List: As defined by Jeff below, EFEs = Einstein's field equations.
His research project is indeed impressive (and ambitious), although the details are beyond the range of my personal interests and technical competence. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Structural Engineer, Synechist Philosopher, Lutheran Christian www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt / twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Wed, Jan 14, 2026 at 6:07 PM Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: > Jeff -’I’d be interested in the questions you have about the Lambda CDM > account of the emergence of the universe. I think the nature of dark energy > [lambda] [1ns? 3-1?]and dark matter [CDM][3-2?].and the relation to > ’so-called ordinary matter [2ns] is fascinating. > > What is EFE? [I understand QFT- quantum field theory] > > Edwina > > On Jan 14, 2026, at 6:20 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard < > [email protected]> wrote: > > Hello, > > For those, like Gary R and Edwina, willing to share suggestions and ideas, > Thanks! > > The short description I provided in the prior email of the *Origins of > Order in the Cosmos* project is only meant to convey they aims and main > strategies of each of the three volumes. > > In response to Edwina, I've been taken by Prigogine's work on entropy and > dissipative systems for many years and by the concept of autopoesis > developed by Maturana and Varela. In response to Gary R., the central aim > of my project is to extend Peirce's metaphysical hypothses by building > models, guided by the principle of continuity, and then drawing out > conceivable tests and predicted consequences, guided by the pragmatic > maxim. In doing so, I'm trying to show practicing cosmologists and students > of physics that the standard Lambda CDM account leaves a lot of questions > unanswered and generates explanations about what happened in the "first > second" of the cosmos that seem implausible, at least to me. That sets up a > comparison between three competing families of hypotheses which I try to > carry through from the the origins of the cosmos to the present—pointing > out the strengths and weaknesses of the three families. > > As such, my aim is not scholarship of Peirce's texts. Rather, I'm in the > pursuit of truth about the real nature of cosmological evolution and am > keen to explore how ordered habits and laws might evolve from randomness. > I've discovered it is something of a to give a rigorous explanation of > that growth of order that can also explain how the order that did evolve in > the early cosmos gave rise to sorts of laws expressed in the EFEs and QFT, > or something like them. > > In response to Gary F., intellectual modesty will get you nowhere, at > least not with me. I know better. > > Cheers, > > Jeff > > ------------------------------ > *From:* Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> > *Sent:* Tuesday, January 13, 2026 8:10 AM > *To:* [email protected] <[email protected]>; Jeffrey Brian Downard < > [email protected]> > *Cc:* Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> > *Subject:* Re: [PEIRCE-L] Origins of Order in the Cosmos: invitation to > collaborate > > Jeff > > Again - I am very impressed by your outline. I don’t know if any others > have replied off list. I can see how your grant applications would go > nowhere - the scope is far beyond the normal thought processes of review > boards! > > I’d say that the three categories are primal - not developmental ie, all > are basic to the operation of the universe from the start - and the > semiosic triad [which enables both continuity and deviational adaptation]. > That is - continuity is required for some forms of matter [the most > primal]. But not for other forms of matter [the more complex]; and both > processes must exist. > > Edwina > > On Jan 11, 2026, at 3:40 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Jeff- that’s a monumental project. I very much like your three volume > outline. > > You don’t refer in this abstract to the reason for this development of > order - which I suggest is the prevention of the entropic dissipation of > the energy of the universe - and the resultant development of a CAS > [complex adaptive system] which keeps energy and matter in a > ‘far-from-equilibrium state [Prigogine]. > > See also Stuart Kauffman’s Book ’The Origins of Order: self-organization > and selection in Evolution Oxford Press 1993…[which could almost be a 4th > volume!] > > But again - an impressive and well-articulated project… > > Edwina > > On Jan 11, 2026, at 3:00 PM, Jeffrey Brian Downard <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Hello, > > I forgot to give my message a suitable subject heading, and I don't want > to short circuit the ongoing conversation about AI. As such, I am resending > the message under a new subject. If you are going to respond on-list, > please respond in this thread. Let me add, however, that I am using AI > resources, including LLMs, ML to advance this project in a number of ways. > In the near future, I am hoping to gain access to Deep Mind and similar > resources. > For the last three decades I’ve been working—bit by bit—on a project to > extend Peirce’s “Guess at the Riddle” and apply pragmatic methods to > contemporary questions about the origins of physical order in the cosmos, > the origins and evolution of life, and the origins and evolution of > intelligent thought and action. Much of the time, it has been difficult for > me to see the forest for the trees. In the last few years, however, I’ve > made a concerted effort to tackle the first set of questions. An editor at > Bloomsbury Academic has expressed interest in publishing the first volume > as a monograph, so I'll be focused on turning the current sow's ear of a > working draft into something more finished. > A while back Terry Moore and I, with the help of others, attempted to > develop a framework for collaborative research, both for (a) the > transcription of Peirce’s manuscripts and scholarship and (b) the > application of pragmatic methods to questions in metaphysics and the > various sciences. Several members of the list wrote letters of support as a > few of us wrote applications for grant funding. After some years of trying > and a couple of decisions by the NSF that nearly went our way, we found it > necessary to put the grant writing to the side. At the time, Doug Anderson > provided some advice, which I now want to put to better effect. He > suggested that, if the work was worth doing, then we ought to dig into the > project and worry about the funding later. In the spirit of the SPIN and > APERI projects, I’ve developed the following framework on the first of > Peirce’s questions in “A Guess at the Riddle”: how did physical order first > grow in the cosmos? > Here is a very short overview of the research project—together with an > offer to share working drafts with those who might want to work > collaboratively on the questions. > > 1. *Aims:* The *Origins of Order in the Cosmos* project is my attempt > to tell a single, continuous story about how the universe became physically > ordered—how law, time, space, and stable objects emerged from a potential > field of extreme randomness and indeterminacy. The project is not written > as an argument for or against any one orthodox cosmology. Rather, it is > written as an invitation to inquiry: a structured attempt to make competing > explanations comparable, to expose hidden assumptions, and to build models > that can be criticized, repaired, and improved. I want colleagues and > students—including philosophers, physicists, mathematicians, engineers, and > interested lay people—to treat these drafts as working research > instruments: something you can push against, test, and use to generate new > questions. > 2. *Methods and strategies:* The trilogy is built around Peircean > method, especially the cycle of inquiry involving iterative patterns of > surprising observation and abductive, deductive, and inductive inference; > the pragmatic maxim; and the principle of continuity. The methods are used > to clarify and further develop three comparative families of hypotheses. H₁ > treats fundamental physical laws as fixed and primordial; the early cosmos > is a parameterized stage-play governed by timeless equations. H₃ treats > early history as selection and quenching: many possibilities exist, but > only certain channels survive, leaving fossils—suppressed remnants, noise > floors, and relic constraints. H₂—the Peircean family I am especially keen > to explore and develop—treats laws as the result of the growth of ordered > habits: regularities strengthen as degrees of freedom reduce, as > coarse-graining stabilizes, and as the very meaning of what is “measurable” > sharpens. To sharpen the hypotheses in each family, the books insist on > explicit interfaces, “glue rules,” and conceivable tests and predicted > consequences that can shift comparative weights rather than merely decorate > a narrative. > 3. *Formal toolkit:* We question the presupposition that early regimes > are naturally point-like as rational values or fully metric. As such, we > develop a modeling toolbox designed to respect structural uncertainty and > changing “license conditions” for concepts. Phase and parameter space > models are scaffolded with hypercomplex (Cayley–Dickson) and other > composition algebras as a way to represent evolving degrees of freedom, > compositional stability, and stabilization across epochs of cosmological > evolution. We use surreal (non-Archimedean) and interval-valued bookkeeping > when the regime does not justify rational-number determinacy, and to permit > the natural inclusion of values for our variables that are infinitesimals > and infinities. And we use multiple logics to match multiple regimes: > probabilistic logic for randomness and inference; constructive logic when > existence claims must be operationally witnessed; Peirce’s Gamma > existential graphs for higher-order/modal structure; and categorical logic > to build disciplined bridges between compositional algebras and between > these logical systems and the more deterministic language of first-order > theory. The ambition is to make our reasoning about physics more faithful > to what the different regimes reasonably allow. > 4. *Volume I: Origins of Order—Evolution of Law, Time and Space* lays > down the backbone: an “interface-first” cosmology in which topology, > projective comparability, and metric structure are treated as rungs on a > ladder rather than as givens. The core question is deceptively simple: How > could a world that begins as high-dimensional, highly random potentiality > ever become a world where stable quantities, stable geometry, and stable > processes are possible? Here we introduce a strategy of > non-retrojection—don’t talk as if clocks, particles, or equilibrium > thermodynamics were primitive where they are not licensed—and we begin to > articulate what would count as a “durable carrier”—something that persists > under coarse-graining and can transport structure forward. Volume I is > where the comparative posture leads the way: every claim is framed against > H₁ and H₃, with H₂ defended by continuity and by its ability to reduce > errors while still generating testable proxy profiles. > In practice, Volume I builds toy models of order-growth: we start with > toy models of weighted dice and urns, and work our way to variance collapse > and attractor-like regularities; stabilization under repeated > coarse-graining; and the emergence of ordered conditions from chaotic > regimes that precede full metric time. The hypercomplex and surreal tools > enter here as modeling strategies: they let us represent pre-metric regimes > without pretending we already have real-number metrical geometry, and they > allow us to treat “dimension” as something that can be effective, local, > and historically stabilized rather than eternally fixed. The goal is to > explain how the laws expressed as Einstein’s field equations (EFEs) might, > under H₂ and H₃, have evolved in the first several epochs of cosmological > history. The payoff is a framework that can be carried forward: a way of > saying exactly what changes at each interface, what invariants are > preserved, and what new operations are meaningful. This is the conceptual > platform Volume II then uses to explore how the laws of quantum field > theory and the Standard Model might have co-evolved with EFEs. > 5. *Volume II: First Second of the Cosmos—Grand Metamorphosis* takes > the ladder and runs it through the most conceptually volatile terrain: the > early epochs usually narrated as “the first second.” Here the main claim is > not that the standard ΛCDM story is wrong—it’s that its presuppositions > about the nature of “fixed” fundamental laws often outrun the observational > supports. We reframe the origin talk as a Grand Metamorphosis: a sequence > of regime interfaces in which degrees of freedom reduce, effective > descriptions become legitimate, and particle/field/vacuum language becomes > progressively more stable. Renormalization and effective field theory > become central topological “glue rules” in H₂: repeated stabilization under > coarse-graining is treated as the physical analogue of habit-formation. > Through inflation and reheating to confinement and hadronization epochs, we > keep asking: what is durable, what is evolving, what remains vague and > interval-valued, and what proxy consequences constrain the story? > Two landmarks organize the territory explored in the latter half of > Volume II. First, matter asymmetry: the universe’s net matter is an > important explanandum, so any plausible family of hypotheses must meet the > minimal structural conditions. Second, confinement/hadronization is where > “durable carriers” (e.g., protons and neutrons) become legitimate as stable > letters in the material alphabet, making later composition of durable > particles—nuclei and atoms—possible. The philosophical point follows from a > demand for rigor: what is often called “emergence” of such particles is not > magic if the interface operations and invariants are declared; but it is > magic if one simply retrojects late-time ontology backward. > 6. *Volume III: Cosmological Evolution: Laws as Nested Modalities* > (currently > in the early drafting stage) aims to extend the same method beyond the > “first second” into the long arc where physical and chemical order becomes > richly layered: nucleosynthesis and the periodic table; recombination and > the CMB as a memory ledger; stars as cyclic engines; galaxies as meso-scale > stabilizations; black holes as interface stress tests; and vacuum energy > and dark matter as an abductive frontier. The goal is to explain the > evolution of the physical and chemical laws we take to be > fundamental—starting from the work done on EFEs and QFT in Volumes I and > II. The third volume is especially well-suited to comparing the strengths > and weaknesses of H₃ and H₂: selection, quenching, and fossil constraints > become vivid across structure formation, feedback, and the survival of > specific channels under coarse-graining. The guiding idea is that “law” > evolves from ordered habits as nested systems of modalities—possibility, > actuality, necessity—implemented as operational postures for the > development of each family of hypotheses that become sharper as carriers > stabilize and as inference pipelines become robust. I’m eager for readers > to engage these drafts as collaborators: to challenge the interfaces, > sharpen the proxy suites, propose better toy models, and help evaluate > where H₂ genuinely earns explanatory continuity—and where H₁ or H₃ may, in > particular domains, deserve the stronger score. > > If you have questions about what collaborative inquiry concerning these > questions might look like, let me know. I’d be happy to talk on or off > list. For those interested in reading the introduction or a chapter or two, > I'd be keen to have suggestions for revisions. If there is a small group of > colleagues who are interested, I'd be willing to do a series of discussions > as Zoom meetings, or something similar. > Yours, > Jeff > >
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