Ben, Edwina, lists,
(1) Peirce's beautiful quote is reproduced for convenience: "Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in the work of bees,of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world; and one can no more deny that it is really there, than that the colors, the shapes, etc., of objects are really there.... Not only is thought in the inorganic *³* world, but it develops there." (CP 4.551) (2) I wonder if the meanings of the word "thought" that Peirce is using here can be interpreted in two ways -- (i) as a type and (ii) as a token. There are many different kinds of thoughts at the concrete 'token' levels -- human thought, the thought of bees that enabled the construction of their nests, both being measurable in EEG, and 'thought' of crystals that do not show any EEG signals. But both these seemingly different kinds of thoughts can be considered as members of the same, more abstract kind (or type) of thought, defined in terms of "semiosis" or an "irreducible triad". In other words, since human thought is a form of semiosis (which is synonymous with an irreducible triad), all semiosic processes, whether inorganic or organic systems, can be said to exhibit "thought" in the category-theoretical sense. (3) In this category-theoretical sense, all self-organizing chemical reactions (exemplified by the Belousov-Zhabotinsky reaction which can be modeled by the Brusselator) can be said to exhibit "thought" and has "mind" if they are "irreducibly triadic", which seems to be the case (see below). (4) The Brusselator is probably the simplest theoretical model of chemical reactions that can self-organize. See the video at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brusselator. (Prigogine once told me that the key step in the Brusselator is the 'termolecular' step, 2X ---> 3 X.) It has the following 4 chemical steps involving reactants, (A + B), products, (D + E), and the transient intermediates, (X + Y) that interact obeying the following rules or mechanisms: A --------> X 2X + Y --------> 3X B + X --------> Y + D X --------> E ______________________________ A + B ----------> D + E Figure 1. The Brussleator -- a theoretical model of self-organizing chemical reactions, both organic and inorganic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brusselator. I suggest that the Brusselator, Figture 1, can be mapped onto the ur-category, Figure 2, as shown in Figure 3. Mathematically speaking, Figure 1 and Figure 3 are isomorphic (i.e., embody similar regualarites or principles). f g A ----------> B ----------> C | ^ | | |_____________________| h Figure 2. The ur-category, a high-level category to which all lower-level categories belong (see the emails attached). f g ( A+B) -----------> (X+Y) -----------> (D+E) | ^ | | |_____________________________| h Figure 3. The Brusselator as a semiosic process and hence a member of the ur-category. f = production step, g = destruction step, h = information flow (i.e., the structures of E and E are determined by those of A and B mediated by X and Y). (5) Since the Brusselator and all its token self-organizing chemical reactions are capable of semiosis (i.e., "undergoing irreducibly triadic process") as shown above, it would be logical to conclude that all self-organizing chemical reactions are associated with "thoughts" or "minds" of their own. This does not mean that all chemical reactions can be considered to have thoughts, since not all chemical reactions undergo irreducibly triadic processes, just as not all utterances from human mouth can carry information. All the best. Sung ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sungchul Ji <[email protected]> Date: Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 8:37 PM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nathan Houser's papers at academia.edu To: Benjamin Udell <[email protected]> Cc: PEIRCE-L <[email protected]>, biosemiotics < [email protected]> Ben, Edwina, lists, I agree. Semiosis (defined as an irreducibly triadic process) can, in principle, take place in inorganic reactions (although I cannot readily think of one). If you equate "thought" with semiosis which is irreduciblly triadic process, then "thought" can be said to occur in inorganic world. It is possible that the first irreducibly triadic process occurred in inorganic world which eventually evolved into more complex irreducibly triadic processes in organic world and the cosmos (?). If this is what Peirce is saying I am with him. All the best. Sung On Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 8:21 PM, Benjamin Udell <[email protected]> wrote: > Edwina, list, > > You're welcome. In fact, I wanted to add a line to the effect of "Edwina > will be happy to hear about this!" but I got bogged down in trying to word > it to strike quite the right note and so on. > > Best, Ben > > On 4/13/2015 8:12 PM, Edwina Taborsky wrote: > > Ben, thanks for the correction. It makes a LOT of sense. As you know, I've > used that quote many many times on the list - and using 'inorganic' rather > than organic - well, from all of Peirce's writings, that focus makes more > sense. He did refer to the inorganic realm as also engaged in semiosis. And > clearly explained how it became 'hidebound' with habits. > > Edwina > > ----- Original Message ----- > *From:* Benjamin Udell <[email protected]> > *To:* [email protected] > *Sent:* Monday, April 13, 2015 8:01 PM > *Subject:* [PEIRCE-L] Nathan Houser's papers at academia.edu > > List, > > Nathan Houser has been uploading many of his papers to academia.edu. > > http://iupui.academia.edu/NathanHouser > > One does not need to actually download a PDF to read one of his papers. > Once one clicks on the "close" X of the download popup, the paper itself > appears in HTML form on the webpage. > > I've been reading his "The Scent of Truth" on abductive inference, and > came upon this tidbit of which I had been unaware. Nathan quotes Peirce and > adds and end note. > > Thought is not necessarily connected with a brain. It appears in the work > of bees,of crystals, and throughout the purely physical world; and one can > no more deny that it is really there, than that the colors, the shapes, > etc., of objects are really there.... Not only is thought in the inorganic > *³* world, but it develops there. (CP 4.551) > > 3. As reported in Houser 2000, in the faircopy manuscript that Peirce > submitted to _The Open Court_, he clearly wrote 'inorganic,' but the word > was set in type for publication in _The Monist_ as 'organic' and that > reading was carried over to the _Collected Papers_. > [End quote] > > It makes the sentence work better. If he had meant 'organic', it would > have been better to write, "In the organic world, not only is there > thought, but it develops there...." Still, could Peirce have let 'organic' > stand on purpose? After all, he could have corrected in the subsequent > errata. But I think he simply missed it, and that 'inorganic' was the word > that he intended. In the past I had put some weight on Peirce's (seemingly) > saying that thought originates in the organic world and his seeming silence > about whether it originates also in the inorganic world. > > Best, Ben > > > > ----------------------------- > 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] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L > but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the > BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm > . > > > > > >
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