Clark, List: For convenience, here is what I posted in the previous thread on Peirce's Cosmology about this passage, prompted by the similar illustration of a mark on a blackboard in an earlier lecture of the same series.
Is there a plausible way to integrate the two mentions of a blackboard into a single diagram? Could it be that the one in NEM 4.345 (RLT 162-163) corresponds to "a Platonic world" in CP 6.203-208 (RLT 261-263)? In other words ... - The "clean blackboard" represents "a continuum of some indefinite multitude of dimensions" [3ns] (CP 6.203). - The initial chalk mark represents "a springing up of something new" [1ns] whose continuity "is nothing but the original continuity of the blackboard which makes everything upon it continuous" (CP 6.203). - Persistent groups of such chalk marks represent "reacting systems" [2ns] that result when "the generalizing tendency [3ns] builds up new habits from chance occurrences [1ns]" (CP 6.206). - Some of these "reacting systems" aggregate together into multiple "Platonic worlds" (CP 6.207-208). - Eventually, "a discontinuous mark" [2ns] is differentiated out of one of them as "this [determinate] Universe of Actual Existence" (CP 6.208, NEM 4.345). What I have in mind here is Peirce's notion that every part of a true continuum is itself a true continuum. Since each Platonic world is represented by a merged collection of marks on the blackboard, the latter is *also *a blackboard; or perhaps we should distinguish it, for the sake of clarity, by calling it a "whiteboard" whose own continuity is derived from and dependent on that of the underlying blackboard. It is then "a discontinuous mark" on the whiteboard, which is itself a merged collection of white marks on the original clean blackboard, that represents "this Universe of Actual Existence." Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Tue, Oct 25, 2016 at 10:43 AM, Clark Goble <[email protected]> wrote: > > On Oct 24, 2016, at 10:55 AM, Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> > wrote: > > Clark, List: > > At this point, it seems appropriate to shift this conversation to the > spin-off thread that I started last week based on Ben Novak's post and the > ones to which he was responding, which I have reproduced below. As we have > previously discussed under the heading of Peirce's Cosmology, he explicitly > referred to multiple "Platonic worlds" as one of the stages preceding the > emergence of this actual universe of existence. I have suggested that the > former correspond to the coalescing chalk marks on the blackboard, which > then serve as a whiteboard for the "discontinuous mark" that represents the > latter. > > > I’m slowly working through the posts I missed. Allow me to repost the > relevant quote. This is 6.202-209. I think you quoted the paragraph > referring to platonism. (See the other quotes at the bottom of this post > too that differ from this version) I’ll try to relate this to the other > comments later this evening. However having the original sources > undoubtedly helps the discussion. > > Permit me further to say that I object to having my metaphysical system as > a whole called Tychism. For although tychism does enter into it, it only > enters as subsidiary to that which is really, as I regard it, the > characteristic of my doctrine, namely, that I chiefly insist upon > continuity, or Thirdness, and, in order to secure to thirdness its really > commanding function, I find it indispensable fully [to] recognize that it > is a third, and that Firstness, or chance, and Secondness, or Brute > reaction, are other elements, without the independence of which Thirdness > would not have anything upon which to operate. Accordingly, I like to call > my theory Synechism, because it rests on the study of continuity. I would > not object to Tritism. And if anybody can prove that it is trite, that > would delight me [in] the chiefest degree. > > All that I have been saying about the beginnings of creation seems wildly > confused enough. Now let me give you such slight indication, as brevity > permits, of the clue to which I trust to guide us through the maze. > > Let the clean blackboard be a sort of diagram of the original vague > potentiality, or at any rate of some early stage of its determination. This > is something more than a figure of speech; for after all continuity is > generality. This blackboard is a continuum of two dimensions, while that > which it stands for is a continuum of some indefinite multitude of > dimensions. This blackboard is a continuum of possible points; while that > is a continuum of possible dimensions of quality, or is a continuum of > possible dimensions of a continuum of possible dimensions of quality, or > something of that sort. There are no points on this blackboard. There are > no dimensions in that continuum. I draw a chalk line on the board. This > discontinuity is one of those brute acts by which alone the original > vagueness could have made a step towards definiteness. There is a certain > element of continuity in this line. Where did this continuity come from? It > is nothing but the original continuity of the blackboard which makes > everything upon it continuous. What I have really drawn there is an oval > line. For this white chalk- mark is not a line, it is a plane figure in > Euclid's sense -- a surface, and the only line there, is the line which > forms the limit between the black surface and the white surface. Thus the > discontinuity can only be produced upon that blackboard by the reaction > between two continuous surfaces into which it is separated, the white > surface and the black surface. The whiteness is a Firstness -- a springing > up of something new. But the boundary between the black and white is > neither black, nor white, nor neither, nor both. It is the pairedness of > the two. It is for the white the active Secondness of the black; for the > black the active Secondness of the white. > > Now the clue, that I mentioned, consists in making our thought > diagrammatic and mathematical, by treating generality from the point of > view of geometrical continuity, and by experimenting upon the diagram. > > We see the original generality like the ovum of the universe segmentated > by this mark. However, the mark is a mere accident, and as such may be > erased. It will not interfere with another mark drawn in quite another way. > There need be no consistency between the two But no further progress beyond > this can be made, until a mark will stay for a little while; that is, until > some beginning of a habit has been established by virtue of which the > accident acquires some incipient staying quality, some tendency toward > consistency. > > This habit is a generalizing tendency, and as such a generalization, and > as such a general, and as such a continuum or continuity. It must have its > origin in the original continuity which is inherent in potentiality. > Continuity, as generality, is inherent in potentiality, which is > essentially general. > > > The whiteness or blackness, the Firstness, is essentially indifferent as > to continuity. It lends itself readily to generalization but is not itself > general. The limit between the whiteness and blackness is essentially > discontinuous, or antigeneral. It is insistently this here. The original > potentiality is essentially continuous, or general. > > Once the line will stay a little after it is marked, another line may be > drawn beside it. Very soon our eye persuades us there is a new line, the > envelope of those others. This rather prettily illustrates the logical > process which we may suppose takes place in things, in which the > generalizing tendency builds up new habits from chance occurrences. The new > curve, although it is new in its distinctive character, yet derives its > continuity from the continuity of the blackboard itself. The original > potentiality is the Aristotelian matter or indeterminacy from which the > universe is formed. The straight lines as they multiply themselves under > the habit of being tangent to the envelope gradually tend to lose their > individuality. They become in a measure more and more obliterated and sink > into mere adjuncts to the new cosmos in which they are individuals. > > Many such reacting systems may spring up in the original continuum; and > each of these may itself act as a first line from which a larger system may > be built, in which it in turn will merge its individuality. > > At the same time all this, be it remembered, is not of the order of the > existing universe, but is merely a Platonic world, of which we are, > therefore, to conceive that there are many, both coordinated and > subordinated to one another; until finally out of one of these Platonic > worlds is differentiated the particular actual universe of existence in > which we happen to be. > > There is, therefore, every reason in logic why this here universe should > be replete with accidental characters, for each of which, in its > particularity, there is no other reason than that it is one of the ways in > which the original vague potentiality has happened to get differentiated. > > But, for all that, it will be found that if we suppose the laws of nature > to have been formed under the influence of a universal tendency of things > to take habits, there are certain characters that those laws will > necessarily possess. > > As for attempting to set forth the series of deductions I have made upon > this subject, that would be out of the question. All that I have any > thought of doing is to illustrate, by a specimen or two, chosen among those > which need the least explanation, some of the methods by which such > reasoning may be conducted. > > Interestingly this is different from the form it takes in some printed > versions. Here’s a link to the printed version. See especially page 258. > > http://pages.uoregon.edu/koopman/siap/readings/peirce_ > lecture_8_continuity.pdf > > Allow me to quote from this version. It’s relevant for the points I made > in my prior posts today, particularly that of logical emanation. > > From this point of view we must suppose that the existing universe with > all its arbitrary secondness is an offshoot from, or an arbitrary > determination of, a world of ideas, a Platonic world; not that our superior > logic has enabled us to reach up to a world of forms to which the real > universe with its feebler logic was inadequate. > > If this be correct, we cannot suppose the process of derivation, a process > which extends from before time and from before logic, we cannot suppose > that it began elsewhere than in the utter vagueness of com- pletely > undetermined and dimensionless potentiality. > > The evolutionary process is, therefore, not a mere evolution of the > existing universe, but rather a process by which the very Platonic forms > themselves have become or are becoming developed. > > We shall naturally suppose, of course, that existence is a stage of > evolution. This existence is presumably but a special existence. We need > not suppose that every form needs for its evolution to emerge into this > world, but only that it needs to enter into some theatre of reactions, of > which this is one > > The evolution of forms begins, or at any rate, has for an early stage of > it, a vague potentiality; and that either is or is followed by a contin- > uum of forms having a multitude of dimensions too great for the indi- > vidual dimensions to be distinct. It must be by a contraction of the > vagueness of that potentiality of everything in general but of nothing in > particular that the world of forms comes about. > >
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