Jeff, List: What I find interesting about that quote from "A Guess at the Riddle" (1887-8) is the often-overlooked implication that "the principle of habit" (3ns) already had to be in place and operative in order to bring about the "second flash," which "was in some sense after the first, because resulting from it." Peirce only belatedly recognized this himself; in one of the early manuscript drafts of "A Neglected Argument for the Reality of God" (1908), he referred to the notion that the habit-taking tendency brought about the laws of nature as "my original hypothesis," and then made this comment about it.
CSP: But during the long years which have elapsed since the hypothesis first suggested itself to me, it may naturally be supposed that faulty features of the original hypothesis have been brought [to] my attention by others and have struck me in my own meditations … Professor Ogden Rood pointed out that there must have been some original tendency to take habits which did not arise according to my hypothesis … (R 842) If the tendency to take habits was truly "original," then it seems to me that 3ns must have *preceded* 1ns and 2ns in some sense. This is consistent with Peirce's remarks about "super-order" in the first additament to the article (CP 6.490; 1908), as well as the blackboard diagram in the final RLT lecture (1898); hence the notion of primordial 3ns or "ur-continuity" that we have discussed on the List in the past. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA Professional Engineer, Amateur Philosopher, Lutheran Layman www.LinkedIn.com/in/JonAlanSchmidt - twitter.com/JonAlanSchmidt On Fri, Mar 31, 2017 at 11:46 AM, Jeffrey Brian Downard < [email protected]> wrote: > Edwina, Clark, Jon S, List, > > Let's make a comparison for the sake of framing a question in the special > science of cosmological physics. Does Peirce's explanatory principle help > to address the kinds of questions that Ilya Prigogine is trying to answer > about the irreversibility of thermodynamical systems? Once again, here is > the quote in which Peirce describes the principle: “out of the womb of > indeterminacy, we must say that there would have come something, by the > principle of Firstness, which we may call a flash. Then by the principle of > habit there would have been a second flash…..” (CP, 1.412) > > See: Prigogine, Ilya (1961). *Introduction to Thermodynamics of > Irreversible Processes* (Second ed.). New York: Interscience. > > If Peirce is addressing the same sort of question, then are the Prigogine > and Peirce explaining the irreversibility of such thermodynamical processes > in the same general way? Or, is Peirce trying to answer a set of prior > questions. For instance, one might infer from the quote above taken > together with Peirce says in the last of the lectures in Reasoning and the > Logic of Things (including the suggestive draft versions) that Peirce is > interested in more general questions about what makes any sort of process > ordered so that it is irreversible--including, for example, the "unfolding" > of the dimensions of quality as well as those of space and the order of > time. > > Prigogine's general strategy is to provide an account of what makes some > complex systems chaotic. Then, he tries to explain how some chaotic systems > can evolve in a manner that is self-organizing. The explanation draws on > the conception of a dissipative structure. As such, a comparison between > the two might help us better understand how to frame competing hypotheses > concerning the evolution of order in such systems--including forms of order > that are irreversible in one way or another. > > --Jeff > Jeffrey Downard > Associate Professor > Department of Philosophy > Northern Arizona University > (o) 928 523-8354 <(928)%20523-8354> >
----------------------------- PEIRCE-L subscribers: Click on "Reply List" or "Reply All" to REPLY ON PEIRCE-L to this message. PEIRCE-L posts should go to [email protected] . To UNSUBSCRIBE, send a message not to PEIRCE-L but to [email protected] with the line "UNSubscribe PEIRCE-L" in the BODY of the message. More at http://www.cspeirce.com/peirce-l/peirce-l.htm .
