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Gary R., Gary F., List:
Today I would like to offer some comments on a few of Bateson's statements
that are quoted in Gary F.'s online book at the link below, each of which
strikes me as echoing something in Peirce's remarks about a "perfect sign"
(EP 2:545n25, 1906).
GB: 1. A mind is an aggregate of interacting parts or components.
Peirce similarly describes a perfect sign as "the aggregate formed by a
sign and all the signs which its occurrence carries with it." However, I
would qualify this along with his statements elsewhere that "if any signs
are connected, no matter how, the resulting system constitutes one sign" (R
1476:36[5-1/2], 1904); and "all this universe is perfused with signs, if it
is not composed exclusively of signs" (CP 5.448n, EP 2:394, 1906). If the
idea is that a mind can be *analyzed *as an aggregate of interacting parts
or components, just as a perfect sign can be *analyzed *as an aggregate of
connected signs, then I agree. However, if the idea is instead that a mind
is *built up* of interacting parts or components, then I disagree--just as
I maintain that a perfect sign is not *built up* of connected signs that
are ontologically prior to the whole.
GB: 3. Mental process requires collateral energy.
According to Peirce, "Every real ingredient of the perfect sign is aging,
its energy of action upon the interpretant is running low, its sharp edges
are wearing down, its outlines becoming more indefinite. On the other hand,
the perfect sign is perpetually being acted upon by its object, from which
it is perpetually receiving the accretions of new signs, which bring it
fresh energy, and also kindle energy that it already had, but which had
lain dormant." Does Bateson likewise posit something *external *to a mind
that "bring[s] it fresh energy" and/or "kindle[s] energy that it already
had," thereby counteracting natural entropy to keep its mental processes
going?
GB: 5. In mental process, the effects of difference are to be regarded as
transforms (i. e., coded versions) of events which preceded them.
This is reminiscent of EGs, where any valid deductive inference from
previously asserted propositions translates into permissible
*transformations* of graphs. It is thus consistent with Peirce's statement,
"Such perfect sign is a quasi-mind. It is the sheet of assertion of
Existential Graphs."
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 9:19 AM <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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 *The
> Spontaneous Healing of Belief*
> <https://archive.org/stream/GreggBradenTheSpontaneousHealingOfBelief/Gregg%20Braden/Gregg%20Braden%20-%20The%20Spontaneous%20Healing%20Of%20Belief#page/n1>
> (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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