Jon, - to offer up a collection of quotes, via a digital search of the term 'chaos' from the Peirce collections, doesn't negate that I was saying the same thing as he was with regard to the primoridal 'nothing. So, please don't try a 'gotcha' post.
This term, the 'absence of order' as a meaning of 'chaos, is the popular current meaning of chaos. That current usage of the term is what I was referring to as a response to Kirsti's post where she also was referring also to the current very common use of the term. I was NOT referring to Peirce's usage. And as I said - I consider the primordial as nothing. Peirce is quite specific about that in 1.412 - and as you point out, I refer to that quote very often. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: Jon Alan Schmidt To: Edwina Taborsky Cc: [email protected] Sent: Monday, October 24, 2016 10:43 AM Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Universes and Categories (was Peirce's Cosmology) Edwina, List: ET: After all, chaos IS something - i.e., it is the absence of order within a collection of bits of unorganized matter. Not according to Peirce--he explicitly held that chaos is nothing. CSP: The original chaos, therefore, where there was no regularity, was in effect a state of mere indeterminacy, in which nothing existed or really happened. (CP 1.411; 1887-1888) CSP: The first chaos consisted in an infinite multitude of unrelated feelings. As there was no continuity about them, it was, as it were, a powder of feelings. It was worse than that, for of particles of powder some are nearer together, others farther apart, while these feelings had no relations, for relations are general. (CP 8.318; 1891) CSP: Without going into other important questions of philosophical architectonic, we can readily foresee what sort of a metaphysics would appropriately be constructed from those conceptions. Like some of the most ancient and some of the most recent speculations it would be a Cosmogonic Philosophy. It would suppose that in the beginning--infinitely remote--there was a chaos of unpersonalized feeling, which being without connection or regularity would properly be without existence. (CP 6.33; 1891) CSP: But I only propose to explain the regularities of nature as consequences of the only uniformity, or general fact, there was in the chaos, namely, the general absence of any determinate law. (CP 6.606; 1893) CSP: If what is demanded is a theological backing, or rational antecedent, to the chaos, that my theory fully supplies. The chaos is a state of intensest feeling, although, memory and habit being totally absent, it is sheer nothing still. Feeling has existence only so far as it is welded into feeling. Now the welding of this feeling to the great whole of feeling is accomplished only by the reflection of a later date. In itself, therefore, it is nothing; but in its relation to the end it is everything. (CP 6.612; 1893) CSP: In the original chaos, where there was no regularity, there was no existence. It was all a confused dream. (CP 1.175; c.1897) CSP: Efficient causation without final causation, however, is worse than helpless, by far; it is mere chaos; and chaos is not even so much as chaos, without final causation; it is blank nothing. (CP 1.220; 1902) CSP: Generality is, indeed, an indispensable ingredient of reality; for mere individual existence or actuality without any regularity whatever is a nullity. Chaos is pure nothing. (CP 5.431; 1905) CSP: Had a purposed article concerning the principle of continuity and synthetising the ideas of the other articles of a series in the early volumes of The Monist ever been written, it would have appeared how, with thorough consistency, that theory involved the recognition that continuity is an indispensable element of reality, and that continuity is simply what generality becomes in the logic of relatives, and thus, like generality, and more than generality, is an affair of thought, and is the essence of thought. Yet even in its truncated condition, an extra-intelligent reader might discern that the theory of those cosmological articles made reality to consist in something more than feeling and action could supply, inasmuch as the primeval chaos, where those two elements were present, was explicitly shown to be pure nothing. (CP 5.436; 1905) "Chaos" in Peirce's usage means no regularity, no determinacy, no existence, no happenings, no relations, no connection, no law, no memory, no habit, no causation, no generality--sheer nothing, blank nothing, pure nothing--and that is precisely how he characterized mere feeling (Firstness) and action (Secondness) without continuity (Thirdness). In other words, unless the blackboard (Thirdness) is already in place--"theological backing, or rational antecedent"--there can never be a spontaneous chalk mark with its whiteness (Firstness) and boundary (Secondness) in the first place. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Mon, Oct 24, 2016 at 8:51 AM, Edwina Taborsky <[email protected]> wrote: Kirsti, list: Kirsti, I like your outlines of embryos and the 'firstness' of Feelings. [I think that more research should be done on the bonding in utero between multiple birth embryos, i.e., twins, triplets etc]. I also have a problem with the notion of primordial chaos. After all, chaos IS something - i.e., it is the absence of order within a collection of bits of unorganized matter. But, following Peirce's 1.412, I see the primordial as - nothing. As undifferentiated mass. As 'indeterminancy' [1.409, 412] . NOT matter, but mass. As mass, which is in a mode of Firstness, it can start to take on habits - and your example of the heartbeat of the mother affecting the embryo-fetus is a good one. Therefore, in my view, Thirdness is not a priori or non-immanent, as some would suggest, but, a fundamental immenent aspect of the conversion of mass to matter. Edwina ----- Original Message ----- From: <[email protected]> To: "Auke van Breemen" <[email protected]> Cc: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, October 24, 2016 9:20 AM Subject: RE: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Universes and Categories (was Peirce's Cosmology) Dear Auke, I got very delighted by your response! Right now, I have very little time, but I wish to share some of my thoughts on and about it. First: The idea of primordial chaos is very, very popular. Even so popular that one should get suspicios in front of the popularity. It is commonly taken as granted that all human as well as other living beings start our individual lives in the midst of chaos. Even Prigogine's work Time and Change in Modern Physics has been often classified as a CHAOS theory, though it is nothing of the kind. All human beings start as embryos, developing into fetus. But, as I have shown in detail, there is no chaos necessarily involved in the experiential flow of an embryo, nor of a fetus. Heart beat, for example gives a rhythm even to the earliest modes of experiencing. First comes the heartbeat of the mother. It is something FELT, not something KNOWN. The rhythm is primordial. The syncopatic rhythm of hearbeat thus feels unanimously as something associated with eternity. (Which is fact to be revealed and confirmed by phenomenological studies)In the Peircean sensse, not in the sense offered by European phenomenologies. An utterly neglected part of CSP's conception of feeling can be found in his critical comments on Kant and his threepartite division of mind. Peirce states that Kant, in outlining the old division mistorted the notion of FEELING, he (Kant) had derived from Tetens, his teacher. CSP then states that he has retained the meaning Tetens gave. Now, during all the decades of participating in Peirce related conferences, I have never met a Peircean scholar who would even recognize Tetens. - I took the time to get a copy of main works by Tetens. - Nor did any of the Kantians I ever met know Tetens. (Which I find most peculiar). The change Kant made was to take pleasure and pain as the basic division. This mistake was later made immensely popular by Freud. Another mistake in the twists of history comes from distortions in interpreting the peripathetic axiom originating from Thomas (De Veritate): "Nihil in intellectu quod non sit prius in sensu." Later to become a corner stone of nominalism. However, in medieval times the Latin "in sensu" (in the senses) carried a very different meaning than in modern times. "Sensus communis" was a part and parcel of the meaning.( Also "intellectu" carried a different meaning.) As we all know CSP took back "common sense". In medieval times, with Christianity, sensus communis had a very clear meaning. Concience, the moral sense, given by God. With the teaching that one should consult one's heart. in order to feel and hear the voice of God. - Note: to feel and hear IN THIS ORDER. For Aristotle, just as well, the sensus communis (i.e the Greek counterpart) was situated in the heart. But of course not with the Christian overtones. It was in modern times that the senses were restricted to the five special senses. And the sixth sense was doomed into oblivions of mysticism. - But it was only after sciences (and humanities) were secularized, that mysticism was rejected. And the herintance of history was then cleansed of this stuff. So we are passing on a distorted view of history. Chemistry, let alone electromagnetism were originally taken as mystical and occult. - About which CSP gives a sensible account of the why's (see e.g. Moore's collecion of CSP's mathematical writings). Electricity still remains a mystery to be solved. But it is a mystery already tackled (by Jerry L.C. Chandler, for instance). Well, this is just to get started. I hope to continue later... These are very complicated issues. But: Feelings do not classify themselves. They do not appear with name tag. With warmest wishes! Kirsti Määttänen Thus feeling comes first. Auke van Breemen kirjoitti 23.10.2016 19:35: Dear Kirsti, As in our past exchanges I value your response and its tone of voice. In discussions I always try to be short as possible. Maybe this time to my detriment. I do thank you for te opportunity you offer to try to become more clear. I will add some words between the lines. K: Dear Auke & al. It seems to me that you are on the right tract, but in a way CSP did not share. And going along a tract, wich leads nowhere. -- AvB: If your criticism holds, I agree. K: Although the main interest of CSP lied in science, his starting point was "babes and suclings", (just google this) As have been mine, even before I had any knowledge whatsoever of Peirce. This is were my work, since 1970's comes in. In English their is not much to rely on. See, however, my astract for Applying Peirde conference, at Helsinki 2007. Available in internet.I have provided Eugene Halton with the handout in the conference. Which he has quoted several times. Lately in a book chapter of his. The problem with your approach, as with almost all others, lies in taking ADULTS as the starting point. And then taking science as the the more restricted starting point. - No one, however is bourn as *a Fichtean philosopher* , as Marx end Engels pointed out, nor as an adult, nor as a scientist. Firstness comes first. Both in real life, in metaphysics and in semiotics. - C.S Peirce did not cherish this händicap. -- AvB: I do not think here we disagree, at least on this level of detail of discussing matters. His animal examples show that he even didn’t confine to childhood, but extended the thought to an evolutionary scale. With his distinction between a logica utens and a logica docens and his architectonic of sciences, each of the cenoscopic sciences preceding the special sciences and being devoted to: About positive phenomena in general, such as are available to every person at every waking moment, and not about special classes of phenomena. Does not resort to special experiences or experiments in order to settle theoretical questions. What I did intend to state is that it is when we look at a sign that inscribes itself, the question of the connection between the two divisions of interpretants comes into clear sight. For, I would add now, it is then that we must ask for the connection between both trichotomies of interpretants. If Peirce wouldn't have been of the opinion that nothing is lost if we don't pay attention to the apprehension of the sign as an object, cf 8.2.1, he, as a consequence, probably could have made the same arrangement as Van Driel, which is the arrangement I propose. K: Sheets of assertion serve as ground (in the more general sense) only within teh system of existential graphs. Which is the only mode of graphs CSP comleted to his satifaction. It does not, however, follow that he consided them to be the key, the part and parcel of his diagrammatic method. It is just the easest to grasp for in cultural cnditions where nominalistic ways of thought retain the upper händ. -- AvB: agreed. I did not argue that. We always must keep the distinction between an utens and a docens in mind. The existential graphs are part of the docens, as an (iconic) reflection on the utens of reasoning. De Tienne's sheets of description (phenomenology), if possible to shape diagrammatical, will be different. As is our (besides me, Sarbo and Farkas) diagrammatic KiF-proposal for semiotics. To my great surprise, and thanks to the late Irving Anellis, Peirce anticipated our proposal with his x-box arrangement of the 16 Boolean relations, arranged from FFFF to TTTT . This passage from primordial soup to a response only makes sense if it is conceived as a process, the response mediating state and effect. The process in between being triadic in itself. But, of course, my "self" image may be at fault. K: Eugene Halton has written an excellent paper on Peirce and the distorted view Morris spread around early on. The article titled " Situation, Structure and ... * I also find valid´, even excellent. -- AvB: I indicated some of Morris' distortions short in my "The semiotic Framework: Peirce and Stamper". Many early bird information scientists were introduced to Peircean semiotics through Morris, as Ronald Stamper and his group was. I experience my talks with them as an exchange between fundamental research and application. In use of technical terminology we may differ, in way of looking, the similarities prevail. Also in mastery of semiotics a subdivision between docens and utens can be made. The utens pointing the way for the docens or at least delivering content. K: I personally came across the dominance of Secondness by makind a thorough inspection on Umberto Eco and his references to Collected Papers in his book Theory of Semiotics. I was to make a selection for a study cirle on CSP. Quite a reluctant one, for that matter. It was late 1970's. It was only later that I realized how narrow and misleading was Eco's presentation. - It still seems to have the upper hand. In one form or another. Existential graphs are all about Secondness. The other parts never got completed by CSP. Not even outlined, at leasta in the selections so far published. --- AvB: For me it is more important that the existential graphs have an alpha, a beta and a gamma part, and that semiotics has a small classification with ten sign types, a middle with 28 and a Welby classification with 66 sign types. Of which Bernard Morand has argued that the small classification is part and parcel of the extended. Which suggests an alpha, beta and gamma part of semiotics. An idea that makes sense to me if I contemplate: 1. The sheet as a sign with a description of its triadically arranged sign aspects in a dependency structure. 2. The sheet as a sign that gets inscribed by another sign and the process that leads to a response (knowledge). And 3. The sign interacting with another sign capable of interpretation in communication. K: All serious, devoted Peirceans know that triadicity forms the key to all Peircean thought. No taking Secondness as the one and only. -- AvB: For me it is the interplay of all. After Aristotle, in the order of things firstness is first, in the order of knowledge secondness is first. I would add, in the order of understanding thirdness is first, in that it is the triadically structured description of the process of dyadically related and interacting states and events, that must account for the response. Our KiF-model is a proposal. The relation between the two divisions of interpretants was key for me. The approach of Short and Stamper were the trigger. K: With you, Auke, I have had some rewarding exchange of communication early on, after I joined the List. This is why I take this time to comment your post. - You do as you wish. - I'll do the same after reading your response. If so happens that you'll write one. -- AvB I do thank you for your responses and wish you all the best! Auke van Breemen My very best wishes to you! 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