On the meaning of ‘thought in the world' – Pragmatism suggests that all meaningful knowledge is actually about ‘methods’. This is distinct from the classical and Positivist notion that knowledge is a collection of ‘facts’. The Positivist asks 'how the world works,’ with the presumption that the order governing an ‘objective’ reality is universal – time/space invariant (viz. as in repeatably demonstrable over changes in time and location).
Pragmatism is practical and takes a post-objectivist Participant perspective wherein the core defining question is ‘how should we live’? It is this ‘how' question that leads to the notion that meaningful knowledge is all pragmatic and is about methods (viz. both actual and potential). (The Participant inquiry has a practical agenda about: how to make the world work better.) So the Pragmatist would naturally look at the world differently from the Positivist. The Pragmatist question of ‘how the world works’ (i.e. here and now) presupposes that the world naturally, by its very nature, develops and evolves its way of being – how it lives; it methods; its processes (viz. Whitehead’s version). Sooooo… My point is that when Peirce suggests that thought is ubiquitous one may take this as saying that pragmatic knowledge is ubiquitous. Pragmatic methods and processes (i.e. thought/inquiry) are ubiquitous. Pragmatic methods of inquiry (how to live; better) are ubiquitous. This of course implies that the entire universe is, in this sense, involved – as Plato and the Pythagoreans suggest in the Timaeus. The Mind of the universe, of which we are all parts, is the Master Craftsman (viz. see Stanford Philos Encyclo on Timaeus). The complementarity that has animated modern quantum theory is also fundamental to pragmatism – most obvious perhaps in James’s original essay. This suggests that the ‘direction’ of the evolution is not governed by One universal time/space invariant order. (The Tao that can be spoken (preconceived) is not the eternal Tao.) The Pythagoreans argued that the universe evolves through the ‘interplay of opposites (like the Eastern yin-yang). Peirce’s guess as to the overall agenda of the ongoing development is found in his ‘Evolutionary Love’ essay. T P.S. My book about all this should be up in a couple of months. On Apr 14, 2015, at 2:28 PM, Sungchul Ji <[email protected]> wrote: 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 inorganic³ 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 <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 <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] <mailto:[email protected]>> Date: Mon, Apr 13, 2015 at 8:37 PM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Nathan Houser's papers at academia.edu <http://academia.edu/> To: Benjamin Udell <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>> Cc: PEIRCE-L <[email protected] <mailto:[email protected]>>, biosemiotics <[email protected] <mailto:[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] <mailto:[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 <mailto:[email protected]> > To: [email protected] <mailto:[email protected]> > Sent: Monday, April 13, 2015 8:01 PM > Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Nathan Houser's papers at academia.edu > <http://academia.edu/> > List, > > Nathan Houser has been uploading many of his papers to academia.edu > <http://academia.edu/>. > > http://iupui.academia.edu/NathanHouser > <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 inorganic³ 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] <mailto:[email protected]> . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] <mailto:[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 <http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm> . <ur_category.docx> ----------------------------- 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 . Terry Bristol, President <http://www.isepp.org> <http://www.isepp.org/> Institute for Science, Engineering and Public Policy 3941 SE Hawthorne Blvd Portland OR 97214 503-819-8365 “Science would be ruined if it were to withdraw entirely into narrowly defined specialties. The rare scholars who are wanderers-by-choice are essential to the intellectual welfare of the settled disciplines.” Benoit Mandelbrot
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