> On Nov 2, 2016, at 10:05 PM, Gary Richmond <gary.richm...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Jon and I (and others) have argued that the 3ns which "emerges" following the > creation of this Universe (that is, after the Big Bang, so to loosely speak) > is *not* the same as the 3ns which is the ur-continuity represented by the > black board example in the last of the 1898 lectures. It seems to me that > much hinges on whether or not one sees our Universe as presupposing this > ur-continuity (nothing in particular but everything in general, with yet a > tendency toward habit-taking because of this ur-continuity, otherwise termed > the zero of pure potential, which is, for Peirce, certainly not "nothing at > all").
I’m not sure I’d agree about injecting the big bang into this. It seems to me Peirce’s at best ambiguous about a beginning to the universe. Admittedly he’s living before most of the interesting physical discoveries of the 20th century. But even among physicists these days the common view is that the big bang isn’t an absolute beginning. That said I do think we should distinguish, as the ancient platonists did, between logical relations in emanations and historic development. Of course this distinction blurs a bit given his semiotics is his logic yet the universe in its role as a sign is developing simultaneously historically and logically. I find Peirce’s fundamental ontology and cosmology the most problematic of his views (and perhaps the most separable). However if we take it as a logical analysis rather than a cosmological/temporal one then it is far more fruitful. As soon as you inject chance as an inherent ontological component of ones logic then that has a lot of implications I think Peirce traced out quite well. Most of the controversial aspects of his thought are natural consequences of holding to tychism and synechism. Fundamentally it leads to the problem of time which is a traditionally thorny issue. I’m not sure physics has figured it out despite the mathematics of general relativity. We really don’t understand the arrow of time and a lot else. The understanding of time Peirce had available to him was limited. There are a lot of thorny difficult problems here and it’s probably a place Peirce is less trustworthy in his analysis. Interestingly there’s a famous argument by Duns Scotus against causes going backwards infinitely in time. I don’t know if Peirce mentions this although I’d assume he’d read it. http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Authors/Duns_Scotus/Ordinatio/Ordinatio_I/D2/Q2B <http://www.logicmuseum.com/wiki/Authors/Duns_Scotus/Ordinatio/Ordinatio_I/D2/Q2B> I should I don’t buy the argument although it is quite a good argument. However it hinges on the distinction between an essentially ordered series and accidental series.
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