Ad feminem. I used to moderate a forum that went on for a good while in the 90s. All forums suffer the slings and arrows of various dynamics. But this is a case of renegade moderation and I am tired of it. I think Peirce would be too.
Books http://buff.ly/15GfdqU Art: http://buff.ly/1wXAxbl Gifts: http://buff.ly/1wXADj3 On Thu, Sep 17, 2015 at 9:43 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: > Kirsti- that's not a logical response. If you wish to keep your short > assertions without explanation and refuse to either explain or discuss > them, then, don't post them on to a discussion site! > > Also, if you can't accept disagreement - again, don't post your opinions > to a discussion site! The whole nature of such a site is not for the > readers to passively sit back and accept what each person posts - but - to > THINK about the posts, to ask questions, to debate, discuss - and that > involves both agreement AND disagreement. > > And to declare that you are 'too busy' to explain - is a red herring > cop-out. Again, a discussion site by its very essence, involves discussion > - not simple short assertions which you expect the reader to accept as > Truth and when you are questioned about them - you refuse to explain their > cryptic meaning or enter into any discussion. > > Edwina > > > ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> > To: "Edwina Taborsky" <[email protected]> > Cc: "PEIRCE-L" <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2015 9:30 AM > Subject: Re: [peirce-l] [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:8863] The problem with > instinct - it's a category > > > Dear Edwina, >> >> My suggestion is that we both keep our views. And proceed according to >> them. - So far, we have only disagreed. We both have work to do, so lets >> proceed with it, separately. >> >> My short comments are, of course, available to use as you please. >> >> With kind regards, >> >> Kirsti >> >> Edwina Taborsky kirjoitti 17.9.2015 15:27: >> >>> I'd disagree with Kirsti's view that instincts are unrelated to the >>> Peircean categories. I'd say that instinct in itself is in a form of >>> Thirdness, in that it is a genetically based knowledge. As to how it >>> is activated and accessed - that can be via both Firstness and >>> Secondness. >>> >>> As for 'the common understanding of instinct' and 'what was common in >>> HIS times; and CSP's understanding - all of these definitions would >>> have to be outlined by Kirsti. As well as Kirsti's own view - which >>> she does not describe. >>> >>> Edwina >>> >>> >>> ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> >>> To: "Clark Goble" <[email protected]> >>> Cc: "PEIRCE-L" <[email protected]> >>> Sent: Thursday, September 17, 2015 8:11 AM >>> Subject: Re: [peirce-l] [PEIRCE-L] [biosemiotics:8863] The problem >>> with instinct - it's a category >>> >>> >>> I find Helmut's comments to the point. In terms of CSP's categories, >>>> "instincts" do not, as such have a place. - Well, a kind of >>>> firstnesslike, but that is it. >>>> >>>> Nowdays, the quite common understanding of "instict" is different than >>>> in CSP's times. Not to forget that HIS understanding differed from what >>>> was common in HIS times. >>>> >>>> These are the problems we need to tacle. >>>> >>>> Taking 'meaning' as a simple relation of reference does not so. As such, >>>> the question is reduced into two-placed-relations. - Which is >>>> un-Peircean, for starters. >>>> >>>> What are we referring to, when taking up "instincts"? - Well, I for my >>>> part, am referring to something very, very different from the views >>>> expressed here. >>>> >>>> Best, >>>> >>>> Kisti >>>> >>>> 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 . >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> >> >> >> >> > > > > ----------------------------- > 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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