Dear Helmut and List: Helmut asks: "Can things take habits?"
Discussion of Peirce's theory of habit reminds me of G. K. Chesterton's discussion of the logic of fairy tales in "The Ethics of Elfland", which in turn strongly resonates with Peirce's "Neglected Agument." Here is an extract from the former of the part relevant to the current discussion on Peirce-L. Chesterton writes of "a certain way of looking at life, which was created in me by the fairy tales, but has since been meekly ratified by the mere facts.": It might be stated this way. There are certain sequences or developments (cases of one thing following another), which are, in the true sense of the word, reasonable. They are, in the true sense of the word, necessary. Such are mathematical and merely logical sequences. We in fairyland (who are the most reasonable of all creatures) admit that reason and that necessity. For instance, if the Ugly Sisters are older than Cinderella, it is (in an iron and awful sense) necessary that Cinderella is younger than the Ugly Sisters. There is no getting out of it. Haeckel may talk as much fatalism about that fact as he pleases: it really must be. If Jack is the son of a miller, a miller is the father of Jack. Cold reason decrees it from her awful throne: and we in fairyland submit. If the three brothers all ride horses, there are six animals and eighteen legs involved: that is true rationalism, and fairyland is full of it. But as I put my head over the hedge of the elves and began to take notice of the natural world, I observed an extraordinary thing. I observed that learned men in spectacles were talking of the actual things that happened -- dawn and death and so on -- as if they were rational and inevitable. They talked as if the fact that trees bear fruit were just as necessary as the fact that two and one trees make three. But it is not. There is an enormous difference by the test of fairyland; which is the test of the imagination. You cannot imagine two and one not making three. But you can easily imagine trees not growing fruit; you can imagine them growing golden candlesticks or tigers hanging on by the tail. These men in spectacles spoke much of a man named Newton, who was hit by an apple, and who discovered a law. But they could not be got to see the distinction between a true law, a law of reason, and the mere fact of apples falling. If the apple hit Newton's nose, Newton's nose hit the apple. That is a true necessity: because we cannot conceive the one occurring without the other. But we can quite well conceive the apple not falling on his nose; we can fancy it flying ardently through the air to hit some other nose, of which it had a more definite dislike. We have always in our fairy tales kept this sharp distinction between the science of mental relations, in which there really are laws, and the science of physical facts, in which there are no laws, but only weird repetitions. We believe in bodily miracles, but not in mental impossibilities. We believe that a Bean-stalk climbed up to Heaven; but that does not at all confuse our convictions on the philosophical question of how many beans make five. Here is the peculiar perfection of tone and truth in the nursery tales. The man of science says, "Cut the stalk, and the apple will fall"; but he says it calmly, as if the one idea really led up to the other. The witch in the fairy tale says, "Blow the horn, and the ogre's castle will fall"; but she does not say it as if it were something in which the effect obviously arose out of the cause. Doubtless she has given the advice to many champions, and has seen many castles fall, but she does not lose either her wonder or her reason. She does not muddle her head until it imagines a necessary mental connection between a horn and a falling tower. But the scientific men do muddle their heads, until they imagine a necessary mental connection between an apple leaving the tree and an apple reaching the ground. They do really talk as if they had found not only a set of marvellous facts, but a truth connecting those facts. They do talk as if the connection of two strange things physically connected them philosophically. They feel that because one incomprehensible thing constantly follows another incomprehensible thing the two together somehow make up a comprehensible thing. Two black riddles make a white answer. In fairyland we avoid the word "law"; but in the land of science they are singularly fond of it. Thus they will call some interesting conjecture about how forgotten folks pronounced the alphabet, Grimm's Law. But Grimm's Law is far less intellectual than Grimm's Fairy Tales. The tales are, at any rate, certainly tales; while the law is not a law. A law implies that we know the nature of the generalisation and enactment; not merely that we have noticed some of the effects. If there is a law that pick-pockets shall go to prison, it implies that there is an imaginable mental connection between the idea of prison and the idea of picking pockets. And we know what the idea is. We can say why we take liberty from a man who takes liberties. But we cannot say why an egg can turn into a chicken any more than we can say why a bear could turn into a fairy prince. As ideas, the egg and the chicken are further off from each other than the bear and the prince; for no egg in itself suggests a chicken, whereas some princes do suggest bears. Granted, then, that certain transformations do happen, it is essential that we should regard them in the philosophic manner of fairy tales, not in the unphilosophic manner of science and the "Laws of Nature." When we are asked why eggs turn to birds or fruits fall in autumn, we must answer exactly as the fairy godmother would answer if Cinderella asked her why mice turned to horses or her clothes fell from her at twelve o'clock. We must answer that it is magic. It is not a "law," for we do not understand its general formula. It is not a necessity, for though we can count on it happening practically, we have no right to say that it must always happen. It is no argument for unalterable law (as Huxley fancied) that we count on the ordinary course of things. We do not count on it; we bet on it. We risk the remote possibility of a miracle as we do that of a poisoned pancake or a world-destroying comet. We leave it out of account, not because it is a miracle, and therefore an impossibility, but because it is a miracle, and therefore an exception. All the terms used in the science books, "law," "necessity," "order," "tendency," and so on, are really unintellectual, because they assume an inner synthesis, which we do not possess. The only words that ever satisfied me as describing Nature are the terms used in the fairy books, "charm," "spell," "enchantment." They express the arbitrariness of the fact and its mystery. A tree grows fruit because it is a magic tree. Water runs downhill because it is bewitched. The sun shines because it is bewitched. I deny altogether that this is fantastic or even mystical. We may have some mysticism later on; but this fairy-tale language about things is simply rational and agnostic. It is the only way I can express in words my clear and definite perception that one thing is quite distinct from another; that there is no logical connection between flying and laying eggs. It is the man who talks about "a law" that he has never seen who is the mystic. Nay, the ordinary scientific man is strictly a sentimentalist. He is a sentimentalist in this essential sense, that he is soaked and swept away by mere associations. He has so often seen birds fly and lay eggs that he feels as if there must be some dreamy, tender connection between the two ideas, whereas there is none. A forlorn lover might be unable to dissociate the moon from lost love; so the materialist is unable to dissociate the moon from the tide. In both cases there is no connection, except that one has seen them together. A sentimentalist might shed tears at the smell of apple-blossom, because, by a dark association of his own, it reminded him of his boyhood. So the materialist professor (though he conceals his tears) is yet a sentimentalist, because, by a dark association of his own, apple-blossoms remind him of apples. But the cool rationalist from fairyland does not see why, in the abstract, the apple tree should not grow crimson tulips; it sometimes does in his country. This elementary wonder, however, is not a mere fancy derived from the fairy tales; on the contrary, all the fire of the fairy tales is derived from this. Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales -- because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him. This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. These tales say that apples were golden only to refresh the forgotten moment when we found that they were green. They make rivers run with wine only to make us remember, for one wild moment, that they run with water. I have said that this is wholly reasonable and even agnostic. [I do not know why the last paragraph copied in a different font size than the ones before..., but you can find the whole essay in a singular font online at: http://www.cse.dmu.ac.uk/~mward/gkc/books/orthodoxy/ch4.html Best, Ben Novak *Ben Novak <http://bennovak.net>* 5129 Taylor Drive, Ave Maria, FL 34142 Telephone: (814) 808-5702 *"All art is mortal, **not merely the individual artifacts, but the arts themselves.* *One day the last portrait of Rembrandt* *and the last bar of Mozart will have ceased to be—**though possibly a colored canvas and a sheet of notes may remain—**because the last eye and the last ear accessible to their message **will have gone." *Oswald Spengler On Sat, Jul 16, 2016 at 1:19 PM, Helmut Raulien <[email protected]> wrote: > Dear Gary F., list, > you wrote: > "Peirce says here that ‘the law of habit’ – as opposed to the ‘fundamental > law of mind,’ which is the *tendency* of all things to *take* habits – > ‘is a simple formal law, a law of efficient causation.’". > > I donot think, that things can take habits. I think, only organisms can. > Also I think, that efficient cause cannot form a habit, but only final > cause can, which final cause is only a cause of organisms, but not of > inanimate nature. (and example cause too, nervous animals/brain, but that > is only my hobby topic). Ok, the whole universe may well be an organism > (and something comparable to a brain animal too), but then it is the > universe, that takes habits, not the things. By the way: What about binary > laws, eg. the conservation laws, that only make sense if being exact? > (Energy is exactly conserved). There is no way for them to might have > evolved by growth of any kind. They are, if habits, saltatory emergent > ones. So habits, if you want to expand the term like Peirce did, are not > only growth affairs, but can be emergent too. See my last post in the > thread "the autors claim...". Binary laws cannot be due to "ever so minute > changes", and if Peirce has claimed that, he was wrong, I think. Imagine a > universe, in which energy is not exactly conserved, but increases: This > universe would glow white hot and explode in nearly no time. If energy > would decrease, it would immediately shrink, cool down, and vanish. Peirce > is not an overwise guru, he might have been wrong in one or the other minor > aspect, but all in all he did a good job, and was right. But in this case, > there is a problem, I think. So please do not answer with > Peirce-quotations, but with your own thoughts. Can things take habits?? > Best, > Helmut > > 13. Juli 2016 um 17:39 Uhr > [email protected] wrote: > > > Here’s another Peircean post from my blog, a rather long one linking > Peirce’s cosmology with semiotic causality. > > > > Gary f. > > > > > > According to Peirce’s cosmological hypothesis, evolution is a continuing > process of *growth* which accounts for both the diversity and the > regularities we observe in a universe both mental and physical. > > The regularities or ‘laws’ of nature result from the habit-taking > tendency, which tends toward the extreme ‘crystallization’ of form which in > physics we call ‘matter.’ But the behavior patterns of the physical > universe are never completely determinate, the laws of nature never > absolutely exact, because the habit-taking tendency is countered and > complemented by a spontaneity which keeps the universe alive and accounts > for the growing diversity and complexity of forms. This spontaneity is > primal to the mental side of evolution, which involves both taking and > breaking habits. > > Here is Peirce’s explanation of the ‘Uniformity’ of nature in Baldwin’s > Dictionary <http://www.gnusystems.ca/BaldwinPeirce.htm#Uniformity>: > > > > The hypothesis suggested by the present writer is that all laws are > results of evolution; that underlying all other laws is the only tendency > which can grow by its own virtue, the tendency of all things to take > habits. Now since this same tendency is the one sole fundamental law of > mind, it follows that the physical evolution works towards ends in the same > way that mental action works towards ends, and thus in one aspect of the > matter it would be perfectly true to say that final causation is alone > primary. Yet, on the other hand, the law of habit is a simple formal law, a > law of efficient causation; so that either way of regarding the matter is > equally true, although the former is more fully intelligent. Meantime, if > law is a result of evolution, which is a process lasting through all time, > it follows that no law is absolute. That is, we must suppose that the > phenomena themselves involve departures from law analogous to errors of > observation. But the writer has not supposed that this phenomenon had any > connection with free-will. In so far as evolution follows a law, the law of > habit, instead of being a movement from homogeneity to heterogeneity, is > growth from difformity to uniformity. But the chance divergences from law > are perpetually acting to increase the variety of the world, and are > checked by a sort of natural selection and otherwise (for the writer does > not think the selective principle sufficient), so that the general result > may be described as ‘organized heterogeneity,’ or, better, rationalized > variety. In view of the principle of continuity, the supreme guide in > framing philosophical hypotheses, we must, under this theory, regard matter > as mind whose habits have become fixed so as to lose the powers of forming > them and losing them, while mind is to be regarded as a chemical genus of > extreme complexity and instability. It has acquired in a remarkable degree > a habit of taking and laying aside habits. The fundamental divergences from > law must here be most extraordinarily high, although probably very far > indeed from attaining any directly observable magnitude. But their effect > is to cause the laws of mind to be themselves of so fluid a character as to > simulate divergences from law. All this, according to the writer, > constitutes a hypothesis capable of being tested by experiment. > > > > Peirce says here that ‘the law of habit’ – as opposed to the ‘fundamental > law of mind,’ which is the *tendency* of all things to *take* habits – > ‘is a simple formal law, a law of efficient causation.’ Ten years earlier, > in his ‘Reply to the Necessitarians,’ Peirce had written that the > necessitarian, while believing that irregular events are inexplicable, also > says > > > > that the laws of nature are immutable and ultimate facts, and no account > is to be given of them. But my hypothesis of spontaneity does explain > irregularity, in a certain sense; that is, it explains the general fact of > irregularity, though not, of course, what each lawless event is to be. At > the same time, by thus loosening the bond of necessity, it gives room for > the influence of another kind of causation, such as seems to be operative > in the mind in the formation of associations, and enables us to understand > how the uniformity of nature could have been brought about. (W8:123, CP > 6.60) > > > > This ‘other kind of causation’ is called by Jesper Hoffmeyer *semiotic > causality*, which ‘gives direction to efficient causality, while > efficient causality gives power to semiotic causality’ (Hoffmeyer 2008, > 64). This duality or complementarity of causes accounts for the two sides > of evolution, the physical and the psychical or mental. > > Semiotic causality is implicit in Peirce’s definitions of ‘sign,’ which > generally follow the path of *determination* object > sign > interpretant: > > > > I will say that a sign is anything, of whatsoever mode of being, which > mediates between an object and an interpretant; since it is both determined > by the object *relatively to the interpretant*, and determines the > interpretant *in reference to the object*, in such wise as to cause the > interpretant to be determined by the object through the mediation of this > ‘sign.’ (EP2:410) > > > > The reverse side of this path of determination is a path of > representation: the sign *represents* the object *to* the interpretant, > which then represents the sign – by determining another interpretant sign, > or else a ‘habit-change,’ which is both an end of semiotic causality and a > governor of efficient causation, i.e. a determinant of future > transformations in the physical realm. Any actual occurrence of semiotic > *determination*/*representation* must itself determine and represent a > change in a state of mind, quasi-mind or bodymind: in other words, it must > *make > a difference* to that bodymind, and this difference is *both* > semiotically and efficiently caused. > > In other words, the *logical interpretant* of a sign, as a ‘habit-change’ > or modification of the guidance system which ‘gives direction’ to the > subsequent *practice* of the guided system or bodymind, will determine > the energetic interpretants <http://gnusystems.ca/TS/prx.htm#semenerg> of > future signs, which over time will make the path of practice by walking it. > This in turn will make a difference to the physical (as well as the mental) > context of further semiosis. > > In terms of evolutionary biology, the way a type of organism interacts > with its environment can effect changes in both organism and environment, > which may in turn affect the ability of the species to be represented in > another generation of organisms. Over time, then, natural selection will > weed out the *ethos* which does not maintain its viability as an occupant > of its ecological niche. But natural selection must have a variety of > possibilities to select from, and does not in itself account for that > variety. Hence the need for the hypothesis that spontaneity or ‘chance’ is > a primal element in an evolving universe such as the one we all inhabit. > > > > > > } Freedom lies only in our innate human capacity to choose between > different sorts of bondage, bondage to desire or self esteem, or bondage to > the light that lightens all our lives. [Sri Madhava] { > > http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ *Turning Signs* gateway > > > > > ----------------------------- 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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