> On Nov 30, 2015, at 11:18 PM, Jerry LR Chandler <[email protected]> > wrote: > > To you think this citation is consistent with the physics of the 21st > Century? How do you integrate physical-chemical reasoning into this citation?
I think this is meant to refer to evolution prior to the emergence of space/time. I’m not sure in the least I buy this cosmology, mind you. But it’s important to realize how the evolution proceeds. Time emerges out of this. (See page 212 in Parker I linked to earlier) So I’m not sure I would read physics/chemistry into it. That all seems much, much later. It seems much more a purely logical construct more or less following classic platonism of late antiquity. That said, Parker does suggest a way to read quantum mechanics into this. He references Edward Moore saying “a real general would then be objectively indeterminate in respect to some property.” He also quotes Peirce on general properties that “surrenders to the interpreter the right of completing the determination for himself” (CP 5.505) While this might give Heisenberg uncertainty in a certain conception - at least with a Copenhagen interpretation, I don’t buy it ultimately. For one I think Heisenberg uncertainty is a bit more nebulous than typically thought. I think we should stick with Hamiltonian conceptions of system. Again it’s possible to read the Hamiltonian in a fashion such that moving from general to determination is akin to the collapse of the wave function. But I tend to be more skeptical of ontologies that make the collapse fundamental ontologically. In any case one can always raise the traditionalist realist critique which effectively shifts from viewing the Hamiltonian as a general rather than a vague. I think this logic of vagueness is how Peirce is making his more platonic cosmology. Even if I am rather dubious of collapse theories, Peirce’s conception of habit as symmetry breaking or differentiation seems to fit. Personally though it’s all so speculative it’s hard for me to give any of it much weight. I find it interesting in Peirce but not something I take too seriously. I just have a hard time with the idea that metaphysics proceeds naturally out of logic. That seems far too convenient and is probably one big reason I’m not a platonist.
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