END OF CHAPTERLet us attempt a paraphrasis in terms of perception. The complexity of a “quale”,if it is definitive of the meaning of a perception or a perceptual [page 530]judgment, must be present and recognized as pertinent to the perception insofaras it determines the meaning of the perception. And to the extent to which thefurther segmentability of the “quale” is not definitive for THISperception, to the same extent that “quale” is simple or primary. It isvalid as Firstness and there are no PERTINENT inferential processes below itsthreshold.¶-x-To conclude (seeing that I began with Thyomas Aquinas), I would to quoteNicholas of Cusa: “Only in a finite fashion is the infinite form received”, OFLEARNED IGNORANCE, II, 11).¶ ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Gary Moore <[email protected]> To: Peirce List <[email protected]>; John N. Deely <[email protected]>; Jon Awbrey <[email protected]>; Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 9:45 AM Subject: Fw: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos Part 328** MURDERMYSTERY! **ECO ON PEIRCE!**29 Dec 2014 9:55 am CST REVISE, READ ORIGINAL (Who killed truth?) FROM THE TREE TO THE LABYRINTH by UmbertoEcoCHAPTER 15: THE THRESHOLD AND THE INFINITE: PEIRCE ANDPRIMARY ICONISM * correlate with KANT ANDTHE PLATYPUS [page 528]-x-If it can be granted that for Peirce the Ground IS WHAT I REFERED TO ASPRIMARY ICONISM, let us bear in mind that the Ground is an element, a marker, aquality that is (for whatever reason) being isolated and considered in itself.BY WHOM is it isolated? Potentially isolable, it becomes isolated when asubject isolates it, from a certain point of view, and at that point it becomesthe terminus “a quo” [from which] of an inferential process, IN AN UPWARD andnot a downward direction – toward the series of relationships, in other words,that bind the spot to me and my perceptual interests, not toward the series ofthe infinite possible decompositions of the spot itself.¶-x-This, it seems to me, is exactly what happens when Peirce tells us that wefeel the black of the ink as Firstness. It is possible that – to be able torecognize that what strikes our senses is a quality of blackness – the braindeep down performs a number of successive operations. I also agree with ClaudioPaolucci (2005) that, for the empirical concept of “dog” as well, the Kantianintellect may make use, not of images, but of a flowchart. But aside [page 529]from the fact that the brain too, as a computational machine, must come to astop at a certain point in order to be able to transmit “blackness”, at thelevel of conscious perception we are not aware of that additionalfractalization. There is a threshold on this side of which we perceive or sense“black” as Firstness, primary iconism (or whatever you choose to call it), andthat is the starting point for all our subsequent inferences.¶-x-Commenting on Hume, William James (1987: 1061) declared: “Either yourexperience os of no content, of no change, or it is of a perceptible amount ofcontent or change. Your acquaintance of reality grows literally by buds ordrops of perception. Intellectually and on reflection you can divide these intocomponents, but but as immediately given they come totally or not at all.”¶-x-Zellini also cites Wittgenstein (NOTEBOOKS, 18, 6, 15):<< “If the complexity of an object is definitive of the sense of theproposition, then it must be portrayed in the proposition to the extent that itdoes determine the sense. And to the extent that its composition is NOTdefinitive of THIS sense, to this extent the objects of this proposition areSIMPLE. THEY CANNOT be further divided . . . What I mean is: if e.g., I saythis watch is not in the drawer, there is absolutely no need for it to FOLLOWLOGICALLY that a wheel that is in the watch is not in the drawer, for perhaps IHAD NOT THE LEAST KNOWLEDGE that the wheel was in the vwatch, and hence couldnot have meant by “this watch” the complex in which the wheel occurs. And it iscertain – moreover – that I do not see all the parts of my THEORETICAL visualfield. Who knows WHETHER I see infinitely many points?¶ Let us suppose we were to see a circular patch: isthe circular form its PROPERTY? Certainly not. It seems to be a “structural”property. And if I notice that the spot is round, am I not noticing aninfinitely complicated structural property? . . . . A proposition can, however,quite well treat of infinitely many points without being infinitely complex ina particular sense.” (English trans. 1961: 63e-65e) >>-x-
----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Gary Moore <[email protected]> To: Peirce List <[email protected]>; John N. Deely <[email protected]>; Jon Awbrey <[email protected]>; Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 8:50 AM Subject: Fw: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos Part 327** MURDERMYSTERY! **ECO ON PEIRCE!**29 Dec 2014 9:55 am CST REVISE, READ ORIGINAL (Who killed truth?) FROM THE TREE TO THE LABYRINTH by Umberto EcoCHAPTER 15: THE THRESHOLD AND THE INFINITE: PEIRCE ANDPRIMARY ICONISM * correlate with KANT ANDTHE PLATYPUS [page 527]-x- In other words, our perception is not mathematical but ingenuous [marked bylack of reserve, dissimulation, or guile; innocent or childlike simplicity,straightforwardness, frankness; lack of subtle analysis or consideration: SIMPLE,UNWARY, UNAWARE, OPEN] and not astronomical. Zellini (1980: 44) reminds us thatthe existence of a THRESHOLD OF OBSERVABILITY is a postulate both of physicsand of the psychology of perception.¶[page528]Zellini also appeals to Hume: our imagination must br capable of reaching aminimum beyond which we cannot conceive of further subdivisions. We can speakof a thousandth or even ten thousandth part of a grain of sand, but (apart fromthe fact that we cannot see it – which from the point of view of perception isno small matter) we cannot even imagine it except with the same dimensions asthe grain of sand itself: “The idea of a grain of sand is not distinguishablenor seperable into twenty, much less into a thousand, ten thousand, or aninfinite number of different ideas.”¶-x-“Put”, said Hume, “a spot of ink upon paper, fix your eyes upon that spot,and retire to such a distance, that at last you lose sight of it; ‘tis plain,that the moment before it vanish’d the image or impression was perfectlyindivisible” (TREATISE OF HUMAN NATURE, I, 2, 27). At a certain point, the spoywill become invisible, because it is too far away, but when it is on the pointof disappearing, it will still be visible as a punctual and indivisibleMINIMUM. As is the case for the ideas of the imagination, an ultimateconceivable term is given for our impressions, whereby we go directly fromnothing to a minimal perceivable reality not resolvable into smaller parts.¶-x-Hume might have added that – while it may be true that under the microscopethe same ink blot would reveal a universe of bacteria that made it look like apainting by Kandinsky – from the point of view of our perceptual abilities, itis a black spot, nothing more or less.¶-x-If it can be granted that for Peirce the Ground IS WHAT I REFERED TO ASPRIMARY ICONISM, let us bear in mind that the Ground is an element, a marker, aquality that is (for whatever reason) being isolated and considered in itself.BY WHOM is it isolated? ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Gary Moore <[email protected]> To: Peirce List <[email protected]>; John N. Deely <[email protected]>; Jon Awbrey <[email protected]>; Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, December 29, 2014 8:49 AM Subject: Fw: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos Part 326** MURDERMYSTERY! **ECO ON PEIRCE!**28 Dec 2014 9:55 am CST REVISE, READ ORIGINAL (Who killed truth?) FROM THE TREE TO THE LABYRINTH by UmbertoEcoCHAPTER 15: THE THRESHOLD AND THE INFINITE: PEIRCE ANDPRIMARY ICONISM * correlate with KANT ANDTHE PLATYPUS [page 526]-x-What happens when we put ourselves in the place of a perceiving subject? PaoloZellini, A BRIEF HISTORY OF INFINITY, trans. David Marsh, Penguin, 2003, pp.26-7, reminds us that:[page527]<< “Adolf Grünbaum (“Can an Infinitude of Operations be Performed ina Finite Time?”, 1969) recently demonstrated that the measured structure ofphysical time justifies applying the arithmetical theory of limits to thesolution of the paradox. Human awareness of time has a base limit ofperceptibility, that is, a minimal threshold beyond which temporal intervalsvanish into inconceivable smallness. If we consciously try to contemplate ‘all’the intervals of the series (a), it would be realized concretely as a countableinfinity of mental acts, and the duration of each of these larger than theminimal threshold that time allows. But this insuperable ‘minimum’ is anAchimedean quantity: when added to itself infinite times, it yields an infiniteresult. Consequently, the mental contemplation of the entire series would resultin an impossibly unlimited period of time. This would happen, for example, ifone ‘counted’ the intervals of (a) one by one, assigning to each of them anordinal [the divisor in a fraction as spoken or written out (as hundredth inone hundredth or hundredths in three hundredths] number. This would take moretime than the necessary minimum just to conceive or pronounce them. (But it isabsurd, Aristotle objected [PHYSICS 8, 8, 263a-263b], to maintain that whatevermoves, moves while counting.) In reality, by raising doubts about thepossibility of traversing the interval (0-1), Zeno exploits the unacceptabledelay that is implied by reducing the series (a) to the corresponding mentalacts of the counting process, but he fails to make clear that this process doesnot reproduce exactly the measurement of the physical time involved in theactual traversal.¶ Thus, Grünbaum finds Zeno’s argument illegitimate because ituses what is basically an INEVITABLE confusion between two incompatible formsof thought. He explains that we do not experience the intervals into which wesubdivide the traversal in any measure that corresponds to their actual nature.Rather, we derive our impression of their duration from the time needed for ouracts of mental contemplation which for each fraction of the distance mustperforce exceed our minimal threshold or limit.” >>¶ ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Gary Moore <[email protected]> To: Jon Awbrey <[email protected]>; Peirce List <[email protected]>; John N. Deely <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2014 6:36 AM Subject: Fw: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Gary Moore <[email protected]> To: Jon Awbrey <[email protected]>; Peirce List <[email protected]>; John N. Deely <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2014 5:41 AM Subject: Fw: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos Part 325** MURDERMYSTERY! **ECO ON PEIRCE!**28 Dec 2014 9:55 am CST REVISE, READ ORIGINAL (Who killed truth?) FROM THE TREE TO THE LABYRINTH by UmbertoEcoCHAPTER 15: THE THRESHOLD AND THE INFINITE: PEIRCE ANDPRIMARY ICONISM * correlate with KANT ANDTHE PLATYPUS [page 526]-x-In the paradox Achilles must first cover half yje distance, but before thathe must cover a quarter, and before that an eighth, and so on ad infinitum, so that he will neversucceed in catching up with the tortoise. It has been observed, however, that,although this process of fractalization can continue infinitely, its result cannever be greater than one – as occurs in any case with irrational numbers, sothat 3.14, however successful we may be in analyzing it, will never be 4 [GCM: “virtual as “never” (Scotus) vs.“almost”(approximately true: pragmatism)].¶-x-If we apply this argument to the fractal length of a coast, where the“potential” process of division could be infinite, as least insofar as we canalways postulate smaller and smaller microbes, then this does not preventAchilles in practice covering the space in a single stride. Achilles will covera unit of distance appropriate to him in a unit of time appropriate to him.¶-x-Already Aristotle (PHYSICS III, 8. 206) objected to Zeno that, amongmagniyudes, there exist infinity by addition (I can always find an even numbergreater than thr preceeding one) but not by division, insofar as the infinityof the subetervals into which a unit of length is divisible is always containedin a limited totality (never greater than one) which may constitute the objectof an empirical intuition.¶-x-In other words, if, cosmologically speaking, there is never perhaps aFirstness that is NOT the result of a previous Thirdness, cognitively there isa limit to our perceptive abilities, which experience as undivided somethingthat, cosmologically speaking, is “in posse” [in potential but notactually] capable of being further divided. What is “in posse” belongs tocosmology. What is “in actu” belongs to the agent subject.¶ ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Gary Moore <[email protected]> To: Jon Awbrey <[email protected]>; Peirce List <[email protected]>; John N. Deely <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, December 28, 2014 5:39 AM Subject: Fw: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos Part 324** MURDERMYSTERY! **ECO ON PEIRCE!**27 Dec 2014 9:55 am CST REVISE, READ ORIGINAL (Who killed truth?) FROM THE TREE TO THE LABYRINTH by UmbertoEcoCHAPTER 15: THE THRESHOLD AND THE INFINITE: PEIRCE ANDPRIMARY ICONISM * correlate with KANT ANDTHE PLATYPUS [page 525]-x-We can construct a semiotics without a subject or (what amounts to the samething) in which the subject is everywhere. In this semiotics there will neverbe a “priman” because interpretation will proceed by “miseen abyme”. But, if from the cosmological point of view the inferentialprocess is infinite, because there are no intuitions, then we cannot ignore thecognitive instance, that is, that edge of semiosis that is formed when asubject (any instance capable of saying “I” that somehow inters into thesemiosis from the material and corporal outside – what I am speaking about is abrain) installs itself and touches off a chain of inferences under the stimulusof something that, from its own point of viewand only in this precisespatiotemporal segment, ATTRACTS ITS ATTENTION [footnote 7: At this point wemight be tempted to open up another can of worms: Why does one thing attract myattention at the expense of another? But reconstructing a theory of attentionin Peirce lies beyond my capabilities, and beyond the scope of this chapter.]The “I”in this case stands on that edge where on the one hand there stands, let us say,the dog – the thing that interests him at the moment – and, on the other hand,evcerything else – which does not interest him.¶-x-In this phase Firstness, as we saw, is a presence “such as it is”, nothingbut a positive characteristic , like a purple color perceived without any senseof the beginning or end of the experience, without any self-awareness separatefrom the sensation of the color; it is potentiality without existence, thesimple possibility of a perceptual process. In order to contest these “qualia”[page 526]that precede any inference, we must take as our point of departure theprinciple that they constitute an intuitive moment, without our being able toconceive further inferential processes behind it, in a sort of infinitefractalization. But I would like to remind the reader that the infinitefractalization of a sea coast does not prevent a human subject, who has a molarview compared with the molecular view of an ant, from covering in a single stepwhat would be for the ant an extremely long and tortuous trajectory.¶-x-We are back, if you will, to the paradox of Achilles and the tortoise, inwhich we must take into account the distinction between POTENTIAL INFINITY andINFINITY IN ACT, already present in Aristotle.¶-x- ----- Forwarded Message ----- From: Gary Moore <[email protected]> To: Jon Awbrey <[email protected]>; Peirce List <[email protected]>; John N. Deely <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, December 27, 2014 6:22 AM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos Part 323** MURDERMYSTERY! **ECO ON PEIRCE!**27 Dec 2014 9:55 am CST REVISE, READ ORIGINAL (Who killed truth?) FROM THE TREE TO THE LABYRINTH by UmbertoEcoCHAPTER 15: THE THRESHOLD AND THE INFINITE: PEIRCE ANDPRIMARY ICONISM * correlate with KANT ANDTHE PLATYPUS [page 524]-x-15.5. PEIRCE AND THE TORTOISEWhen reading Peirce, we must not confuse cosmology and gnoseology. As Ialready remarked in K & P, two different but mutually interdependentperspectives are interwoven in Peirce’s thought: the metaphysical-cosmologicaland the cognitive. Unless we read them in a semiotic key, Peirce’s meyaphysics andcosmology remain incomprehensible. But we would have to say the same thing ofhis semiotics with respect to his cosmology. Categories such as Firstness,Secondness, Thirdness and the concept of interpretation itself not only define“modisignificandi”, that is, the ways in which the world can be known: theyare also “modi essendi”, ways in which the world BEHAVES, proceduresthrough which the world, in the course of evolution, interprets itself. [page 525]In K& P, I cited Matteo Mameli, “Synechism: Aspetti del pensiero di C.S. Peirce”, 1997: 4: “Given that Peirce thinks and demonstrates thatintelligibility is not an accidental characteristic of the universe, that it isnot, that is, a mere epiphenomenon of how things are, but a characteristic that‘shapes’ the universe, it follows that a theory of intelligibility is also ametaphysical theory of the structure of the universe” K & P, p. 399, n.28). The theory of intelligibility and metaphysical theory, however, mustsometimes be kept separate.¶-x-Kant said that the fact that we believe we know things on the basis of themere evidence of our senses depends on a “vitium subreptionis” or subreption:we are so accustomed from childhood to grasp things as if they appeared to usalready given to us in intuition that we have never thematized the role playedby the intellect in this process. Therefore even what were for him evenempirical intuitions were already the result of a work of inference.¶-x-We can construct a semiotics without a subject or (what amounts to the samething) in which the subject is everywhere. In this semiotics there will neverbe a “priman” because interpretation will proceed by “miseen abyme”. But, if from the cosmological point of view the inferentialprocess is infinite, because there are no intuitions, then we cannot ignore thecognitive instance, that is, that edge of semiosis that is formed when asubject (any instance capable of saying “I” that somehow inters into thesemiosis from the material and corporal outside – what I am speaking about is abrain) installs itself and touches off a chain of inferences under the stimulusof something that, from its own point of viewand only in this precisespatiotemporal segment, ATTRACTS ITS ATTENTION [footnote 7: At this point wemight be tempted to open up another can of worms: Why does one thing attract myattention at the expense of another? But reconstructing a theory of attentionin Peirce lies beyond my capabilities, and beyond the scope of this chapter.]The “I”in this case stands on that edge where on the one hand there stands, let ussay, the dog – the thing that interests him at the moment – and, on the otherhand, evcerything else – which does not interest him.¶-x- From: Jon Awbrey <[email protected]> To: Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> Cc: [email protected] Sent: Friday, December 26, 2014 10:20 PM Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Pragmatic Cosmos Thread: JBD:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15230 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15235 SJ:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15236 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15237 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15238 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15239 HR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15240 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15241 HR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15243 JA:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15244 HR:http://permalink.gmane.org/gmane.science.philosophy.peirce/15246 Helmut, One should not take that illustrative example too literally. I was simply making another try at clarifying my use of the word "cosmos" and replying to Sung about anthropocentricity. Regards, Jon Helmut Raulien wrote: > Hi! I do not think, that my point of view or my argumentation has anything to > do > with celestial spheres or bearded father figures. I am a left wing anarchist > liberal communist feminist anticapitalist antifashist and so on. I am against > any authorority, except the authority of God. And, what this is, I am trying > to > find out. Best, Helmut. -- academia: http://independent.academia.edu/JonAwbrey my word press blog: http://inquiryintoinquiry.com/ inquiry list: http://stderr.org/pipermail/inquiry/ isw: http://intersci.ss.uci.edu/wiki/index.php/JLA oeiswiki: http://www.oeis.org/wiki/User:Jon_Awbrey facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/JonnyCache ----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . 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