Gary R, Jon, Jeffrey, list etc...
Self-generation, self-origination of the universe within the fundamental
categories of organization of Firstness, Secondness, Thirdness - as outlined in
1.412, is to me, NOT inexplicable but entirely plausible and logical. [It IS a
Big Bang outline]. The Universe then proceeds to evolve, as a complex and
networked merger of Mind and Matter - again, outlined in Peirce's various
analyses of evolution [tychasm, agapasm]..To me, it is a valid explanation.
To require a metaphysical, agent/creator of this universe is to me - utterly
inexplicable and illogical. After all it does not explain the origin of this
metaphysical agent/creator!!!.
As I keep saying, there are these two competing theories, both of which quite
frankly, are outside of any empirical proof. Therefore, one believes - and I
mean the word - believes - in one and not the other.
I do NOT find the outline of a metaphysical agent/creator to be explicable in
any way. It rests on non-scientific means; i.e., one believes because of
authority or tenacity. Of course this belief, like its opposite, is not
empirically provable, but it is, to me, not even logically
explicable...because, for all the ancient reasons - one then has to ask: And
what was the origin of this metaphysical agent/creator. The usual Scholastic
answer is: There Is No Origin. Which means you are back to the circle: you
believe or don't believe.
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Gary Richmond
To: Peirce-L
Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2016 3:35 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Logical Universes and Categories
Jon, Edwina, List,
Two things have been clarified for me from this discussion. First, that as
Jon noted, Peirce would unquestionably not "sanction calling a proposition
"logical" that renders the origin of the entire universe inexplicable."
The self-generation or self-creation of the Universe is such an illogical
proposition. What Peirce offers in his early cosmological musings, as difficult
as they certainly are to analyze and interpret, increasingly make better
sense--at least for me--of the origins of the Universe than the competing
theory, the Big Bang, for which Great Singularity there has never been a
persuasive, or pretty much any, reason given.
So, as I'm now seeing it, this great scientist, philosopher, and logician
(semiotician), i.e., Peirce, arrives at his early cosmology (which necessitates
God) because for him this is the only reasonable solution to the ancient
question of why there is anything rather than nothing and why it takes the (for
Peirce) trichotomic form which it does. That he employs the fruits of his
intellectual labors over a lifetime, including his notion of Three Universes,
in an attempt at a reasonable answer to this question is much less the action
of a believer (an certainly not a theologian, for he famously rather despised
theology), than as a scientist.
Second, from his own words it is clear that Peirce would never "substitute
"the Mind-like Reasonableness in Nature" for "God" as Ens necessarium."
Jon has argued this repeatedly and so well that I have nothing to add to his
argumentation.
But this brings me back to the first point, namely, that for Peirce a
principal, perhaps the principal purpose of science and reason is exactly to
make the world explicable. As Terry Eagleton writes in Reason, Faith, and
Revolution: Reflections on the God Debate in words which could be Peirce's:
We may. . . inquire what we are to make of the fact that even before we
have begun to reason properly, that the world is in principle reasonable in the
first place (129).
In additional, Eagleton comments, following Aquinas' dictum that "all virtues
have their source in love":
Love is the ultimate form of soberly disenchanted realism, which is why it
is the twin of truth (122),
But that would get us into a discussion of Peirce's non-traditional view of
Christianity, which is, even if deeply related, a distinctly different topic
than the Reality of God in the N.A.
Best,
Gary R
: Love is the ultimate form of soberly
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690
On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 1:49 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]>
wrote:
Edwina, List:
ET: That is, whether the universe is self-generated/created as well as
self-organized, or, requires an non-immanent agential creator. Both are logical
...
I hardly think that Peirce would sanction calling a proposition "logical"
that renders the origin of the entire universe inexplicable.
Self-generation/creation does not even qualify as an admissible hypothesis
according to his criteria, since it does not explain anything. Julie Andrews
sang it well--"Nothing comes from nothing, nothing ever could."
Regards,
Jon
On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 12:15 PM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]>
wrote:
Gary R, list:
Exactly. You wrote:
"For those who are unwilling to accept Ens Necessarium as anything but
"Mind-like Reasonableness in Nature" (which appears to be Edwina's position,
although I'm not as certain as to where Jeff stands on this), then there is no
God, no need for God, and exactly nothing 'preceeds' the odd self-creation of
the Universe, presumably at the moment of the most singular and peculiar of
singularities, the putative Big Bang. So, I don't expect there will be anything
approaching a rapprochement in these fundamentally opposed positions any time
soon."
That was also my point. The two paradigms are not, either one of them,
empirically, provable. That is, whether the universe is self-generated/created
as well as self-organized, or, requires an non-immanent agential creator. Both
are logical, but, both rely totally on belief. So, there can't be any
'rapprochement'. You either believe in one or the other. And therefore, there's
not much use arguing about them!
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
From: Gary Richmond
To: Peirce-L
Sent: Saturday, October 22, 2016 1:03 PM
Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Peirce's Logical Universes and Categories
Jon S, Edwina, Jeff D, List,
Jon wrote: I do not see it as valid at all to substitute "the Mind-like
Reasonableness in Nature" for "God" as Ens necessarium. As I have pointed out
before, Peirce made it very clear in the manuscript drafts for "A Neglected
Argument" that what he meant by "God" isnot someone or something that is
"immanent in Nature." I have also previously noted the distinction between
"self-organization" (of that which already has Being), which is perfectly
plausible and even evident in the world today, and "self-creation" or
"self-generation" (something coming into Being on its own out of nothing),
which I find completely implausible.
I agree, Jon, and have myself over the years argued that ""Mind-like
Reasonableness in Nature" is a valid concept (along with "self-organization")
only after the creation of a cosmos, or, as you put it, after there is Being. I
too find the notion of "self-generation" and "self-creation" completely
implausible and inexplicable.
But didn't we just recently have this discussion (remember Platonism vs
Aristotelianism?) in contemplating, for prime example, the blackboard analogy
(to which Jon added the interesting 'dimension' of a whiteboard)? For those who
are unwilling to accept Ens Necessarium as anything but "Mind-like
Reasonableness in Nature" (which appears to be Edwina's position, although I'm
not as certain as to where Jeff stands on this), then there is no God, no need
for God, and exactly nothing 'preceeds' the odd self-creation of the Universe,
presumably at the moment of the most singular and peculiar of singularities,
the putative Big Bang. So, I don't expect there will be anything approaching a
rapprochement in these fundamentally opposed positions any time soon.
Meanwhile, and while I think , Jeff, that you may be tending to
over-emphasize the importance of developments in the existential graphs in
consideration of the Categories/Universes problematic in the N.A. (I don't
recall a single mention of EGs in that piece), your most recent post does
offer some intriguing hints as to how we might begin to rethink aspects of the
relation between the Categories and the Universes, or at least that is my first
impression. But how, say, the Gamma graphs might figure in all this, I have no
idea whatsover.
Jeff concluded: So, in "The Neglected Argument", Peirce may very well
be examining--on an observational basis--the different ways that we might think
about the phenomenological account of the universes and categories in common
experience for the sake of refining his explanations of how the logical
conceptions of the universes of discourse and categories should be applied to
those abductive inferences that give rise to our most global hypotheses.
For me at least there have always been uncanny, unresolved tensions
between the phenomenological, the logical, and the metaphysical in The
Neglected Argument. The attempt to unravel them seems to me of the greatest
potential value.
Best,
Gary R
Gary Richmond
Philosophy and Critical Thinking
Communication Studies
LaGuardia College of the City University of New York
C 745
718 482-5690
On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 12:00 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt
<[email protected]> wrote:
Edwina, Jeff, List:
This highlights one of my strong initial misgivings about Jeff's
posts from last night. I do not see it as valid at all to substitute "the
Mind-like Reasonableness in Nature" for "God" as Ens necessarium. As I have
pointed out before, Peirce made it very clear in the manuscript drafts for "A
Neglected Argument" that what he meant by "God" is not someone or something
that is "immanent in Nature." I have also previously noted the distinction
between "self-organization" (of that which already has Being), which is
perfectly plausible and even evident in the world today, and "self-creation" or
"self-generation" (something coming into Being on its own out of nothing),
which I find completely implausible.
Regards,
Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman
www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt
On Sat, Oct 22, 2016 at 8:12 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]>
wrote:
Jeffrey- very nice outline. My view is that "the Mind-like
Reasonableness in Nature as Ens necessarium self-sufficient in its originative
capacity, "...for Peirce rejected the Cartesian separation of Mind and Matter.
Therefore, Mind, as a necessary component of Matter, self-organizes that same
Matter and its Laws - by means of the three Categories which enable it to do
just that.
Edwina
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