Jon, John, List, I don’t see how Peirce’s cosmology, which is essentially metaphysical (i.e. based on logical principles), has any bearing on the Big Bang theory, which is strictly a physical hypothesis testable only by means of physical observations. I suppose Peirce as physicist would have had something to say about the Big Bang, but I don’t think it would necessitate a modification of his cosmology, nor would his cosmology imply a denial that the Big Bang happened at the beginning of the physical universe as we know it.
Gary f. From: Jon Alan Schmidt <[email protected]> Sent: 23-Aug-19 09:58 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [PEIRCE-L] Re: Peirce and the Big Bang John, List: JFS: An amazing event occurred around 13.8 billion years ago. Again, that estimated time frame relies on the assumption that the laws of nature have remained essentially unchanged for the entire duration--a presupposition that Peirce rejected in favor of "thorough-going evolutionism" (CP 6.14; 1891), since "law itself requires an explanation" (CP 6.613; 1893). JAS: Peirce's synechism, tychism, and (objective) idealism together conceive the entire universe as fundamentally a semeiosic continuum--a continuum of mind, including matter as "effete mind" JFS: The word 'fundamentally' is inappropriate. Peirce's hypotheses were vague. The term 'effete mind' is vague, and his translation of Schelling's term 'erloschene Geist' as "extinct mind" is just as vague ... At best, both terms are colorful metaphors. Any inferences from them are unsubstantiated speculations. Fortunately, Peirce did not leave us with only those terms. He immediately explained "effete mind" as "inveterate habits becoming physical laws" (CP 6.25, EP 1:293; 1891). In the previous paragraph, he defined idealism as "the physical law derived and special, the psychical law alone as primordial" (CP 6.24, EP 1:292; 1891). He elaborated elsewhere that his "Schelling-fashioned idealism ... holds matter to be mere specialized and partially deadened mind" (CP 6.102, EP 1:312; 1892); "that what we call matter is not completely dead, but is merely mind hidebound with habits" (CP 6.158, EP 1:331; 1892); that "physical events are but degraded or undeveloped forms of psychical events ... the phenomena of matter are but the result of the sensibly complete sway of habits upon mind" (CP 6.264, EP 1:348; 1892); that "we must ... regard matter as mind whose habits have become fixed so as to lose the powers of forming them and losing them" (CP 6.101; 1902); and that "matter is nothing but effete mind,--mind so completely under the domination of habit as to act with almost perfect regularity & to have lost its powers of forgetting & of learning" (R 936:3; no date). All of these passages, especially taken together, make it unmistakably clear that Peirce considered the "stuff" of the universe to be fundamentally mind, from which matter is derived. CSP: Philosophy tries to understand. In so doing, it is committed to the assumption that things are intelligible, that the process of nature and the process of reason are one. (CP 6.581; c. 1905) JFS: Most scientists today would agree with that quotation. Just for the record, Gary F. informed me off-List that the Peirce Edition Project dated that quote to 1890 and included it in W6 accordingly (p. 392). It is not clear why the CP editors thought that Peirce wrote it some 15 years later. JFS: There is a huge amount of speculation about cosmology by scientists, theologians, and people who have backgrounds in both. They have a century more information than Peirce had. Yet they can't make any definite claims. Of course--again, my interpretation of Peirce is that the "beginning" itself was indefinite, just like any individual mind's "first" cognition of an external object. Such is the nature of any truly continuous process. Regards, Jon Alan Schmidt - Olathe, Kansas, USA
----------------------------- 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 .
