Gary F., List: Let me begin with two housekeeping items. First, I apologize to the entire List community and especially its moderator, Gary R., for sending three posts both yesterday and Wednesday, thereby violating his requested limit of two per day despite complying with the restriction of one per day per thread. Second, I have changed the subject line of this post to reflect what we are now discussing, which is not ontology.
GF: *The past is not a place* where things go when they die (i.e. become completely determinate). Nothing *exists *“in the past.” I agree with you that the past is not a *place*, but I agree with Peirce that *everything *in the past is completely determinate and therefore exists. You say that this strikes you as absurd, but what other mode of being could the past have? "The Past consists of the sum of *faits accomplis*, and this Accomplishment is the Existential Mode of Time. For the Past really acts upon us, and *that *it does, not at all in the way in which a Law or Principle influences us, but precisely as an Existent object acts. ... [T]he mode of the Past is that of Actuality" (CP 5.459, EP 2:357, 1905). As you put it yourself, "nothing unhappens." Accordingly, in "Temporal Synechism," I outline a version of the "growing block" theory of time, in which the past and present exist but not the future--the indeterminate possibilities (1ns) and conditional necessities (3ns) of the future are constantly becoming the determinate actualities (2ns) of the past. "Existence, then, is a special mode of reality, which, whatever other characteristics it possesses, has that of being absolutely determinate" (CP 6.349, 1902). Nevertheless, as I acknowledged before, in the *ultimate *sense, the "one *individual*, or completely determinate, state of things" could only be *fully* realized at "a point in the infinitely distant future when there will be no indeterminacy or chance but a complete reign of law" (CP 1.409, EP 1:277, 1887-8). However, time will never *actually *reach that limit, when "the all of reality" would be *entirely *in the past. GF: The crucial point I’d like to make is this: time and semiosis are both *continuous*, but while time is one-dimensional and one-directional, i.e. “linear” (to use a spatial metaphor), semiosis is predominately *nonlinear*. The accuracy of this characterization depends on exactly what you mean by "nonlinear." Just like time, semiosis as analyzed for any prescinded *individual *sign is unidimensional and unidirectional, always proceeding from the object through the sign toward the interpretant. However, it is not only *straight *lines that are "linear" in this sense, but also *curved *lines including ellipses, parabolas, and hyperbolas that are mathematically defined by "nonlinear equations." In fact, according to Peirce's *hyperbolic *cosmology, the entire universe is proceeding unidimensionally and unidirectionally from an initial state in the infinite past toward a final state in the infinite future, where these two states are *different *asymptotic limits that are never actually reached. The initial state is "chaos, tohu bohu, the nothingness of which consists in the total absence of regularity"; while the final state is "death, the nothingness of which consists in the complete triumph of law and absence of all spontaneity" (CP 8.317, 1891). On the other hand, what I call an *event *of semiosis is "nonlinear" in the sense that an individual *dynamical *interpretant as determined by an individual sign *token *in an individual interpreter is not strictly a function of the sign itself and its dynamical object; it also depends on the *habits* of interpretation that the interpreter possesses at that moment, by virtue of all the signs that have *previously *determined that interpreter. In other words, it is a dynamical interpretant of *not only* the external sign being analyzed, but *also *the internal sign that is the interpreting quasi-mind *itself*. That is why it is not only possible but quite common for the *same* sign to produce *different *dynamical interpretants in different interpreters, including *misinterpretations *where a dynamical interpretant is inconsistent with the sign's immediate interpretant and/or final interpretant. The aim of inquiry is eliminating (or at least minimizing) these deviations, which is what makes logic as semeiotic a *normative *science. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Sat, Jul 26, 2025 at 8:53 AM <[email protected]> wrote: > Jon, list, > > There is one statement near the beginning of your post that strikes me as > absurd, and nothing in the remainder of your explanation changes that > impression. > > JAS: at the present, that [completely determinate] state of things [namely > the all of reality] "is comprised of everything that is in the past" (p. > 253). > > *The past is not a place* where things go when they die (i.e. become > completely determinate). Nothing *exists* “in the past.” The “state of > things” (as Peirce says) is “an abstract constituent part of reality.” In > reality though, as in the “perfect sign,” nothing is *static*; “the all > of reality” then is as imaginary as a point on a continuous line. > Everything that *happens*, including every instance of determination, > happens now, and nothing unhappens. > > I’ve offered an alternative Peircean account of determination and > causality which addresses the question raised by Gary R here: > https://gnusystems.ca/TS/css.htm#causdetrmn, for those who might be > interested. > > The crucial point I’d like to make is this: time and semiosis are both > *continuous*, but while time is one-dimensional and one-directional, i.e. > “linear” (to use a spatial metaphor), semiosis is predominately > *nonlinear*. Semiosis requires time but also requires energy flows, and > energy flows in systemic processes are typically nonlinear. In the human > brain, for instance, the majority of functional areas that project neuronal > signals to other areas also receive feedback from those areas, and do so > *continuously* during the current process. Where the organization is > hierarchical, the top-down and bottom-up flows *mutually determine* what > happens. Peirce does acknowledge mutual determination in the context of > Existential Graphs, but he could not have known how it was physiologically > embodied in semiosis or cognition, because system science was hardly even > embryonic in his time. > > Jon, my reading of your post may be uncharitable, but I couldn’t help it! > > Love, gary f. > > Coming from the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg >
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