List, Jeff, Jon, This post is an attempt to address the tension that can arise when discussing Peirce’s *evolutionary cosmology* -- in which laws (3ns) grow out of chance (1ns) and habit-taking (3ns) with the effects those produce (2ns); and this in contrast with the *metaphysical ontology* seen in the 'blackboard' diagram discussion in the 1898 lectures, *Reasoning and the Logic of Things* (hereafter, *RLT*, the standard abbreviation of the lecture series as published) in which a primal continuity (3ns) is outlined as the precondition, actually the *sine qua non*, of any universe even *possibly* coming into being.
To be clear, I will not be arguing the correctness of one view as opposed to the other but, rather, suggesting that, 1st, *both* views were held by Peirce and, 2nd, that they are not contradictory. This is to say that while the *cosmologica*l analysis is basically correct from the perspective of the categories as 'operative' in this existing universe, it misses something *metaphysically* essential and which Peirce speculated on in Lecture 8 of *RLT*. The problem seems to be that, since Peirce speaks *metaphysically* in *RLT* of the logical necessity of an aboriginal continuity (3ns “before Time was”), how can he also logically claim *cosmologically* that law (3ns), as it appears in this existing universe, emerges relatively categorially 'late', that is, 'after' 1ns and 2ns? (I should note that it has been suggested in this forum by Jon that from the involutional perspective of 3ns involving 2ns/1ns, 2ns involving 1ns, that they likely appeared simultaneously). The tentative answer to this question lies, I believe, in distinguishing two senses/levels of continuity as 3ns, namely, the *Ontological* and the *Cosmological* (in my view it's unfortunate that Peirce did not clearly distinguish these *two senses of 3ns qua continuity* ). One sense, which I've been calling *On**tological 3ns,* represents *continuity as such*, the blackboard meant as a diagram of an aboriginal continuum that is *not* temporal, *not* causal in Peirce's sense of representing physical laws. Ontological 3ns -- aboriginal, metaphysical continuity -- does not involve actual events, physical laws, etc. To say, as Peirce does, that this ontological continuity has its being “before time" is to say that* its* *reality *(note, *not its existence*) is *a non-temporal precondition of the possibility of a cosmos coming into being at all*. At this juncture I think it is important to recall that *Peirce distinguishes between reality and existence,* which distinction informs the context of what I'm discussing. *Reality* is characterized categorially essentially by 3ns so, continuity *as such,* involvies *possible* lawfulness, mediation, intelligibility. *Existence*, on the other hand, is characterized categorially especially by 2ns, brute reaction, the *hic et nunc *(albeit 'in time' governed by 3ns and necessarily involving 1ns as the qualities and characters of existence)*.* Seen metaphysically, that which is "before time" is *not *an earlier moment 'happening' before cosmogenesis takes off, but *that which is the precondition of anything* -- including both the cosmological *and* the ontological categories (recalling that the ontological categories latter -- proto-1ns and proto-2ns -- mere possibilities for an existential universe -- some of which 'stick' on the metaphysical 'blackboard', that will be iterated, etc. Almost needless to say, some possible characters and qualities, from an infinite number of them, will never appear at all -- at least not in *this* cosmos. Within this aboriginal continuity, then, is *proto-1ns* (qualitative possibility as such) and *proto-2ns* (the possibility of otherness as such) within a metaphysical 'field' of possibility, the ur-continuity. This is the aboriginal continuum where, at this level, *nothing in particular* *exists* while *everything in general* is *possible**, *to paraphrase a famous phrase of Peirce's. On the other hand there is, obviously, *cosmological 3ns*, that is, law and habit *operative in time *in our universe. This is 3ns within semiosis, specifically *semiosic symbolicity* involving all three categories. And since "symbols grow," it follows that the cosmos *can* evolve -- and obviously it has. When 1ns, as qualities, and 2ns, as brute action-reactions appear, time and habit-taking and law, as 3ns, appear with them 'simultaneously'. In other words, as existential events recur in time, habits are already beginning to form, some of which stabilize, some hardening into 'laws of nature' governing the existential being of the Universe. All of this is merely to say that there is no necessary contradiction between these two senses of 3ns just discussed. What is emergent as a cosmos is *not** primal continuity (*not 3ns *as suc*h)*,* but *lawfulness within time*. From a Peircean perspective, continuity does not come into *existence*; rather, it is the* real ground of being*. So, for Peirce, existential law is not the source of continuity; rather, it is continuity’s expression in time (necessarily involving both spontaneity and action-reaction). This existential order belongs to the temporal universe, not to the aboriginal continuum from which a universe *might* spring. What evolves is not continuity itself but, again, *habit* and* lawfulness within continuous time.* Again, this interpretation is congruent with Peirce’s distinction between *reality* (where 3ns dominates) and *existence* (where 2ns is dominant, but under the rule of 3ns). Peirce’s metaphysical–cosmological framework avoids the enigma of something arising out of nothing or, as one current theory would have it, arising from a chain of former universes. But that view only pushes the problem back: how did that very 1st universe arise? No doubt there are many who will reject Peirce's metaphysical abduction of "a time before time" out of hand, but for those who remain open to it, I believe it may prove not only metaphysically coherent, but ontologically useful. I would contrast Peirce's view with many, if not most, other theories of cosmogenesis, especially those that would make *something* -- *a Universe! *-- appear out of *nothing*, say, some quantum field (as an alternative theory to the Big Bang would have it; but, again, where did *that* come from?) Peirce's metaphysical-cosmological view of the continuity of 3ns as an intriguing complexus is, in my view, well worth further reflection by philosophers, cosmologists, and other scientists. Best, Gary R
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