Stephen, List: SJ: Too many Western interpretations are tinged with anthropocentric (god-leaning) biases, and that’s why I am more inclined to Eastern interpretations, which leave the god-question open.
Despite viewing consciousness as "limited to embodied and living beings," Peirce considered the "anthropocentric bias" of Western philosophy to be a feature, not a bug, because "every scientific explanation is a hypothesis that there is something in nature to which the human reason is analogous" (CP 1.316, 1903). "To say, therefore, that a conception is one natural to man, which comes to just about the same thing as to say that it is anthropomorphic, is as high a recommendation as one could give to it in the eyes of an Exact Logician" (CP 5.47, EP 2:152, 1903). Applying this directly to "the god-question," he preferred "the anthropomorphic conception" of "an old-fashioned God" as "more likely to be about the truth" than "a modern patent Absolute" (CP 5.47n, EP 2:152; see also CP 8.168, 1902). Of course, Peirce famously professed his own belief that God is "Really creator of all three Universes of Experience" (CP 6.452, EP 2:434, 1908), and he even asserted, "It may, therefore, truly be said that each of us believes in God, and that the only quest is how to believe less crudely" (SWS 283, 1909). However, he also insisted that "'God' is a vernacular word and, like all such words, but more than almost any, is *vague*," going on to suggest that the reason why many people erroneously deny that they believe in the reality of God is because "they precide (or render precise) the conception, and, in doing so, inevitably change it; and such precise conception is easily shown not to be warranted, even if it cannot be quite refuted" (CP 6.494-6, c. 1906). After all, he adds a few paragraphs later, "it is impossible to say that any human attribute is *literally *applicable" to God (CP 6.502); so, accordingly, "we must not predicate any Attribute of God otherwise than vaguely and figuratively" (SWS 283). My forthcoming paper in *Transactions of the Charles S. Peirce Society*, "Peirce's Cosmological Argumentation: God as *Ens necessarium*," explores Peirce's answer to "the god-question" in greater detail. As usual, I will post a link and the abstract when it is published, presumably in the next issue. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Fri, Aug 15, 2025 at 8:11 AM "Stephen Jarosek" <[email protected]> wrote: > Gary, List > > Gary R: “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.” > > > > Resonates with aspects of Quantum Field Theory (QFT) and the quantum void. > Peirce’s and Planck’s interpretations are exceptional. Peirce, for example, > appreciates that “consciousness seems limited to embodied and living > beings”, and this resonates nicely with my own thinking. However, my > exchanges with Grok focus more on Eastern philosophies, rather than > Western. Too many Western interpretations are tinged with anthropocentric > (god-leaning) biases, and that’s why I am more inclined to Eastern > interpretations, which leave the god-question open. > > > > In my latest research (current paper under review with a journal), I > factor in the parallels between the quantum void and Sunyata (the creative > void of Buddhism/Hinduism), within a Peircean-semiotic context. My > extensive convo with Grok covers the “creative void” in greater detail, > around the notion that the “tensions” in the void (its potentialities) are > essentially semiotic. If anyone is interested, DM me and I can send you a > Word transcript of my convo with Grok… or I can post it to the forum, if > there’s a way of doing this. > > > > If anyone is interested in my current paper that is under review, here’s a > link to a preprint on Academia.edu: > > https://www.academia.edu/129898049/UPDATE_Association_as_Downward_Causation > > > > Cheers, > > sj >
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