Hi Kirsti ... Fresh air, as usual. Cheers,S Books http://buff.ly/15GfdqU Art: http://buff.ly/1wXAxbl Gifts: http://buff.ly/1wXADj3
On Wed, Sep 16, 2015 at 9:23 AM, <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear list, > > I sincerely do find talk about "mind-bodies" basically twisted. A modern > division, a split, is thereby taken for granted, taken as the > starting-point. - A being, be it a human being, or a bee, should remain as > the starting point. > > Best, > > Kirsti > > Clark Goble kirjoitti 15.9.2015 21:13: > >> Apologies - I just found out I’d sent this to the old Peirce list >> rather than the new one. My apologies for the problem. Apple Mail >> appears to autosuggest based upon what emails you have archived. >> Sometimes this leads to the old list getting picked up. Unfortunately >> Mail’s UI also doesn’t display the full email unless you click on >> it. So unless I click on the Peirce-L name I occasionally get the >> wrong email. When I’m posting regularly I always remember. When >> I’m posting infrequently (as has of late been the case) then I can >> forget. Once again my apologies again. >> >> On Wed, Sep 9, 2015 at 12:03 PM, Clark Goble <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> On Sep 8, 2015, at 1:36 PM, Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> wrote: >>> >>> Stephen, >>> you wrote: "The axiomatic principles of cognition (Peirce’s >>> categories) will establish how mind-bodies define the things that >>> matter." >>> Again, I think that we have different concepts of the term "know" or >>> "cognition". In my understanding, cognition does not appear in the >>> three categories from the start, but is a matter of subcategories. I >>> agree, that everything underlies the three categories >>> possibility/quality, actuality/relation, representation/continuity. >>> Secondness has two modes, and thirdness has three modes. These >>> modes, or subcategories, again have submodes, or subcategories as >>> before. I think, that knowledge is a matter of eg. thirdness of >>> thirdness of thirdness, or something like that. >>> >>> It seems to me Peirce adopts a position where things are more >>> mind-like or more matter-like as a matter of degree rather than >>> kind. I’m not sure it relates directly to the categories beyond >>> the idea of consciousness seems tied to firstness in certain ways. >>> Yet the categories are always at play in an irreducible way. >>> >>> At times Peirce appears to see the more mind-like as what is less >>> constrained. So evolution is leading to the development of substance >>> as a kind of permanence. Up to that time there is more “swerve” >>> and that swerve, when seen from the inside, is likely traditional >>> phenomenal mind. >>> >>> This ontology of Peirce is probably the most controversial aspect of >>> his thought but it does lead to all sorts of interesting >>> considerations. An analogy someone else brought up recently was >>> Richard Feynman’s QED really being thinking what it must be like >>> to be an electron. In this conception there’s always an inside and >>> outside and Peirce isn’t quite so divorced from Kant as people >>> assume. Yet in taking this inner view we don’t have the thing in >>> itself in quite the same fashion. If only because Peirce lets >>> firstness create a sign. Indeed remembering our experience of a >>> phenomena is always a sign (thirdness) in response to firstness. >>> >>> That may be what you mean by modes or subcategories though. (Forgive >>> me - haven’t yet caught up on my reading of the list) >>> >>> On Sep 8, 2015, at 12:18 PM, Stephen Jarosek <[email protected]> >>> wrote: >>> >>> Bees are conscious in accordance with the same principles that we >>> are conscious. This is one important aspect of the axiomatic >>> framework that I base my thinking on. That is to say, Peirce’s >>> categories apply to _all_organisms, even cells. >>> >>> Pierce says bees have mind. I’m not sure he means by that they are >>> conscious in any strong way. It seems a matter of degree for Peirce. >>> >>> >>> 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. >>>> Consistently adhere to that unwarrantable denial, and you will be >>>> driven to some form of idealistic nominalism akin to Fichte’s. >>>> Not only is thought in the organic world, but it develops there. >>>> But as there cannot be a General without Instances embodying it, >>>> so there cannot be thought without Signs. We must here give >>>> “Sign” a very wide sense, no doubt, but not too wide a sense >>>> to come within our definition. Admitting that connected Signs must >>>> have a Quasi-mind, it may further be declared that there can be no >>>> isolated sign. Moreover, signs require at least two Quasi-minds; a >>>> Quasi-utterer and a Quasi-interpreter; and although these two are >>>> at one (i.e., are one mind) in the sign itself, they must >>>> nevertheless be distinct. In the Sign they are, so to say, welded. >>>> Accordingly, it is not merely a fact of human Psychology, but a >>>> necessity of Logic, that every logical evolution of thought should >>>> be dialogic. You may say that all this is loose talk; and I admit >>>> that, as it stands, it has a large infusion of arbitrariness. It >>>> might be filled out with argument so as to remove the greater part >>>> of this fault; but in the first place, such an expansion would >>>> require a volume - and an uninviting one; and in the second place, >>>> what I have been saying is only to be applied to a slight >>>> determination of our system of diagrammatization, which it will >>>> only slightly affect; so that, should it be incorrect, the utmost >>>> certain effect will be a danger that our system may not represent >>>> every variety of non-human thought. (“Prolegomena to an Apology >>>> for Pragmaticism CP 4.551) >>>> >>> Whenever you have signs, even physical signs, you have a >>> quasi-mind. So of course thirdness applies to them the same as it >>> does us. The question of feeling or firstness seems a bit more >>> tricky. >>> >>> As I recall to the degree he talks about consciousness it’s the >>> inner aspect of the “swerve” or chaos. In other places he says >>> we have consciousness to the degree we have self-control. I think >>> this aspect of his ontology is among the most controversial of his >>> views. I think one can adopt most of his system without adopting >>> this particular thread. (Which I think comes out of the remnant of >>> Kant’s “in-itself” that survives no external thing-in-itself) >>> >>> …whatever is First is _ipso facto _sentient. If I make atoms >>>> swerve - as I do - I make them swerve but very very little, >>>> because I conceive they are not absolutely dead. And by that I do >>>> not mean exactly that I hold them to be physically such as the >>>> materialists hold them to be, only with a small dose of sentiency >>>> superadded. For that, I grant, would be feeble enough. But what I >>>> mean is, that all there IS, is First, Feelings; Second, Efforts; >>>> Third, Habits - all of which are more familiar to us on their >>>> psychical side than on their physical side; and that dead matter >>>> would be merely the final result of the complete induration of >>>> habit reducing the free play of feeling and the brute >>>> irrationality of effort to complete death (CP 6.201) >>>> >>>> What further is needed to clear the sign of its mental >>>> associations is furnished by generalizations too facile to arrest >>>> attention here, since nothing but feeling is exclusively mental. >>>> But while I say this, it must not be inferred that I regard >>>> consciousness as a mere “epiphenomenon”; though I heartily >>>> grant that the hypothesis that it is so has done good service to >>>> science. To my apprehension, consciousness may be defined as that >>>> congeries of non-relative predicates, varying greatly in quality >>>> and in intensity, which are symptomatic of the interaction of the >>>> outer world,— the world of those causes that are exceedingly >>>> compulsive upon the modes of consciousness, with general >>>> disturbance sometimes amounting to shock, and are acted upon only >>>> slightly, and only by a special kind of effort, muscular >>>> effort,— and of the inner world, apparently derived from the >>>> outer, and amenable to direct effort of various kinds with feeble >>>> reactions, the interaction of these two worlds chiefly consisting >>>> of a direct action of the outer world upon the inner and an >>>> indirect action of the inner world upon the outer through the >>>> operation of habits. If this be a correct account of >>>> consciousness, i.e., of the congeries of feelings, it seems to me >>>> that it exercises a real function in self-control, since without >>>> it, or at least without that of which it is symptomatic, the >>>> resolves and exercises of the inner world could not affect the >>>> real determinations and habits of the outer world. I say that >>>> these belong to the outer world because they are not mere >>>> fantasies but are real agencies. (Pierce, Pragmatism EP 2.418-419) >>>> >>> >>> As I said this is controversial. At the time it put Peirce quite at >>> odds with the mechanistic determinacy that was taken for granted in >>> physics. Today we allow chance or swerve, yet it seems a kind of >>> deterministic probability that still is at odds with Peirce’s >>> notion of control. >>> >>> It would seem that Peirce would allow sentiency to even an electron >>> in some degree yet it seems the ability to control ones behavior and >>> form habits that makes for the degree of consciousness. >>> >> > > > > ----------------------------- > 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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