Jon, to continue your argument with some follow-up questions:
If all thought is dialogic, as Peirce said, is the Universe as Sign an internal
dialogue (God talking to himself)?
If not, who is the interpreter of the Sign-Universe uttered by God?
Is the Creation of the three Universes intentional? Why should we assume that
it has any purpose at all, given that it has no context? (Maybe it is Pure
Play.)
Gary f.
} I surrender to the belief that my knowing is a small part of a wider
integrated knowing that knits the entire biosphere or creation. [G. Bateson] {
<http://gnusystems.ca/wp/> http://gnusystems.ca/wp/ }{ Turning Signs gateway
From: Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]>
Sent: 12-May-19 17:50
To: [email protected]
Subject: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Continuity of Semeiosis Revisited
List:
More than a year ago, I made a case on-List that what Peirce described as "the
perfect Sign" in R 283 (partially published as EP 2:545n25; 1906) is the
Universe. I think that interpretation holds up well in light of what I have
been discussing in this thread.
CSP: There are so many different ways of easily proving that there could not
be a single sign without any connection with another sign, that it would be
superfluous to occupy space with that. We need not just now consider the nature
of the connection: suffice it that it exists. Consider then the aggregate
formed by a sign and all the signs which its occurrence carries with it. This
aggregate will itself be a sign; and we may call it a perfect sign, in the
sense that it involves the present existence of no other sign except such as
are ingredients of itself. (R 283:259[114])
All Signs are connected with other Signs, such that "there can be no isolated
sign" (CP 4.551; 1906); and "if any signs are connected, no matter how, the
resulting system constitutes one sign" (R 1476:36[5-1/2]; 1904)--in this case,
a perfect Sign.
CSP: Now no perfect sign is in a statical condition: you might as well suppose
a portion of matter to remain at rest during a thousandth of a second, or any
other long interval of time. The only signs which are tolerably fixed are
non-existent abstractions. We cannot deny that such a sign is real; only its
mode of reality is not that active kind which we call existence. The existent
acts, and whatsoever acts changes. (R 283:260[115-116])
Just as all matter is always in continuous motion, a perfect Sign as an
aggregate of connected Signs is always in continuous "Thought-motion"--i.e.,
semeiosis. Any static description of an instantaneous state--a discrete
position in space at a discrete instant in time, or a definite Proposition that
attributes a concept to an individual--is a real but non-existent abstraction.
CSP: Every real ingredient of the perfect sign is aging, its energy of action
upon the interpretant is running low, its sharp edges are wearing down, its
outlines becoming more indefinite.
On the other hand, the perfect sign is perpetually being acted upon by its
object, from which it is perpetually receiving the accretions of new signs,
which bring it fresh energy, and also kindle energy that it already had, but
which had lain dormant.
In addition, the perfect sign never ceases to undergo changes of the kind we
rather drolly call spontaneous, that is, they happen sua sponte but not by its
will. They are phenomena of growth. (R 283:260-261[116-117]; 1906)
Left to itself, the perfect Sign would exhibit the semeiosic equivalent of
entropy--losing energy and definiteness, becoming "dead matter" as "the final
result of the complete induration of habit reducing the free play of feeling
and the brute irrationality of effort to complete death" (CP 6.201; 1898).
Instead, it constantly receives infusions of new Signs and "fresh energy" from
its Object, as well as spontaneous changes that "are phenomena of growth."
CSP: Such perfect sign is a quasi-mind. It is the sheet of assertion of
Existential Graphs. This description must remain inadequate though it is, or we
should throw open the doors at once to a jam of considerations, which must be
taken into account, if at all, in orderly succession.
This quasi-mind is an object which from whatever standpoint it be examined,
must evidently have, like anything else, its special qualities of
susceptibility to determination. Moreover, the determinations come as events
each one once for all and never again. Furthermore, it must have its rules or
laws, the more special ones variable, others invariable. (R
283:261-262[117-118])
As Peirce similarly wrote elsewhere, "The blank leaf itself is the quasi-mind
... This quasi-mind is itself a sign, a determinable sign" (SS 195; 1906 Mar
9). Specifically, it is "a Seme of The Truth, that is, of the widest Universe
of Reality, and at the same time, a Pheme of all that is tacitly taken for
granted between the Graphist and Interpreter, from the outset of their
discussion" (CP 4.553; 1906). The only kind of modification allowed is
scribing EGs on it to express true Propositions, thereby making it more
determinate with each additional Graph-Instance. This is also a phenomenon of
growth, increasing the Logical Breadth of each Sign of a concept (Spot) and the
Logical Depth of each Sign of an individual (Line).
Likewise, the perfect Sign's Object is always further determining it to develop
toward the Entelechy of absolute Truth. But if the perfect Sign is the entire
Universe, what is its Object--"something external to and independent of the
sign which determines in the sign an element corresponding to itself" (R
145s:27; 1905)? What is perpetually acting upon it with new Signs that give it
fresh energy and kindle its previously dormant energy? What has the absolute
freedom to introduce spontaneous changes into it? In other words, what
sustains the Universe as something that is living and growing? It seems to me
that the unavoidable answer is a straightforward restatement of my Semeiotic
Argumentation for the Reality of God.
* Every Sign is determined by an Object other than itself, and
* The entire Universe is a Sign; therefore,
* The entire Universe is determined by an Object other than itself, and
* This we call God--"the definable proper name, signifying Ens
necessarium; in my belief Really creator of all three Universes of Experience"
(CP 6.452, EP 2:434; 1908).
Moreover, since truth is the conformity of a Sign to its Object, the Final
Interpretant of the Universe as an Argument--the ideal conclusion of the
continuous "inferential process" of semeiosis--is knowledge of God. In other
words, God's purpose in uttering the Universe is the revelation of Himself.
Regards,
Jon S.
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