List, Stephen
I will only post this one time as I recall our earlier arguments over this
focus - which went nowhere. I think the basic augment for me - is not whether
or not Peircean samosas is applicable at the quantum level, for I think that is
-but is about the role of and the nature of : The Categories. I feel they are
deeply ignored and/or misunderstood among the Peircean world.
Again - my concern in Jarosek’s outline is the definition and use of Peircean
Thirdness [ the mental organizational principle] as both some form of
Secondness [ indexicality] and as a hierarchical authority by ‘downward
causation’ which implies some kind of separate abstract out-of-body force. And
I don’t see ‘bottom-up causation’ as reductionism but as an acknowledgement of
the realities of both Firstness and Secondness as organizational principles of
energy/matter. . I won’t comment further because it’s all been said before.
My view, as I’ve said before is that all three categories are fundamental to
achieve the organization of energy/matter. This view also differs from that of
JAS and Gary R - who see Thirdness as primary.
And - as another example of a different focus on the categories - there’s the
view of Marcello Barbieri, who, in my view, totally and deeply misreads and
misunderstands Peirce - confining Peirce’s semiosis to ONLY the interpretative
phase of the triad {O-R/S-I] ..while, he, Barbieri has removed both Firstness
and the Object and redefined it as ‘Manufacturing’; and removed Secondness and
redefined it as a ’signalling function’.
As such, Barbieri has ended the Peircean focus of Jesper Hoffmeyer within the
biosemoitic world…I won’t comment further on this sad state..
I am grateful to Robert Marty whose outline of the categories seem, to me, to
be accurate and correct analyses of Peirce’s agenda in providing us with these
three categories. Again - all are, in my understanding, fundamental to the
formation of energy/matter. .
Edwina
> On Oct 16, 2025, at 5:11 AM, Stephen Jarosek <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> List,
>
> A few weeks ago, I posted a comment to a forum that was well-received,
> somewhat to my surprise. It was a summary of my main thesis, currently under
> review with a journal, available as a preprint, here (some of you were
> introduced to earlier drafts of it a couple of months ago):
> https://www.academia.edu/129898049/Association_as_Downward_Causation
>
> My brief comment to the forum was an outline of why, though I’m not a fan of
> panpsychism, I certainly do support a theory of “mind stuff” playing out
> throughout all levels of existence, including matter. Apparently, people can
> still “get it” without having to read the 20+ pages of my more thoroughly
> supported document. Here is that tl;dr summary for those who prefer a briefer
> outline.
>
> THEORY OF EVERYTHING FOR DUMMIES
>
> References to panpsychism make me nervous. I'm more inclined to look to raw
> "mind stuff" as first cause, and in this regard, the semiotic theory of CS
> Peirce and Terence Deacon's (2012, 2021) notion of molecules as signs are
> especially interesting. Peircean association, as downward causation,
> "informs" bottom-up causation (reductionism) of the options that are
> available, and so addresses the entropy problem. Example of association? Two
> Hydrogen atoms + one Oxygen atom, in association, constitute a water
> molecule.
> Association also plays out in the quantum void, virtual particles, etc,
> as per the Feynman diagrams - association relates to the tensions between the
> known and the unknown.
> What other entities must contend with the tensions between the known and
> the unknown? We do. All living things do, and that's why Peircean association
> is important to them and us, too (Jarosek, 2001). The opposable thumbs, eyes,
> ears, sex differences, vocal apparatus, etc that constitute human embodied
> cognition enable us to associate language, experiences, meaning and
> culture... culture is our downward causation, wiring our neuroplastic brains
> (Jarosek, 2020).
> Then factor in Carlo Rovelli's Relational QM to seal the deal. If my
> conjecture is right, this does away with physicalism, Copenhagenesque
> subatomic billiard-balls popping into and out of existence, and the even
> nuttier notions of multiverse, manyworlds, and dead-alive cats.
> Rovelli's RQM (1996) is key, imho... that's about as close to panpsychism
> as I'm prepared to venture. [Had I heard of Rovelli’s work before 2001, I
> would have cited him in my 2001 paper]
> And with this extensive simplicity and generality, from top to bottom
> (Michael Levin's "all the way down"), we satisfy Occam's razor.
>
> REFERENCES
> Deacon, T.W. (2012). Incomplete Nature: How Mind Emerged from Matter. New
> York: W.W. Norton&Co.
> Deacon, T.W. (2021, September 25). How Molecules Became Signs. Biosemiotics,
> 14, 537-559.
> Jarosek, S. (2001). The law of association of habits. Semiotica, 133(1/4),
> 79-96:
> https://www.academia.edu/3236556/The_law_of_association_of_habits
> Jarosek, S. (2020). Knowing how to be: Imitation, the neglected axiom.
> Cybernetics and Human Knowing, 27(3), 33-63:
> https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/imp/chk/2020/00000027/00000003/art00003
> Rovelli, C. (1996). Relational quantum mechanics. International Journal of
> Theoretical Physics, 35, 1637–1678.
> Watson, R., & Levin, M. (2023, May 23). The collective intelligence of
> evolution and development. Collective Intelligence, 2(2), 1-22.
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