Joe, Thanks for the update on Gmane.You also wrote: But Peirce was not an orthodox and certainly not a "naive" Christian so that the efficacy of prayer--if it were considered at all- would certainly not be anything like the quasi-magical power you are pointing to, but rather would tend toward the real influence of ideas, the influence, for example, of many seeing the truth together, whether it be in some corner of science or some corner of Manhattan when, as Peirce once related, a convention of young Christian people hit the town and transformed the City in some (to him) palpably sweet and uplifting way for a weekend (the truth is it's mainly been the Jewish influence on New York which has uplifted this town, for just a few examples: the great Jewish philanthropic and social agencies created here, a vast number of artistic and cultural and intellectual enterprises of all sorts---from NYU to the New York Times--originating here, etc., etc. and which have decidedly answered many of the prayers for generations of New Yorkers). I think Peirce might have conceived of prayer (if he concerned himself much with it at all, & I am not aware of his discussing the matter) in this sort of way: as the power of symbols, say, Truth and Justice, to influence & effect our lives (even as we confront lies and injustice).I don't myself believe in the power of prayer, unfortunately; but for those of you who make up for the deficiencies of sceptics like me, let me request that you include that search engine in your daily prayers because we certainly could use a good search engine after these many years of deprivation! (And bear in mind, too, that Peirce was himself a Christian of sorts, as you doubtless know, so your prayers will not be wasted on benefiting heathens like me in ways we do not deserve!) But my main point now is that it is possible to be a Christian and not subscribe to the dogmas & naivetes of certain forms of Christianity. Church history, it's true as many have noted, suggests a tendency for much institutional religion and many theological interpretations to exclude (and worse, persecute, etc)as Peirce also pointed out, And not all would agree with me that one can even be a Christian in this "looser sense" of not doctrinally conforming (perhaps your "Christian of sorts"?) For example, in at least one of his letters to Kenneth Ketner (their correspondence collected as A Thief of Peirce) Percy comments that Peirce was not really a Christian in the sense that some Roman Catholics might say one must accept certain doctrines in order to be one at all. I don't agree with Percy, of course (and there are certainly Catholics who would join me in what I'm arguing here), while it does appear that Peirce was certainly not a dogmatic Christian, as I am not, and as indeed any number of professed Christians are not. We would rather not have the naive fundamentalist wing stand for the Christianity of some of the others of us. I think it's always been possible to be a "different kind" of (non-conformist) Christian, as in another era Meister Eckhart seems to have been in his very different way. Finally, one may even recite, as Peirce did, the Apostle's Creed with others in church on Sunday, yet conceive of the universe perhaps more along the lines suggested by this extraordinary analysis of Edwina Taborsky http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/taborsky/p-enetab.htm than along the lines of Genesis (btw, I know nothing at all about ET's religious views or lack thereof; I just happen to be reading her paper) But this standing shoulder to shoulder with others confessing a belief in a synechastic & agapastic Power is not hypocrisy since those ancient symbols are now interpreted differently, that is, semeiotically and evolutionarily, but with no less a sense of the agapastic tendency of the cosmos, and of our important role in furthering that (were we ever together to begin to realize our human vocation adequately and again--or, rather, finally--see our world as, yes, an intelligible but also a sacred place). This kind of evolutionary religion is probably only now even really possible, or rather, it is my hope that these agapastic tendencies are real and, so, can be realized.. Not that the quietistic Eastern religions don't have much to offer us aesthetically & meditationally, nor that the tribal ones might not yet help bring us into much deeper contact with nature (Eugene Halton's point: "To walk in beauty"), but so far Christianity is the only religion with evolutionary and agapastic potential (this is in brief my argument contra Bertrand Russell's "Why I Am Not a Christian, I suppose :-) and why I am, and why I believe Peirce was a Christian.and not a heathen (I take this to mean, someone without a prayer :-) Joe, I know you spoke jocularly and I've made much too much of this. Also, I think you know how I detest discussing religious issues (and only do so when provoked :-), so if you care to respond to these ramblings, I'll leave you with the last word. Gary Joseph Ransdell wrote: ---Auke and list:Yes, the Gmane Archive in particular seems to be what is wanted, though there are still a couple of things to be determined about it before I am willing to conclude to that. I'll say what those are in a moment but let me explain first what I see as a possible advantage in it in addition to its usefulness as a searchable archive, namely, its possible use as the primary interface for the list for those who want to use it that way, because one can post to the list from the Gmane interface, both in replying and when starting up a new thread, so that it can take the place of the lyris email interface without the latter being simply abandoned. This can be done in either of two ways: (1) one way would be to have a browser bookmark or "favorites" link (URL button) on one's computer desktop that, when clicked, takes you directly to the Gmane Archive, where the latest message is waiting with the recent ones available as listed in threaded form in the panel above it. (2) The other way, would be to bring it up as a newsgroup folder that appears on the same folder panel as one's email messages folders appear. When you open it up you then get the same sort of two-panel above-and-below layout as if you go to Gmane. I think, though, that using a button link to go directly to Gmane in your browser instead of pulling it up as a newsgroup mail item is probably preferable, but I am not yet certain about that. One always has to use these things for a while in order to understand what is truly convenient. But I like the convenience of the drop-down panel of options that appears on the upper right of the upper panel with the threads on it. Let me make this completely explicit to avoid confusing those not yet acquainted with it: Click on the following URL (and make a browser bookmark for your desktop when it takes you to your destination): http://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce This takes you to the The Gmane Archive where you will find the screen split into two panels, above and below. In the panel below there is the latest posted message. In the panel above there is the list of messages previously posted in threaded form. You can click on any of those lines and a new window will be opened with that message in it. Back to what you find at first, though, you can change the threaded representation of the past messages into a list organized by date only, with the most recent one listed at the top of the list. Now, most of the options available to you are to be found listed in a dropdown panel located on the upper panel, which is labeled "--action--". It should have been labeled simply as "options", in my opinion, but, anyway, click that and you get a list of possible things to do: if you want to reply to the message which is presently appearing in the bottom panel, which is the most recent message posted, you click on "Followup" They should have labeled that as "reply"! -- but, okay, clicking that will then give you a window suitable for composing a reply. If, on the other hand, you want to start a new thread, click instead on the option labeled "Post". That will give you a window suitable for posting a message for a new thread instead. There are other options as well. I suggest trying each of them out in turn to see what they get you. One of things you will find is that there are still other interfaces available! To avoid confusion I won't go into them here other than to say that although some of these alternative interfaces are more attractive than the basic interface I am presently describing, they do not provide a panel with a threaded or chronological list of messages on it. Hence they are not as useful. But you can decide for yourself whether to work with one of them instead. Finally, if you look at the bottom of the lower panel you will find several more options, the most important of which is a search window for typing in a string for a Boolean search of the archive. I leave it to you to use that. One caveat, though: the search panel works only for messages that have been indexed, and they are not indexed immediately. Apparently, the practice is to re-index the entire archive once a day or so, which is apparently necessary in order to get the latest messages integrated with the rest in a common indexing scheme. It seems to me there should be an easier way, but what do I know? Anyway, that means that you might have to wait for a day or so to insure that the latest messages are going to be called up in the search. Now, the truth is that I don't know how well the search engine actually works since the latest messages haven't been indexed yet, unless that engine has cranked up since the last time I tried it. But, assuming it really is a good index engine, this is not too much of an inconvenience since you usually know what the most recent messages relevant to your search topic is anyway. It is pulling up the older ones that is the most important. I don't myself believe in the power of prayer, unfortunately; but for those of you who make up for the deficiencies of sceptics like me, let me request that you include that search engine in your daily prayers because we certainly could use a good search engine after these many years of deprivation! (And bear in mind, too, that Peirce was himself a Christian of sorts, as you doubtless know, so your prayers will not be wasted on benefiting heathens like me in ways we do not deserve!) Joe Ransdell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Auke van Breemen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Peirce Discussion Forum" <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu> Sent: Thursday, January 12, 2006 4:58 AM Subject: [peirce-l] Re: one list archive now working Joe, Nice job, good tool! I did test the posting facility in gmane and tried out what happens if a non subscriber to the list uses this facility by using an address that is different from the one I am known by in the list. In five minutes I received a message: Gmane: This is a non-public mailing list, which means that you have to subscribe to the list to post to it. If you're already subscribed to the list, Gmane can forward this message to the list if you respond to this message. If not, you should sign up to the mailing list first, and then respond to this message, or just forget about it. ---- I think this is exactly the behavior that we want. Another nice feature of gmane is that in the same roll down menu, the item 'information' provides the info needed to subscribe. Auke-----Original Message----- From: Joseph Ransdell [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: donderdag 12 januari 2006 3:07 To: Peirce Discussion Forum Subject: [peirce-l] Re: one list archive now working The "official" new archive for PEIRCE-L is now functional, though I have not yet managed to import the old messages from the lyris listserver. But it is now working nonetheless, and it can be accessed in several different ways, but to avoid needless confusion I will refer to one of these as the "official archive", which is also called "The Gmane Archive", and is to be found at the following URL: : http://news.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce The second access to that material is at the address I provided in the previous message on the topic several days ago, which I will refer to as "The Mail Archive" (because that is actually its name). Think of it as a backup for the official archive, which is The Gmane Archive. The URL for it is: http://www.mail-archive.com/peirce-l%40lyris.ttu.edu/ If you go to both you will find that The Mail Archive, the back up archive, actually has a number of messages in it that are not (yet) in The Gmane Archive. That is because I accidentally got it setup first, not knowing what I was doing. But they will both be filled soon with what must be many hundreds, perhaps even thousands, of old messages imported from the lyris listserver, which has been archiving all along but is so awkward to use that it might as well not exist. There is more to be said about this, but I don't want to induce confusion by doing so in the present message. I will wait until a better time to get into further detail on it. Hopefully, this is the sort of confusion that attends progress.. Joe Ransdell ----- Original Message ----- From: "Joseph Ransdell" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Peirce Discussion Forum" <peirce-l@lyris.ttu.edu> Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 11:42 AM Subject: [peirce-l] one list archive now working There is now an archive for the list that is working, and a second one that apparently still needs to be debugged but should be in working order soon. The URL for the web-based version of the one that is now working is: http://www.mail-archive.com/peirce-l%40lyris.ttu.edu/ You might want to check it out but I should add that this is NOT the main one but a second one provided for purposes of redundancy, I guess. It is called "The Mail Archive". The main one is called "The Gmane Archive"" and is not yet functional for some reason, though it is supposed to be. I'll give you a URL for it as soon as it gets functional. It will be available both as a website and as a newsgroup that you can feed into your mail program so that it shows up as a folder there. As soon as it is working right I will make an arrangement for importing into both of them everything in the lyris listserver that is presently available in that all but unusable archive there. Joe Ransdell -- No virus found in this outgoing message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.13/221 - Release Date: 1/4/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.13/221 - Release Date: 1/4/2006 -- Internal Virus Database is out-of-date. Checked by AVG Free Edition. Version: 7.1.371 / Virus Database: 267.14.13/221 - Release Date: 1/4/2006 --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED]--- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber [EMAIL PROTECTED] Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com |
- [peirce-l] one list archive now working Joseph Ransdell
- [peirce-l] Re: one list archive now working Joseph Ransdell
- [peirce-l] Re: one list archive now working Auke van Breemen
- [peirce-l] Re: one list archive now working Joseph Ransdell
- [peirce-l] Peircean prayer, was: Re: on... Gary Richmond
- [peirce-l] Re: Peircean prayer, wa... Joseph Ransdell
- [peirce-l] Re: Peircean prayer... Gary Richmond
- [peirce-l] Re: Peircean pr... Gary Richmond
- [peirce-l] Re: Peircean pr... Arnold Shepperson
- [peirce-l] Evolutionary Lo... Gary Richmond
- [peirce-l] Re: Evolutionar... Gary Richmond
- [peirce-l] Re: Evolutionar... gnusystems
- [peirce-l] Re: Evolutionar... Jim Piat
- [peirce-l] Re: Evolutionar... Gary Richmond
- [peirce-l] Re: Evolutionar... Gary Richmond