Gary R, list Just a quick response. More praise than critique. In your long post you hit on some crucial aspects with respect to what would be any valid metaphysics. I speak of the atemporal. This is vital. I don't agree with all Jon has to say here but do agree that it is vital one includes and understands what it is this means within all philosophical and scientific contexts.
So yes, more applause from me for your efforts here. Best Jack Sent from Outlook for Android<https://aka.ms/AAb9ysg> ________________________________ From: [email protected] <[email protected]> on behalf of Gary Richmond <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, January 13, 2026 4:20:58 AM To: Peirce List <[email protected]>; Jeffrey Brian Downard <[email protected]>; Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Ontological and Cosmological Continuity (3ns) 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 cosmological 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 Ontological 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 such), 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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