak. It exists quite indifferently to what you or I or anyone thinks of it. So, I don't compare it to Schrodinger's cat.
I think that art requires the acceptance of uncertainty and exploration.
Edwina
On Sun 28/03/21 11:47 AM , "Brooks, William F" [email protected] sent:
I’m deep in the woods and without a compass here . . .In music there are eternal laws.In music there are no eternal laws.Why are these sentences incompatible?Art, it seems to me, is a bit like Schrödinger’s cat: when you open the box to see what “is” the case, all you have is something alive or something dead, and until you indulge your desire for certainty, the cat is both. The transformative potential of art exists only if the box remains closed.How do we know that the “laws” of the universe are the same as they’ve always been? Isn’t that a matter of faith, really? A theology of physics? How would one disprove the hypothesis that the physical laws we know and love were, simply, different in, say, the first 23 milliseconds after the big bang? (If there were a big bang.) And, pushing the case further: how would one disprove the claim that general relativity came into being in, say, 1730 (so that Einstein could “discover” it two centuries later)? Why can’t laws change—and change according to a “law” that we can never know, because to know it would be to fix the outcome: to declare the universe dead or alive (rather than both)?The answer has to be pragmatic: we don’t “know” it; we stipulate it because it works. And so we live our lives.I’m a total naïf about C S Peirce, but I’m trying to learn. I “know” just a smidgen about John Dewey—who spent most of The Quest for Certainty, seems to me, attempting to show that our “universal” laws were pragmatically arrived at by “doing”—especially by “measuring”. I think he’s wrong, because of art. Art requires The Quest for UNcertainty. . . .Bill
William Brooks
[email protected]
Emeritus Professor of Music
University of Illinois
Urbana, IL 61801
United States
(+1-217-417-4165)
William Brooks
[email protected]
Professor of Music
University of York
Heslington, York YO10 5DD
United Kingdom
(+44-1904-324449)
William Brooks
Senior Research Fellow and Series Editor
Orpheus Institute, Ghent, Belgium
[email protected]
Take care of things. And people.On Mar 28, 2021, at 08:19, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote:Helmut - I'll disagree with you.
1] Natural laws DO change. That ability to change is vital for the development of complexity. In the physico-chemical realm, the laws do not change very much over time; that provides stability. But in the biological realm, the laws that form a species DO change, and this enables adaptation and evolution. In the societal realm, the laws change - and can change rapidly, such that we 'believe' on idea in one generation and its opposite in the next generation.
2] And, since thermodynamics is a natural property of the universe - and I also feel that semiosis is a natural property of the universe - then, I have no trouble with using both in examining the realms of this universe [physico-chemical, biological and societal].
3] It is an error to 'equal' sociology with physics'. That is, examining both the human-realm and the physico-chemical realm as operative within semiosis doesn't mean that they are identical/equal! As I said, semiosic processes in the physico-chemical realm operate very slowly and change is slow [millions of years] while in the human realm, these processes are extremely fast.
Edwina
On Sun 28/03/21 4:20 AM , Helmut Raulien [email protected] sent:Edwina, Terry, List,just like not all human behaviour is adaption, not all laws are habits, although Peirce said so. Natural laws do not change or weaken. They function in the same way in open and closed systems, only in an open system matter, or matter and energy (depending on your definition of "closed": Hermetically or not) is exchanged with outside. That overall entropy netto increases, does not mean, that in an open system at some spots e.g. in a volume of gas sometimes it could not be forced to decrease: This partial lessening (not rejection) of entropy happens in a piston machine with each stroke. Whether the universe is a closed system that tends towards equilibrium, or is an open system e.g. due to its expansion, nobody knows, because nobody knows what makes the universe acceleratedly expand: A force from in- or outside. I think that blending semiotics with thermodynamics, if done too eagerly, leads to confusion: Subsuming everything under adaption or habit, equalling sociology with physics. For claiming that both kinds are due to same mechanisms, you have to reduce both human and matter/energy behaviour to the common denominator: Habit. But doing so, instead of looking at the differences, is reduction, which you in other places are opposing against.Best, Helmut28. März 2021 um 00:24 Uhr
"Edwina Taborsky"
wrote:Terry, list
Entropy is a concern in a closed system, where the laws of the system, if any, decay such that they cannot continue to provide continuity of type and individual instances become unable to interact such that there is no predictability or even capacity of interactions. The system is 'at equilibrium' where nothing can interact with anything. Pure chaos.
In an open system, which is what a CAS is, this is not a problem. My view of the nature of the universe and all its subsystems as operating as complex adaptive systems - is that these prevent entropy, for they are 'far-from-equilibrium'. This means that they are operating within laws of organization [3ns], that ensure continuity of type and thus, predictability of interactions...but operating also within 1ns, which is deviation from the norm. This deviation ensures diversity of type and thus, the formation of new habits/laws [as the old ones weaken] to further strengthen the universe's capacity to reject the force and tendency towards equilibrium [yes, rejecting old laws] ...and the tendency to disable the capacity for relations..ie entropy.
I think it is interesting that laws do not last forever, so to speak, but decay in themselves, and the system requires new modes of organization - both material and conceptual. So- we aren't, in a way, evolving towards some 'perfect society' or 'perfect environment'. We are always changing...The only constant seems to be an increase in diversity and a rejection of homogeneity.
Edwina
On Sat 27/03/21 4:56 PM , Terry L Rankin [email protected] sent:Edwina, Helmut, List:
Are the causal laws of the universe ‘adaptive’ -- i.e., no doubt creative by virtue of their efficacy per se -- but such that entropy is not inherent in the ‘ex nihilo nihilo’ cosmology of Big Bang >>> Big Crunch thermodynamic physics? I get that the strength of those laws is always manifest in probabilistic (frequency of outcomes less than 1 or not universal, inevitable) as well as cosmically universal (in the sense of not admitting exception) strength, but is that sufficient to suppose that thermodynamic entropy can be somehow defeated or overcome – are those causal laws defeasible as well as probabilistic? Does the ‘openness’ of CAS/CASC system science necessarily uphold this defeasibility of causal laws?
Terry
From: Edwina Taborsky
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 4:39 PM
To: [email protected]
Cc: [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: Aw: Re: [PEIRCE-L] phaneroscopy, semiotics and meditation.
Helmut
In an open system, which is what a CAS is, entropy is not increased but decreased - by virtue of the organizational laws that prevent its operation and include reparative and growth abilities.
A CAS is adaptive - which means creative; it has the ability to change its rules and thus, its interpretants. I'm not sure what you mean by the brain's 'iconic ability to depict'. Abduction is an adaptive and creative function. And..adaptation is a creative action.
I don't separate adaptation and creativity.
Edwina
On Sat 27/03/21 4:26 PM , Helmut Raulien [email protected] sent:
Edwina, List,
I donot think, that chaos is rejected, but that by harnessing dissipation, order is created. Entropy cannot be stopped, but in overall entropic processes, anti-entropic (informative) processes are created, increasing the whole entropy. And the systems are not only adaptive, but creative too, due to the brain´s iconic property to depict. So not only induction, adaption is possible, but also abduction, creativity, especially with the human ability of symbolic thinking and languages. So, are we not only CAS, but CACS (complex adaptive and creative systems)? However, creativity is often used to adapt. But not only does the individual adapt itself to its environment, it also adapts the environment to itself. And we also create new problems we should then adapt to, but don´t. So, are we CACPs (complex adaptive, creative, problematic systems)? Best, Helmut
27. März 2021 um 19:55 Uhr
"Edwina Taborsky"
Terry, list
My view of the triadic semiosis is that it inserts a mediative process within what is a dyadic interaction. Notice, using the ten classes of signs 2.227 - that not all the mediation is in a mode of Thirdness; it can be in 2ns or 1st. Indeed, in three of the ten classes, mediation is in a mode of 2ns - the famous sinsign set.
That is, between the Object and the Interpretant is a process that removes the dyadic interaction from being a purely mechanical interaction and opens it to interpretation by both the Object and the Interpretant sites/nodes. As Peirce says, semiosis is an action, an influence, which involves co-operation of three subjects: O-R-I.
But the point is - the triad enables complexity-of-outcome. If you have a universe that only operates by direct physical contact, then, it will rapidly entropically dissolve. If you insert a capacity for rejecting chaos, a capacity for laws that rule over the mechanical contact, then, you enable continuity and reproduction and also, diversity. You get a 'complex adaptive system', which inserts a capacity for self-organization [that mediative process] and stops entropy fast.
And since matter-is-mind within Peircean analysis, then, this triadic process is operative throughout the physical, chemical, biological and conceptual realms. 'Matter is effete mind" 6.25. And "what we call matter is not completely dead bu is merely mind hidebound with habits" 6.158. "he whole action of the mind [is] a part of the physical universe" 6.61
No, 1ns doesn't become 2ns or 3ns. The experience itself goes through various categorical phases.
Edwina
On Sat 27/03/21 1:23 PM , Terry L Rankin [email protected] sent:Thanks again, Edwina! This clarification is very helpful. [BTW – I found Marty’s paper at academia.edu, free PDF download.]
Lately I’ve been filtering much of my acolyte ideas and active praxis of Peirce’s pragmaticism around http://www.commens.org/dictionary/term/semiosis&data=""> " target="_blank"> EP 2.411 (1907):It is important to understand what I mean by semiosis. All dynamical action, or action of brute force, physical or psychical, either takes place between two subjects (whether they react equally upon each other, or one is agent and the other patient, entirely or partially) or at any rate is a resultant of such actions between pairs. But by “semiosis” I mean, on the contrary, an action, or influence, which is, or involves, a coöperation of three subjects, such as a sign, its object, and its interpretant, this tri-relative influence not being in any way resolvable into actions between pairs.
Am I misunderstanding CSP here in regarding semiotics as the broader domain (universal, per his “bedazzling sentence”) within which human and other distinctly cognitive sign-processing becomes triadic, while other (non-cognitive) sign processing is (mostly or entirely) dyadic – specifically and precisely for lacking an interpretant (i.e., as produced by the observer and her observance)? Might this be the ‘boundary’ or categorical metamorphosis where the semiotics of 1NS and 2NS become or acquire their 3NS?
Terry
From: Edwina Taborsky
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 12:22 PM
To: [email protected]; [email protected]; [email protected]
Subject: Re: RE: [PEIRCE-L] phaneroscopy, semiotics and meditation.
Terry
An intellectual construct IS a 'mode of being'. I was too slick in my response. What I was trying to point out is that Peircean semiosis is not confined to human intellectual abstractions of observations of the physical world. That is, the Peircean semiosic universe, in my view, is all about the generation of morphological forms. This is done within the complex process of semiosis and produces both material and conceptual forms. And - these forms are not just intellectual abstractions made by the human observer - which would reduce the world to nominalism. They are real in themselves and exist without any human intellect observing them.
As you can see from the ten classes, 2.227, a particular form can be operative only within a mode of 1ns, but in the case of a more complex mode, eg, 2ns, it could be operative only in 2ns but that would have included 1ns
You wrote: "As ‘ideas in the mind’ (“only intellectual and human constructs”) that could, in principle at least, be expressed in an EG, would they have concomitant ‘brain states’ as (“actual physical properties of matter and its organization”), thus existing as both abstract intellectual constructs and objectively real presence in addition to abstract being in reality? "
Could an idea have a concomitant brain state? Hmm - that's what neurologists have been trying to find out - but - I'm not sure that there are two 'forms' - a mental form and a concomitant physical form'. I think that would deny the triadic semiosic process of generation of forms and would make the process of Mind almost mechanical.
Edwina
Edwina & List,
I’m pretty sure I wholly agree with Edwina on her point, but (of course) I’m curious to ask questions RE:
ET > A 'mode of being' is not the same as an 'intellectual construct'
Are the differences categorical – i.e., perhaps intellectual constructs have a (predominantly 3NS?) mode of being that is inherently symbolic? On this view, do all ‘mode(s) of being’ manifest at least 1NS and 2NS and perhaps 3NS as well in semiosis? As ‘ideas in the mind’ (“only intellectual and human constructs”) that could, in principle at least, be expressed in an EG, would they have concomitant ‘brain states’ as (“actual physical properties of matter and its organization”), thus existing as both abstract intellectual constructs and objectively real presence in addition to abstract being in reality?
Thanks, Edwina! I’ll try to find an download Marty’s paper.
Terry
From: [email protected] On Behalf Of Edwina Taborsky
Sent: Saturday, March 27, 2021 10:28 AM
To: 'Peirce-L' ; [email protected]
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] phaneroscopy, semiotics and meditation.
List
I'd comment that the problem I'm having with these discussions is the unspoken assumption that these categories seem to exist or function only within the human intellect prescinding/analyzing them. But are these categories only intellectual and human constructs or are they actual physical properties of matter and its organization? I obviously prefer the latter outline. As Peirce says, for example, with reference to Firstness .."Firstness if the mode of being" 8.328. And Secondness is the 'mode of being" and Thirdness is 'the mode of being'. That is - these categories are not abstract intellectual constructs but are objectively real - I refer to Peirce's 'objective idealism'...which is NOT the same as 'idealism'.
A 'mode of being' is not the same as an 'intellectual construct'.
I refer anyone to Robert Marty's 'The podium of the universal categories of C. S. Peirce' for explanations of the categories.
Edwina Taborsky
On Sat 27/03/21 9:27 AM , [email protected] sent:Auke, Gary, Jeff et. Al.,
The example in Auke’s post below is quite compatible with what I had in mind with my vague reference to “guided meditation.” I should mention that I’ve never engaged in it myself, as I’m one of those who learn mostly by reading and writing, as I put it in my earlier post. I have no experience of formal meditation practice under expert guidance.
I notice, though, that our discussions of phenomenology tend to focus on perception (with Merleau-Ponty’s classic work leading the way). Peirce’s phenomenon/phaneron includes far more than the sense-perceptibles observable within the empirical sciences such as physics, chemistry, biology etc.: it includes imaginary mathematical objects, hallucinations, dreams, fictional characters and much more. “Thus the tragedy of King Lear has its Firstness, its flavor sui generis” (CP 1.531). And thus Kepler's De Motu Stellae Martis would count as a phenomenon, as Jeff suggests. But I confess that I don’t yet see how a phenomenological analysis of it would differ from a strictly logical analysis.
Let me try another example. The closest I’ve come to awareness of a pure First (which of course cannot exist in the Peircean sense of “existence”) occurred when I had my eyes closed and my hands over my eyes, and a vivid blue patch appeared, persisting for maybe five seconds before gradually fading out. Its Firstness wasn’t quite pure because it did not take up the whole quasi-visual field, but stood out from a blackish background. But the quality of it was of the kind to which the subjective/objective distinction is irrelevant. The real/unreal distinction is also irrelevant. These I take to be hallmarks of the Firstness which can be prescinded from any phenomenon/experience, i.e. from the otherness/existence (2ns) or meaning (3ns) of it.
I think Vincent C’s post was very helpful indeed, and would like to focus on this sentence from it: “The object of any scientific investigation, incl that of phaneroscopy, is in principle an intersubjectively observable phanneron. ” I think this implies that there is a part or ‘stage’ of phaneroscopy that cannot be scientific, because a phenomenon such as a dream or my blue patch is not intersubjectively observable. When Peirce described himself as “never having entertained a doubt that those features of the phaneron that I have found in my mind are present at all times and to all minds” (CP 1.284), I take it that he was referring not to the observable details of any phenomenon, but to the “irreducible elements” which are always prescindable from the phaneron and thus present even to minds who do not practice prescission. Peirce was claiming a sort of implicit consensus on that, not because it could be demonstrated in public but because the regular practice of prescission makes the presence of those “features” indubitable in practice. For him, and doubt of that could only be a “paper doubt.” Anyway, that’s how I read him.
Gary f.
} Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted. [William Bruce Cameron] {https://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ living the time
From: [email protected] On Behalf Of Auke van Breemen
Sent: 27-Mar-21 05:32
To: Peirce-L
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] phaneroscopy, semiotics and meditation.
Gary,
I did miss this one,, found it in a reply:
Guided phaneroscopic practice may be an approach worth exploring. But who shall be "the guide acting as a mentor"? Certainly Peirce didn't have one, and neither did you (I think) nor I. At the moment I wouldn't know how to begin to 'guide' someone in the core practice, but it's definitely something worth considering, and so I intend to. At one point in my life I was leading groups in guided meditation, but at the moment I don't see how that skill might transfer to guiding phaneroscopic practice. But it's definitely worth thinking about as, for one thing, I could definitely use a collaborator or two to help develop this project!
---
1
Attention meditation (aiming at typing the different contents of consciousness) in combination with semiotics might do the trick. As in, as I recall, Gary F's bird example. Suppose we sit and meditate with closed eyes just registering what passes on. We might hear the bussing of some heating or airco equipment. But we don't hear the equipment we hear the noise and only can decide on the correct source by going to look. And then the singing of a bird makes its entrance. We don't hear the bird but the singing. A proficient birdwatcher will not hear a bird but a specific type of bird. It is the distinction between symbol and legisign we are dealing with in these examples. We hear a legisign and have an accompanying symbol. (with an index towards the expected source involved, etc)
2
Eventually, when meditating with crossed legs, the bloodvessels will be compromised, giving rise to feelings of increasing uneasiness. And, in comes the desire to change position. The difference with 1 can be indicated by the two energetic interpretants: the mental (for 1) and the energetic (for 2).
3
If we change position, it is a response to the sign (dynamical interpretant response?). If we don't change it still can be counted as a dynamical interpretant, but it is not in the same sense a response, in my estimate.
4
I tried not move because Barendregt, the teacher, told that the pain would go eventually. And indeed, a distracting bird could sometimes do the trick. But sometimes I tried just to feel the pain, and that gave rise to the moment I experienced the pain to resolve in a series of impressions, as flashes of instantanious lightning devoid of any meaning. The first sign type?
I think along these lines a phaneroscopic study can become a guided study. One has to do it for him/her self, but a guide can be made, if I am right.
Auke
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