Re: [PEIRCE-L] Metaphysics and Nothing (was Peirce's Cosmology)

Fri, 04 Nov 2016 20:50:29 -0700

I suppose if everyone comments on these constant arguments as being "tiresome" maybe we are approaching a community consensus of what constitutes the sign for "tiresome" in a Peircean sense. I find it interesting that Peirce held the ethics of all of this as separate from the semiotic process.

If you would, and this is directed specifically to Jon, please cease from my perspective this practice:

On 11/4/2016 9:50 PM, Jon Alan Schmidt wrote:
Edwina, List:

I frankly find it amusing that you think I am "upset and angry" about any of this.  I am quite comfortable with my assessment here, and once again leave it to the good judgment of the List community to separate the wheat from the chaff.

These are arguments that you and Edwina choose to pursue ad infinitum. Please cease in asking readers of this list to either be on your side or not. My "good judgment" is to wish not to hear fruitless arguments pursued to exhaustion, looking for the last word, and certainly not be asked to weigh in (even in my own mind) on which tiresome argument holds sway.

Mike


Regards,

Jon

On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 9:09 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
Jon, Gary R- I wrote this before -
 
Peirce was quite explicit about the 'Zero, the Nothing'..see 1.412, 6.217.  I do not read this as a set of Platonic worlds, which, after all, have some identity. I read this state as 'absolutely undefined and unlimited possibility" 6.217.
 
As I've said, i see the blackboard as POST Big Bang, with sudden flashes of chalkmarks on it...unrelated to each other...."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" 6.204.
 
I read the above as Peirce outlining a POST BigBang number of 'possibles', which could be viewed as those Platonic ideas...but...'no progress beyond this can be made...until ONE mark will stay for a while; i.e., takes on Thirdness..and this establishes our particular physico-chemical universe.
 
So- my reading of this is that many 'marks' [possible world modes] can emerge but have no staying power...until one such mark DOES develop this power..and as such..its consistency makes it dominant as our universe's typology of matter/mind.
 
I am not referring to any 'merged' set of chalkmarks - I am simply reading the texts as they are.
And again - I don't see that the development of 'staying power', which develops within Thirdness can be defined as 'the Big Bang'. The 'Big Bang' is not Thirdness! Therefore, I don't see that these chalkmarks are Pre-Big Bang, but I read them as POST Big Bang.
 
And Jon - don't you have YOUR set of biases within which you read the texts? Of course, others are aware that we interpret the texts differently. I suppose I'm trying to say that I really wonder why you are so upset and angry about the fact that others don't always accept your view and your analysis.
 
I repeat - others may read these texts in a different interpretation, but, there is no need for anger at such differences. And - I don't think that we can come to a definitive answer among the few on this list who actually comment...
 
Edwina
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Friday, November 04, 2016 8:44 PM
Subject: Re: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Metaphysics and Nothing (was Peirce's Cosmology)

Edwina, List:

ET:  Are the Platonic worlds BEFORE or AFTER the so-called Big Bang?

I guess that depends how one understands the Big Bang.  You take it to be the beginning of everything; before the Big Bang, there was nothing.  The real question is, what would Peirce have taken it to be?  I think that the much more likely answer is when "this Universe of Actual Existence" emerged from "the whole universe of true and real possibilities" as "a discontinuous mark--like a line figure drawn on the area of the blackboard" (NEM 4:345, RLT 162).  So the Platonic worlds must have been before the Big Bang, because they come before the existence of our particular universe, and all of them but one have no connection with the latter whatsoever.

ET:  But after, there were multiple 'chalk marks' - but only ONE set began to take habits and became dominant, while the others dissipated.

Where do you find this in CP 6.203-208?  Where in that passage does it say that only one set of chalk marks began to take habits?  On the contrary, it states quite plainly, "Many such reacting systems may spring up," and that we are "to conceive that there are many" Platonic worlds.  Where does it say that one of these "became dominant" over the others?  Where does it suggest that any merged aggregation of chalk marks, having developed the habit of persistence, would have--or even could have--"dissipated"?  This is not a legitimate reading of the text, it is the imposition of a predetermined conceptual framework on it.

ET:  I don't think that this dispute can be 'settled' because we do read the texts differently ...

We should not block the way of inquiry by assuming that, just because we read the texts differently, there is no correct (or incorrect) way to read the texts.

ET:  ... but I do think that we on the list should be aware that there are different views on this issue

Do you really think that anyone on the List is not aware of this by now?

Regards,

Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman

On Fri, Nov 4, 2016 at 6:26 PM, Edwina Taborsky <tabor...@primus.ca> wrote:
Gary R, Helmut:
 
The question is: Are the Platonic worlds BEFORE or AFTER the so-called Big Bang? I read them as AFTER while Gary R and Jon S read them as BEFORE. In my reading, before the BigBang, there was Nothing, not even Platonic worlds. But after, there were multiple 'chalk marks' - but only ONE set began to take habits and became dominant, while the others dissipated.
 
I don't think that this dispute can be 'settled' because we do read the texts differently, but I do think that we on the list should be aware that there are different views on this issue.
 
Edwina

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