Gary R., List: GR: Right- and left-handed forms exemplify phenomena that mechanics can't explain, thus revealing the real role of chance in nature.
I agree with the first part of this, but not the second. In the first of two quotations that I provided, Peirce explicitly states that he is describing examples of phenomena that are "*neither *explicable by force *nor *... by the doctrine of chances" (emphases mine). In fact, here is what he goes on to say right after the portion that I initially excerpted. CSP: On the whole, I suppose we must provisionally add chance to intelligence as one of the possible sources of triads, though how that chance can operate I am unable to guess. If we might trust to human instinct, which we must ultimately trust in all our reasonings, just as a bird trusts to its wings without understanding the principles of aerodynamics according to which it flies, and which show why its wings may be trusted, we might venture to say that there must be an intelligence behind that chance; but restrained as we are to scientific procedure, we must say no more than that we do not know how there come to be those divergencies of triadic phenomena. (EP 2:427) He only *provisionally* recognizes chance as a *possible *source of triads in addition to intelligence, but cannot even offer a guess at how that could be so, and then suggests that "human instinct" is inclined to hold instead "that there must be an intelligence behind that chance." Moreover, in the second quotation that I provided, Peirce claims that all known cases of handedness are either "due to the intervention of a definitely one-sided screw" or determined by "the choice of a living being." Later in the same paragraph, he says the following. CSP: In short, the problem of how genuine triadic relationships first arose in the world is a better, because more definite, formulation of the problem of how life first came about; and no explanation has ever been offered except that of pure chance, which we must suspect to be no explanation, owing to the suspicion that pure chance may itself be a vital phenomenon. In that case, life in the physiological sense would be due to life in the metaphysical sense. Of course, the fact that a given individual has been persuaded of the truth of a proposition is the very slenderest possible argument for its truth; nevertheless, the fact that I, a person of the strongest possible physicistic prejudices, should, as he result of forty years of questionings, have been brought to the deep conviction that there is some essentially and irreducibly other element in the universe than pure dynamism may have sufficient interest to excuse my devoting a single sentence to its expression. (CP 6.322) Pure chance does not qualify as an *explanation *of how genuine triadic relations, and therefore life itself, could have first come about. Despite his own "physicistic prejudices"--the natural tendency of any physical scientist, even today, toward physicalism or materialism as a "crude and uncriticized metaphysics" (CP 1.129, c. 1905)--Peirce concluded, after four decades of careful study and thought, that there must be "some essentially and irreducibly other element in the universe than pure dynamism." Ruling out 1ns (pure chance) and 2ns (pure dynamism) leaves 3ns as the only remaining alternative, and as he clearly maintains elsewhere, 3ns cannot be *built up* from 1ns and 2ns; instead, 3ns *involves *2ns and 1ns. In other words, 3ns *cannot *emerge from 1ns and 2ns, but 1ns and 2ns *can *emerge from 3ns, just as you and I have been pointing out in the current thread on integrating Peirce's cosmology. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Sun, Oct 5, 2025 at 9:24 PM Gary Richmond <[email protected]> wrote: > Jon, Mike, Jerry, Daniel, List, > > I won't comment on LLMs as it is not the topic of this thread while I have > already expressed my rather mixed feelings about it. > > Jon, thanks for providing these two quotations. I was myself about to > post the second one. There Peirce connects chirality with chance and > tychism and, as regards chance, ultimately, the possibility of life itself. > It would appear that chirality serves as a, shall we say, 'minute' > illustration of Peirce’s broader cosmological argument: Right- and > left-handed forms exemplify phenomena that mechanics can't explain, thus > revealing the real role of chance in nature. This in turn supports Peirce’s > vision of an evolving universe in which chance is essential for the > generation of novelty and, eventually, biological life itself. Chirality > exemplifies points to the intersection of chance, law, and purpose, this > being the very interplay that Peirce's cosmology attributes to tychism, > synechism, and agapism. > > As I see it, handedness becomes for Peirce a physical manifestation of > certain of his metaphysical principles: chance introduces asymmetry; > continuity allows for its persistence; and purposeful selection by > organisms or minds stabilizes it into the evolving forms of the cosmos. > > Best, > > Gary R >
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