Gary R, I’m pretty much in agreement with your post (below), so rather than make any specific comments on it, I’d like to unpack a bit further my reference to the compatibility of Peirce’s idea of mind with Gregory Bateson’s. Back in the 1980s I was very much taken with Bateson’s concept of mental process as independent of scale (temporal and spatial), such that it embraced “the phenomena which we call thought, evolution, ecology, life, learning and the like” (Bateson 1979, p. 102; Bateson did not address the issue of whether mind was ontologically “primary” or not).
When (years later) I discovered Peirce, it seemed to me that the main differences between the Peircean and Batesonian concepts of mind were terminological, with Bateson taking advantage of some biological/ecological concepts that were not available to Peirce. I’d be interested to see whether other list members agree on that, and how it might relate to Planck’s ideas. In my book I included Bateson’s short list of “criteria” for mind, along with some suggestions of Peircean parallels: https://gnusystems.ca/TS/xlp.htm#bmnd. It’s not long but includes lots of links that might be helpful. Love, gary f. Coming from the ancestral lands of the Anishinaabeg From: [email protected] <[email protected]> On Behalf Of Gary Richmond Sent: 14-Aug-25 17:21 To: [email protected]; [email protected]; Evgenii Rudnyi <[email protected]> Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Planck and Peirce on mind as primary, matter secondary Gary F, Evgenii, List GF: I guess we are assuming that what Planck called “consciousness” is essentially what Peirce called “mind.” GR: Not exactly. But see below. GF: But Peirce was very clear that there is much more to mind than consciousness — and that consciousness seems limited to embodied and living beings. For instance, he wrote that “Since God, in His essential character of Ens necessarium, is a disembodied spirit, and since there is strong reason to hold that what we call consciousness is either merely the general sensation of the brain or some part of it, or at all events some visceral or bodily sensation, God probably has no consciousness" (boldface added) GR: Yet that "probably" is significant, especially since he places it in the context of "what we call consciousness." In his relatively late Florence lecture, from which I quoted in my original post, Planck says "There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force. . . We must assume behind this force a conscious and intelligent Mind”. But why assume that either the 'consciousness' or the 'intelligence' of Mind is like ours, or at least very much like ours for either Planck or Peirce? I doubt that either Peirce nor Planck thought that if God has consciousness that it is anything like our human consciousness. And some of this may be a matter of the extremely fallible terminology that everyone who tackles Mind in this cosmological sense is forced to employ. While Planck was cautious about explicitly theological language (although he was a practicing Lutheran), my sense is that he tended towards a view in which the universe’s ultimate reality is mind-like, far more general than human consciousness, perhaps more like a universal cosmic field in which human minds participate. In the Wikipedia article on him, renowned historian of science, John Heilbron, relates that when asked about his religious views, Planck replied 'that although he had always been deeply religious, he did not believe "in a personal God, let alone a Christian God".' Very strong words from a German Lutheran. GF: It seems to me that in the physical world, there are three ontological requirements for anything to happen, to change, or to be determined: time, energy and matter. I find it difficult to imagine that any of them can be more primordial than the other two. This doesn’t seem compatible with Peirce’s cosmology of the 1890s. GR: While it may be that "time, energy and matter" are required once there is " anything to happen, to change, or to be determined," that is, once there is a universe. But when I think of Peirce's "cosmology of the 1890s" I immediately think of the final 1898 lectures, and especially the famous blackboard analogy. Perhaps it would be helpful to review it as, in my view, it puts considerable light on what he means by cosmic Mind, and I will begin that review in a separate post, perhaps a separate thread. But first I want to address Evgennii's remarks. Evgennii wrote: "I would be cautios with this Planck's citation. I have seen it on Internet but this paper as such is not available. Probably he has said this but he was already 86 in 1944. And I have not seen something like this in his previous works." I had earlier referenced two quotations by Planck, the one you pointed to. “There is no matter as such. All matter originates and exists only by virtue of a force which brings the particle of an atom to vibration and holds this most minute solar system of the atom together. We must assume behind this force the existence of a conscious and intelligent mind -- this mind is the matrix of all matter.” (“The Nature of Matter” (Das Wesen der Materie), Florence, 1944) I'm not sure what his being 86 has much to do with Planck's comment as we are all familiar with scientists and other intellectuals who have worked productively in their old age, and from what I've read, the last few years of Planck's life were full and vibrant. He was frequently visited by famous scientists, for example, Einstein, and there seems to me no reason to think that he was not 'of sound mind' when he gave the 1944 lecture in Florence. As to the publication of the 1944 lecture, so far all I've been able to find is this: Das Wesen der Materie [The Nature of Matter], a 1944 speech in Florence, Italy, Archiv zur Geschichte der Max‑Planck‑Gesellschaft, Abt. Va, Rep. 11 Planck, Nr. 1797; the German original is as quoted in <https://archive.org/stream/GreggBradenTheSpontaneousHealingOfBelief/Gregg%20Braden/Gregg%20Braden%20-%20The%20Spontaneous%20Healing%20Of%20Belief#page/n1> The Spontaneous Healing of Belief (2008) by Gregg Braden, p. 212. As to your comment "I have not seen something like this in his previous works," the first quotation I gave is from 1931, and while not from one of his lectures or pape: “I regard consciousness as fundamental. I regard matter as derivative from consciousness. We cannot get behind consciousness. Everything that we talk about, everything that we regard as existing, postulates consciousness.” (The Observer, January 25, 1931) While not from one of his lectures or papers. I see no reason to doubt the source. Best, Gary R
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