[peirce-l] Re: Peirce on personality, individualism and science
Bill, i sent this offline but got bounced by one of your filters. Well,
it's short.
[[ I don't doubt your sincerity, only your California style dharma. ]]
:-) I've never been to California, so can't comment on that attribution.
But i've noticed that the New Age epithet is often useful as an excuse
for not investigating whatever it's applied to. I've used it that way
myself, though i've since given up that habit. More generally, people's
reasons for not investigating any line of inquiry are of little or no
use to other people.
If you read Peirce on the scientific enterprise, you'll find that
for him, the true scientist, as a pure seeker after truth, is a very
rare individual indeed -- precisely because his interests are neither
individual nor tied to the aims of some limited community. And if you
investigate Mahayana Buddhist texts seriously, you'll find that the
same is true of the bodhisattva, who is not a transcendent figure to be
worshipped (and thereby kept at a safe distance) but an embodiment of a
path to be lived, an infinite challenge to be met at every moment.
gary F.
}Once the whole is divided, the parts need names. There are already
enough names. One must know when to stop. [Tao Te Ching 32
(Feng/English)]{
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[peirce-l] Re: Peirce on personality, individualism and science
Gary, thanks for this quote, which i'm pretty sure i haven't seen
before -- i wouldn't have thought Peirce would talk about a
Buddhisto-christian religion!
CP 1.673. . .. the supreme commandment of the Buddhisto-christian
religion is, to generalize, to complete the whole system even until
continuity results and the distinct individuals weld together. Thus it
is, that while reasoning and the science of reasoning strenuously
proclaim the subordination of reasoning to sentiment, the very supreme
commandment of sentiment is that man should generalize, or what the
logic of relatives shows to be the same thing, should become welded
into the universal continuum, which is what true reasoning consists
in. But this does not reinstate reasoning, for this generalization
should come about, not merely in man's cognitions, which are but the
superficial film of his being, but objectively in the deepest
emotional springs of his life. In fulfilling this command, man
prepares himself for transmutation into a new form of life, the joyful
Nirvana in which the discontinuities of his will shall have all but
disappeared.
It does accord pretty closely with what i was thinking; and so does
everything in your later post (below), including the other Peirce
passages you found:
- Original Message -
...
I would suggest that the ideal of the scientific method requires a
authentic scientific personality as Peirce conceived it, the kind of
person who, like Peirce, was willing to offer his life to the pursuit of
truth in those areas in which he was most likely to significantly
contribute. But this tendency ought to be alive not only in scientists
but in all of us to some extent--this desire to help make the world a
more reasonable place where it is 'up to us' to do so.
CP 1.615 The one thing whose admirableness is not due to an ulterior
reason is Reason itself comprehended in all its fullness, so far as we
can comprehend it. Under this conception, the ideal of conduct will be
to execute our little function in the operation of the creation by
giving a hand toward rendering the world more reasonable whenever, as
the slang is, it is up to us to do so. In logic, it will be observed
that knowledge is reasonableness; and the ideal of reasoning will be
to follow such methods as must develope knowledge the most speedily. .
. .
But Peirce suggests that in the true scientist that this represents a
kind of religious commitment involving a strong sense of duty,
sacrifice, faith in the reality of God (as this is presented in the N.A.
and elsewhere), and so forth. While you are no doubt correct that Peirce
emphasized the communal nature of science, there is yet an individual
contribution to be made beyond this veritable sacrifice of all other
concerns to this compelling scientific pursuit. Commenting on the extent
to which Peirce emphasized the communal you wrote:
GF: . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Peirce did not, to my knowledge,
put as much emphasis on that last point as he did on the collective,
public, social, communal nature of true science (as opposed to the more
mundane enterprise which *he* sometimes called art or practice --
obviously my sense of practice is different.) His emphasis was
appropriate for the cultural milieu in which he wrote. For my own part,
i'd say that the key principle here is the creative tension between
individual and community: the individual who merely conforms to
communal
habits does not contribute to its development.
I would suggest that the creative tension between individual and
community was always there in Peirce, and even in the scientific method
as he conceived it. After all, abduction tends to be--if it is not
exclusively--a personal matter (even when several scientists abduce the
same hypothesis at more or less the same time).
---
Yes, exactly -- thank you!
gary F.
}No wise fish would go anywhere without a porpoise. [the Mock Turtle]{
gnoxic studies }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/gnoxic.htm
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[peirce-l] Re: Peirce on personality, individualism and science
Bill,
I'm on this list because i read Peirce and take him seriously as a
writer whose concepts have some bearing on the conduct of a life -- any
life -- and my working assumption is that others are here for similar
reasons. Likewise, my interest in the bodhisattva concept arises from my
reading of texts which represent it in a context relevant to the actual
conduct of a life (or a sentient being, to use the Buddhist term). These
texts include the Lotus Sutra and a broad range of Buddhist writers and
translators ancient and modern (especially Dogen) who also take the
concept seriously. I don't profess to be a Buddhist, just as i don't
profess to be a scientist or any kind of specialist, because i don't see
such professions as being relevant: i'm here as a reader, and if i'm
going to discuss any concept drawn from my reading, the discussion will
have to be based on the texts in question. In those terms, i don't see
our exchange here as very relevant either, so pardon me if my responses
are abrupt.
Bill [re the Gita]: It is not a politico telling Arjuna what his social
duty is; it is a god telling a human what his duty is to God. I suppose
gods tend to be a bit totalitarian, but that's just the way they are.
gary: Gods do tend to come across that way in the monotheistic Abrahamic
traditions; whether that transcendent alpha-male quality should be read
into the immanent gods of the Vedic tradition is another question.
(Hmmm, now i seem to be the one making an East/West distinction; isn't
that odd? But maybe you also consider the Abrahamic religions as
Eastern; that would be reasonable, since their region of origin is
what we now call the Middle East, but it's not what i thought you had
in mind.)
Bill: ... you gut the doctrine of all its stringencies, as if they were
yours to explain away, and leave only a pale image of Buddhism.
gary: From here, it looks like you're the one who doesn't take the
bodhisattva vow seriously or recognize the stringencies involved in
living by it.
What i am referring to under that name is simply a person who
has taken the bodhisattva vow and is actually living as if he means
it.
Bill: Why don't you try bouncing this conception off a traditional
Buddhist and see if he or she recognizes it.
gary: My conception is drawn directly (with some rewording) from the
likes of Dogen, Thich Nhat Hanh, etc. I'm sure there are many who call
themselves Buddhists and see the concept differently, but if that's what
you mean by a traditional Buddhist, i don't see their testimony as
relevant. (Likewise i'd rather read Peirce than consult a traditional
Peircean.) The point here is not at all to describe what the Buddhist
masses believe.
Bill: What if, for example, Buddhist logic is not rooted in the social
principle? Would that affect your claim? Or is it, as I feel, just the
general similarity that you are interested in.
gary: If Buddhist logic were so different from Peircean logic as to be
not rooted in the social principle, then nobody could understand or
use it at all -- including you and me. And yes, it is the general
similarity that i'm interested in; but as Peirce says, you must
consider that, according to the principle which we are tracing out, a
connection between ideas is itself a general idea, and that a general
idea is a living feeling (EP1, 330). Starting with a general
similarity, you can always make distinctions, but doing so doesn't
always advance the inquiry.
gary F.
}Once the whole is divided, the parts need names. There are already
enough names. One must know when to stop. [Tao Te Ching 32
(Feng/English)]{
gnoxic studies }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/gnoxic.htm
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[peirce-l] Peirce on personality, individualism and science
Bill and Gary R,
This is just to let you know i'm not avoiding the discussion -- it's
just that we've had a scheduled power outage today on Manitoulin Island,
so i haven't been able to use the computer, and other matters will keep
me busy for the rest of today as well. So i'll have to get back to you
tomorrow. Meanwhile i've changed the subject line as Gary suggested.
What i had in mind, apart from what i've already quoted from Peirce in
this thread, are some passages about the nature of personality, selfhood
and the logic of relations between the individual and larger
communities. I will present a selection tomorrow, but for a preview: one
of them is from Peirce's little essay on Immortality in the Light of
Synechism, the first selection in EP2.
I too would like to acknowledge the loss of Arnold Shepperson, although
all i knew of him was his posts here in recent months. Perhaps the essay
mentioned just above is apropos for reflection on a sudden death like
this.
gary F.
}Our duty is to strive for self-realization and we should lose ourselves
in that aim. [Gandhi]{
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[peirce-l] Re: What fundamental psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Bill, list,
In addition to the story of Genie, there's plenty of evidence in
developmental psychology that reasoning, and indeed language, is a
social phenomenon. I'd mention Vygotsky and Tomasello, but then i'd have
to leave out all the others.
I'm surprised to see this part of your message though:
[[ One of the strong-holds of the unitive world-view you seem to prefer
has been the traditional Orient, where life has historically been
cheaper than dirt and mass exterminations of humans nearly routine. A
modern example is Maoist purges and the rape and pillage of Tibet. Mao
and Stalin each surpassed Hitler's atrocities. ]]
So did the European invasion of what we now call the Americas. History
does not at all bear out your suggestion that genocide is an oriental
phenomenon or that life is cheaper on the other side of the world.
[[ For the human to assume responsibility is an act of hubris. Isn't
that the message of the Bhagavad Gita? So kill away, oh nobly born,
and forget this conscience thing, an obvious lapse into ego. ]]
No, that is not the message of the Bhagavad Gita. You might have a look
at Gandhi's commentary on it -- Gandhi (1926), ed. John Strohmeier
(2000), The Bhagavad Gita According to Gandhi (Berkeley, CA: Berkeley
Hills). Gandhi acknowledged the Gita as the main inspiration for his
life and work. Would you say that he was deficient in conscience?
As i hinted in my previous message, i see a close parallel to Peirce's
ideal of scientific method (or of the motivation for it) in the
bodhisattva ideal of Mahayana Buddhism, which is simply that one vows to
work for universal enlightenment, not for private salvation or personal
attainment of nirvana. The more i study them, the more i'm convinced
that the deepest currents of culture in East and West differ mostly in
accidental respects such as terminology, and it behooves us to see
through the differences.
However i don't cling to this thesis tenaciously ... if you can present
evidence to the contrary, by all means do so!
gary F.
}Set thy heart upon thy work, but never upon its reward. [Bhagavad-Gita
2:47]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] Re: What fundamenal psychological laws is Peirce referring to?
Joe, Kirsti, list,
[[ Well, Gary, it looks like some fancy footwork with the term is
rooted in might have to be resorted to if we are to save Peirce on this
one! You've caught him with a flat contradiction there! ]]
Personally i think the contradiction is more apparent than flat. As i
said (and i think Kirsti said the same), this is not circulum vitiosum
but a pattern which underlies inquiry and therefore can only be itself
investigated via a cyclical process.
The social principle is implicit in explicit (formal) logic, *and*
logic/semeiotic is implicit in the social principle. (Though Peirce
would not have put it that way in 1869 or 1878.) The social
principle is intrinsically rooted in logic (1869) because recognition
of others as experiencing beings is a special case of seeing a
difference between phenomenon and reality, or between sign and object --
or between soul and world, to use the terms Peirce uses in both of
these passages. Logic begins with the revelation of a real world out
there beyond phenomenal consciousness. Logic is rooted in the social
principle (1878) in that it explicates the relationship between
experience and reality, which it cannot do prior to the developmental
stage at which the difference between the two is recognized -- a stage
accessible only to *social* animals who can handle symbolic signs. (The
method of tenacity is, in a sense, a reversion to an earlier stage of
development even though it is also a social stance.)
So i don't think Peirce needs to be saved; or if he does, it's only
because (like a bodhisattva) he has sacrificed his own soul to save the
whole world.
gary F.
}To seek Buddhahood apart from living beings is like seeking echoes by
silencing sounds. [Layman Hsiang]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
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[peirce-l] Re: Dennett
R. Jeffrey Grace asks about Daniel Dennett's Heterophenomenology, which
maintains that all subjective states are ultimately objective states
...
You may have to explain how you extract that from Dennett; it sounds
nonsensical to me, but then it's been several years since i read Dennett
on heterophenomenology. Anyway Dennett does not generally write in
semeiotic terms, so i think anything similar to Peirce's view would
have to be read into his texts with some effort.
[[ I also get the impression that what we call mind or subjective
experience is more objective or public than we realize... and this seems
to coincide with Dennett's heterophenomenology...the idea that an
objective observer might be able to read someone's subjective experience
better than
the subject him/herself. ]]
I think mind and subjective experience are entirely different for
Peirce. Anyway, the idea that an objective observer might be able to
read someone's subjective experience better than the subject
him/herself makes no sense to me. Since experience itself is not in the
public domain, how can you compare it with anyone's reading of it?
Even if we grant that one person can see another's experience in order
to read it -- which takes us already into a fictional realm -- how can
you compare a sign with its object? Certainly not without using another
sign. If you can't compare the experience with the reading of it,
then there is no basis for claiming that one reading is better than
another.
gary
}You and the world are embedded together. [Edelman]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] Re: MS 403 available at Arisbe
Joe, i think we all owe you a round of thanks for your transcription of
MS 403, especially those of us who are relative newcomers to the study
of Peirce. After several readings of the New List paper i still find
it a tough nut to crack, and this 1893 version makes it much more
accessible. In fact i would advise beginners in Peirce studies to try MS
403 (and 404) first and the 1867 paper later. Terminologically, the New
List paper seems to have a very hard crust, perhaps the result of its
conceptual content having been in the oven for three or four years
before reaching its published form -- guaranteeing that its language
would be transparent for its author, however opaque it may be for the
average reader. I think MS 403 shows Peirce making some progress toward
making his expression as elementary for the public as his categories
were already elementary in the logical sense.
Or maybe i'm reading my own progress as a reader into it ... i'd like to
hear a real beginner's testimony as to which version makes more
immediate sense. (I wonder if it would work better to put the sections
from 1867 after the 1893 versions of each section?)
The new footnotes also reveal some unexpected implications and
connections (unexpected by me, anyway). -- As for MS 339D.663f, i'm
still struggling with that one.
gary
}Drawing nearer to take our slant at it (since after all it has met with
misfortune while all underground), let us see all there may remain to be
seen. [Finnegans Wake 113]{
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[peirce-l] Re: Neuroquantology Journal
As a non-professional neuroscience-watcher (now working on my 10th book
review to be published in the Journal of Consciousness Studies), i would
agree with Irving, (I do not recognize any of the names from either the
AI, cognitive science, or neuroscience fields), with the exception of
Hameroff. Broadly speaking, the quantum consciousness folks are part
of the current discussion in the field but very much on the fringe of
it; few researchers in cognitive or neuro-psychology or in philosophy
of mind take them seriously, but nobody wants to dismiss them altogether
until they come up with a testable theory (which they regularly claim to
be on the verge of doing). But i don't bother to read past the abstracts
of their stuff, and none of the leaders in the field seem to do so
either.
gary
}And whoso is saved from his own greed, such are the successful. [Qur'an
64:16 (Pickthall)]{
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[peirce-l] Re: 1st image of triangle of boxes (MS799.2)
I'd like to second what Joe says here,
[[ but my own interest in the classification system is not with what can
be learned from it by manipulating graphical models of it but with
understanding what use it might have when it comes to understanding how
to apply it in the analysis and understanding of distinctively
philosophical problems such as have formed the staple of philosophical
concern from the time of the Greeks on. I wonder if anyone knows of
any attempts to do that. ]]
Specifically, i'm wondering what this classification of signs can
contribute to the old but still vexed problem of characterizing the
cognitive gap between humans and other animals. One has to put gap
in quotation marks because no one seriously doubts the continuity of the
evolutionary process which has produced human cognition (though some see
more leaps in the process than others do). There has been some
empirical progress on this problem recently -- in fact i'm now reviewing
a recent book on exactly that, for the Journal of Consciousness
Studies -- but interpreting the data remains a problem of philosophical
concern; and the same goes for the cognitive development process of
individual humans. The origin-of-language problem is one aspect of this.
In this light, Joe's (or any) ordinal numbering of Peirce's tenfold
classification looks much like a developmental sequence. Part of the
resemblance is that if we look at the two ends of the sequence,
there's no question about which is which. Adult humans are capable of
handling arguments, while human infants and adult monkeys are not; and i
would presume that qualisigns are implicit in sentience itself. But
ordering the steps or stages in between is much more problematic,
both logically and empirically. And this is exactly where i wonder if
semeiotic can clarify the questions about evolution and development.
Also whether empirical studies of development or comparative psychology
can throw some light on the proper order of sign classes. (Peirce was
often skeptical that logic had anything to learn from psychology, but i
think what he had in mind there was the limitations of psychological
research in his time, and i think there's been some real progress since
then in that respect.)
Terrence Deacon's 1997 book on the origin of language, _The Symbolic
Species_, used symbolic in a Peircean sense, and i've seen the
icon/index/symbol trichotomy used in a few other studies of
consciousness; but other than that, the semiotic approach hardly
registers in consciousness studies at all. If anyone can bring a more
detailed Peircean analysis to bear on this kind of philosophical
problem, i'd be happy to hear of it.
gary
}Her untitled mamafesta memorialising the Mosthighest has gone by many
names at disjointed times. [Finnegans Wake 104]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] Re: motivating force for Peirce's synthesis
(I've changed the subject line because i see no connection to New
Elements here.)
Jerry, i wonder if i can ask you to clarify your two wide open
questions:
[[ Was the motivating force for Peirce's synthesis of his logical system
the chemical symbol system?
What argues AGAINST this possibility? ]]
If you are really asking about motivation, then you're raising a
psychological question. Peirce was introspective enough to write about
his own motivations in a number of autobiographical texts. If he thought
that the chemical symbol system was his motivation, surely he would
have said so in one of those texts. Until someone can produce such
testimony from Peirce, the very absence of it argues against the
possibility -- unless you propose that Peirce may have been unaware of
his own motivation.
However, the earlier parts of your post suggest another possibility. If
(following Peirce) we use Aristotelian terminology, a motivation is
the psychological equivalent of an efficient cause; but your
explication seems to suggest the chemical symbol system as a *formal*
cause for Peirce's synthesis. In other words, your suggestion seems to
be that Peirce found some formal structure specific to the chemical
symbol system which he could then generalize to elucidate the logic of
all sciences. Would that be an accurate paraphrase of your proposal?
If so, your proposal regarding Peirce's logic is even more problematic
than a proposal about his psychology. The essential form underlying his
logical system was something Peirce wrote about constantly (not just
occasionally, like his motivations) -- from his 1867 paper On a New
List of Categories to the end of his life. If it's unlikely that he
would have been silent (or wrong) about his motivations, it's even more
unlikely that the real basis of his semeiotic/logic would have been
other than what he said it was -- namely, his triad of categories. If
that's the real basis of it, then the logic of chemistry would be (for
Peirce) just another specific application of that generic logic, and not
the source of it.
Peirce's special interest in chemistry could then be accounted for as
Max Fisch says: Chemistry at that time offered the best entry into
experimental science in general, and was therefore the best field in
which to do one's postgraduate work, even if one intended to move on to
other sciences and, by way of the sciences, to the logic of science and
to logic as a whole. Moreover, chemical engineering was then the most
promising field in which to make a living by science, if one had no
opportunity to do so by pure science or by logic. Fisch makes it quite
clear that logic itself, and not any of its applications, was seen by
Peirce himself as his destiny, from the time that he first read
Whately's _Elements of Logic_ (within a week or two of his twelfth
birthday, in 1851). Since that time, he often said late in life, it
had never been possible for him to think of anything, including even
chemistry, except as an exercise in logic. And so far as he knew, he was
the only man since the Middle Ages who had completely devoted his life
to logic. There is nothing here to indicate that his either his logic
or his devotion to it stemmed from his studies in chemistry.
If this analysis is accurate, then it's up to you to demonstrate, from
Peirce's own texts, evidence that the motivating force for Peirce's
synthesis of his logical system was the chemical symbol system. Since
this would run very much against the grain of Peirce's general
testimony, what need is there for anyone to argue AGAINST it?
Let me emphasize again that i'm not trying to offer an answer to your
questions -- i'll leave that to those with more authority and expertise
in Peirce's writings than i can claim. I'm merely asking for
clarification by trying to show why it's needed.
gary F.
}Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of
the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour. [Thoreau]{
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[peirce-l] Re: Entelechy
Vinicius,
[[ I think the best definition of Entelechy given by Peirce, done in
terms of Semeiosis, can be found in his definition of Perfect Sign
(EP2: 545, n.25). ]]
I see what you mean -- although Peirce doesn't mention the word
entelechy there, perfect sign seems synonymous with it.
Janet,
I'm relatively new around here myself, so i know it takes awhile to get
oriented. Welcome to the list! (I don't recall whether that's been said
to you already, but if so, another welcome won't hurt.)
[[ I am surprised, however, to see the entrants under Models and
simulations of mind. Aren't the views of Hofstadter, Dennet and Minsky
generally at odds with the spirit of rest of your list -- and explicitly
at odds with Damasio, Lakoff, Maturana and Varela, Rosen, and
Wittgenstein of the Philosophical Investigations? ]]
No more at odds than the latter group are among themselves, if you allow
for some major differences in focus and idiom. But i have to admit that
i don't find much of interest in Dennett or Minsky nowadays. They were
central to my reading and thinking 25 years ago (before the others that
you mention appeared on my horizon), but much more peripheral now. I put
them on the list because i think much of what i learned from them is
still valid; and in Hofstadter's case, because my work in progress still
draws upon his concepts of tangled hierarchy and strange loops and
(especially) his modeling of the creative process. Besides, Hofstadter
was quick to pick up on the emerging concepts of chaos and complexity.
Actually, if i had to list those who are most out of step with the rest
of the list, i'd name Pinker, Dawkins, Koch and Crick. But they still
have a place there, if only because i think that any point on which they
agree with the others can be assumed to have very broad support, simply
because the supporters are so diverse.
But really i'd rather not speak as glibly of these folks as i have here,
as if i could fit each one neatly into some mental pigeonhole. Each one
of us is a whole world. We are worlds in conversation, turning still.
Sometimes we spin in synchrony and sometimes we don't. When we do, we
have structural coupling, as Maturana and Varela called it. And when we
don't, we may have a chance to learn something new.
gary F.
}The simple fact is that no measurement, no experiment or observation is
possible without a relevant theoretical framework. [D.S. Kothari]{
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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS: So what is it all about?
Ben,
[[ I haven't read Eco or Quillian, and what little I've been able to
garner today from the 'Net about Model Q is vague to me. I think I'm
going to get the Eco novel which makes use of it. It sounds like a heck
of a good novel. ]]
I guess you mean Baudolino -- thanks for mentioning the novel, i'd
been totally unaware of it! The Name of the Rose was the first Eco i
read, but since then i've found his theoretical works more engaging than
his novels. However Baudolino is now on sale (24% off) at Amazon ...
[[ Indra's net seems a concept simple enough on the surface. ]]
I haven't got much deeper than the surface myself, as i only became
aware of Hua-yen last year (through my study of Dogen, the one writer
other than Peirce that i'm most engaged with these days; it's part of
his philosophical background).
[[ A meaning space -- it depends on what one means by meaning. Do
you mean a value, an importance, the evoking of a difference made? Or by
meaning do you mean a kind of evidencing, a
confirming/corroborating/disconfirming, etc., as to facts? ]]
Neither, i'd say -- something simpler, and synchronic rather than
dynamic. Conceptual space might be a better term for many purposes.
But if anyone has the time and inclination to look into the idea
further, i'd better just put the current draft of my chapter about it
online, rather than paraphrase it here. However this part of the draft
is already slated for some revision, because it doesn't yet reflect the
changes induced in my thinking by contact with Peirce. So i don't really
expect that you or other list members will be motivated to spend an hour
checking it out.
Hmmm. We same to be drifting away from New Elements here ...
gary F.
}The simple fact is that no measurement, no experiment or observation is
possible without a relevant theoretical framework. [D.S. Kothari]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] Re: Entelechy
Janet,
[[ Is entelechy the same as final cause to Aristotle or are they just
related concepts? ]]
My understanding is that the entelechy is an entity, while the final
cause is not. If we could map a process onto a sentence, the entelechy
would correspond to a noun while the final cause would be more like a
verb. Or maybe a better analogy is the attractor in physical state
space: final cause would be its *attracting* function, while the
entelechy is the final state that would be achieved if the attractor
could complete its work. As long as the attractor is still working, the
entelechy has only such identity as a sign may have (Peirce) -- so
it's an odd sort of entity.
I'm not using Aristotelian language here, because his usage of the term
is not very clear to me, and i'm trying to carry forward Peirce's
attempt to clarify the concept more than Aristotle himself did (while
also trying to preserve Aristotle's meaning). Here's what Peirce said in
New Elements:
[[[ Aristotle gropes for a conception of perfection, or entelechy, which
he never succeeds in making clear. We may adopt the word to mean the
very fact, that is, the ideal sign which should be quite perfect, and so
identical, -- in such identity as a sign may have, -- with the very
matter denoted united with the very form signified by it. The entelechy
of the Universe of being, then, the Universe qua fact, will be that
Universe in its aspect as a sign, the Truth of being. The Truth, the
fact that is not abstracted but complete, is the ultimate interpretant
of every sign. ]]]
[[ I believe your point about -tel- concepts and non-linearity agrees
with Robert Rosen's treatment of final cause and complexity. ]]
I'm glad you think so too! Rosen did not use the idiom of semiotics but
i have no doubt that his modeling relation is a semiotic one; and his
idea of the modeling process is virtually identical with what Walter
Freeman (the neuroscientist) calls circular causality. But this is the
central concept of my work in progress, so i'd better drop the subject
here lest i get carried away ...
I too would be curious about what people find in Professor Ehresmann's
work on Memory Evolutive Systems -- i still haven't found time yet to
tackle it myself. (Jerry Chandler, who provided us with the link to it,
finds it radically different from Rosen's view, but i don't know why.)
I guess it's questionable how appropriate this topic is to Peirce-L, but
in my view it's close enough. I subscribe to a complexity list which
hosted a lengthy discussion on Peirce last year, so i don't see why we
shouldn't discuss complexity on the Peirce list! But Joe and others
might disagree about that, and perhaps rightly so.
gary F.
}Into deep darkness fall those who follow the immanent. Into deeper
darkness fall those who follow the transcendent. He who knows both, with
the immanent overcomes death and with the transcendent reaches
immortality. [Mascaro, Isa Upanishad]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS: So what is it all about?
Ben, Jim, c.,
[[ Signs are built into complex signs and it wouldn't be helpful to have
a level of internal structure where semiotics must dispense with its
usual conceptions in order to reach. ]]
Having thought it through further, i think what you say here makes more
sense than what i said earlier to Jim. Actually, just about all you've
said in yesterday's posts on this thread make a lot of sense to me. If i
don't directly acknowledge other parts of them, it's because i don't
want to tucker you out any further (or myself either)!
However i do have a question about part of your message addressed to
Jim:
[[ A form is a set of locations, pointing at each other. If you consider
the inside apart from the outside, then you leave the larger concrete
world out of it, which is really to leave yourself out of it, since all
locatings in the larger world are by reference to yourself, and
certainly not with regard to any ultimate frame of reference or ultimate
shape of the concrete world, which are things that we know next to
nothing about. So the mutual pointings of the parts of the form are
still there, and they compel your attention, but you've left out their
reference _to_ you in _your_ specific location in the world. This lets
you impersonalize and abstract the form. It still has its center of
focus, and the solar system has its center of gravity whether it's
wheeling around the galaxy or adrift in one of the great voids. I think
that with this discussion of centers of gravity you're really dealing
with a separate issue, that of how one speaks of the precise location of
an extended object, as well as deciding what really orbits what, which
are issues exactly alike for an extended part as located relative to its
a particular whole and for a system located in the larger concrete
world. Anyway the form is still a structure of mutually opposed
indices, forces, motions potential actual. Form is not a quality. A
form may be abstracted for its appearance, but it may also be abstracted
for the capacity of its parts to represent one another -- denote one
another, map to one another. That's what a mathematical diagram is
about. It doesn't need even to be visual. It could consist in a formula
or array of algebraic symbols. ]]
This seems tantalizingly close to a concept that i've vaguely
recognized, and been trying to specify with more precision, for a couple
of decades now. I call it meaning space and think of it as the
structure of an organism's Innenwelt (J. von Uexkull's term), or its
model of the world -- so it's more of a universe than what you're
talking about here, but structurally similar. I picture it as a
multidimensional network of mutually defining nodes. One chapter of my
work in progress is devoted to it, and i despair of explaining it more
concisely than that ... but what they call the net of Indra in Hua-yen
(Buddhist) philosophy seems pretty close to it, and closer still is the
Model Q developed by M. Ross Quillian and described by Umberto Eco in
_A Theory of Semiotics_ (2.12). Does this sound at all familiar to you,
or connected with what you're saying above?
Jim, i'm glad you like my tagline collection -- it may prove to be my
main contribution to the world! The one below is a bit of a problem:
after lifting it from a Jane Siberry CD, i came across a very similar
statement made much earlier by some famous physicist, but failed to make
a note of that, so now i don't know who it was ... can anybody here tell
me the original source?
gary F.
}I was sure until they asked me ... now I don't know. [Jane Siberry]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] RE: Entelechy
Kirsti, it's good that you couldn't open the attachment -- according to my software it contained a virus (the worm Mydoom.O). Neal doesn't mention it in the message itself, so i'd bet he didn't even know it was attached when he sent it. Neal, better check your system -- gary - Original Message - Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 1:51 PM Neal, I didn't succeed in opening your attachment. Could you possibly copy it and send it as a mail? Kirsti 7.5.2006 kello 23:09, Neal Bruss kirjoitti: . . . and notice how the first two clauses of the passage link entelechy with the Peirce's freuqent turn to grammar in his logic, and, of course, to his semiotic. [The mode of being of the composition of thought, which is always of the nature of the attribution of a predicate to a subject . . . ]. winmail.dat--- --- Message from peirce-l forum to subscriber archive@mail-archive.com
[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS: So what is it all about?
Jim,
[[ How would you account for the fact that word such as conjunctions and
prepositions can stand by themselves as sentences? ]]
I don't believe that's true. A single-word sentence can sometimes be
understood as a sign, but the understanding depends on a situational
context -- which means that the word does not really stand by itself
even though it may be the only audible part of the utterance.
I recall reading an anecdotal example of such an utterance -- i'm pretty
sure it was in Peirce, but can't remember where, and i don't have a
keyword with which to search for it.
[[ I'll grant you they serve primarily to indicate structural
relationships among the various parts of sentences (and are so
frequently employed that it is not surprising they would be short and
few in number) but I still think they function as signs. They represent
meaning and this is preeminently the domain of signs. ]]
Yes, my previous message said (at the end) that they function
semantically as well as syntactically. But i'd prefer to say that
semiosis -- at least in the case of language -- includes both semantics
and syntax. So these words function semiotically, but not as complete
signs in themselves; so i question whether they denote or signify
anything separable from what the complete sign (*in* which they
function) denotes or signifies.
I think the question here is closely related to one addressed by Peirce
in New Elements III.4 -- in the discussion of fragmentary signs
starting near the bottom of p. 309 in EP2.
[[ On the other hand I think an agrument can be made that syntax is a
form of representation and not merely a collection structural features
that serve to hold the parts of a sentence together. ]]
That's pretty close to Talmy's argument in his work on cognitive
semantics. Or as you put it later in your message, syntax is a form
of structural semantics -- semantics embedded in structure. I'm with
you on that.
[[ In fact it is my view that all syntax is really just a short cut for
expressing common meanings
(such as who is the agent and who the patient) that are embedded in
nearly all sentences. ]]
Yes. I'd say that agency is (a name for) one of those core concepts
represented in syntax itself.
gary F.
}The meaning of a word is its use in the language. [Wittgenstein]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
---
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[peirce-l] Re: Peirce and Prigogine
Helmut,
My earlier message may have been unclear, but what i meant was pretty
much equivalent to what you say here:
[[ In a general sense, Peirce did indeed anticipate the possibility of
non-equilibrium thermodynamics. The possibility of new types of order in
far-from-the-equilibrium situations was something Peirce definitely had
in mind. Already in Design and Chance he talks about this possibility.
He saw that the global dissipation of energy is compatible with a local
increase of ordered structures. ]]
However i'm not sure we agree on what it means to call the universe a
closed system. To me the physical universe is closed in the sense that
there is no input to it, or output from it, with respect to any other
system or environment -- simply because nothing in existence is external
to it. (I take it we are not discussing the possibility of multiple
universes here.) This kind of closure entails that both the first
(conservation) and second laws of thermodynamics would hold in the
universe as a whole.
The rest of your message seems to imply a very different usage of
closed system -- perhaps the idea that all subsequent events in the
universe are (or were) fully determined by initial conditions, so
nothing really new can happen(?). Peirce's tychism, as i understand
it, denies this; and if that's what you are calling a closed system,
then that usage is the only respect in which i'd disagree with what you
say here:
[[ The second law of thermodynamics concerns only closed systems. But is
the universe a closed system? When you think of the evolution of order
in terms of involving and involved neigborhoods there might be an
unlimited, irreversible non-equilibrium growth of ordered structures
although the dissipation of energy in the involving neighborhood is
always increasing. In Design and Chance Peirce claims exactly this:
The dissipation of energy by the regular laws of nature is by those
very laws accompanied by circumstances more and more favorable to its
reconcentration by chance. Priogine's studies of chemical clocks deals
exactly with those local, chance events which, at some bifurcation
points, give rise to ordered sequences of events. ]]
This makes perfect sense to me except for your implication that it's
incompatible with the second law. If the unlimited growth to which you
refer would really conflict with the laws of thermodynamics, then we do
have a disagreement there. But we still agree that Peirce did anticipate
what i called the creative power of chance, and that is the link
between him and Prigogine.
gary F.
}Now listed to one aneither and liss them down and smoothen out your
leaves of rose. [Finnegans Wake 101]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] Re: Peirce and Prigogine
Ben, Victoria, Jerry,
I may not be responding properly to your messages for a few days because
i have a deadline to deal with first. But in the meantime --
For Victoria (and anyone else who cares to look), i've excerpted some
pieces from my work in progress that develop a concept of
intentionality, drawing on Walter Freeman and many others, and along the
way incorporating some remarks on final causality, specification
hierarchy and other things mentioned in this thread. It's on my website,
at http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/intent.htm . Comments welcome of course,
especially critical ones (as they will help me revise).
Jaime Nubiola did a paper on Complexity according to Peirce which is
relevant here -- i guess he was too modest to mention it in his post
last week, but Gary Richmond sent me the URL:
http://www.digitalpeirce.fee.unicamp.br/p-complex.htm .
One thing i should clarify -- it was misleading of me to post the
following as if i were summarizing Prigogine:
[[ Prigogine pointed out that under certain conditions, self-organizing
processes can occur spontaneously to facilitate the reduction of a
gradient; thus we have entropy production giving rise to the organic,
order out of chaos. The irony is that if we look at the whole system
or universe in which the organism is nested, we see order as emerging in
order to produce disorder more thoroughly, with thermodynamic
equilibrium acting as final cause or attractor in the state space of
the universe. ]]
When i later forwarded this post of mine to Stan Salthe, he commented:
[[ That is the way, I think, I have been the only one putting it (this
reference to the Universe). ]]
The above is actually a thumbnail sketch of the _Cosmos and History_
article i mentioned, and thus it should be attributed more to Salthe
than to Prigogine, although dissipative structures do play a central
role in Stan's view of the universe.
About final cause: Aristotle's original concept really belongs more to
biology than physics (Aristotle being a much better biologist than he
was a physicist). For instance the final cause of producing acorns is to
make more oak trees. The most obvious venue in which we all recognize
final causes at work is in growth and development. This is the idea that
Peirce tried to apply to cosmology in New Elements and elsewhere. Now,
growth and development processes are irreversible -- a point that both
Peirce and Prigogine made in their different ways. Newtonian mechanics
on the other hand are reversible, because the equations in which they
are formalized are reversible.
If your view of causality is dominated by Newtonian mechanics, it is
also dominated by efficient causes -- the billiard-ball universe. The
irreversible processes of growth and development have fallen off the
map, and final causes along with them. If you now try to translate
Aristotle's term into a concept suitable to a Newtonian universe, you
imagine that a final cause must be something like an efficient cause
operating from the future. Or as Jerry put it: one has to imagine one
future point in time acting on the present. In a simple sentence: The
death of Bill Clinton in 2035 caused G W Bush to end the war in 2006.
But this of course is nonsense, since efficient causes must precede
their effects in time.
So if you think that final cause means a future point in time acting
on the present, naturally you conclude that the notion of final cause
is nonsense. But that's not Aristotle's notion of final cause -- or
Peirce's, or Salthe's, or Ulanowicz's, or Rosen's. All of these folks
have been trying to restore Aristotle's idea (or an improved version of
it) into modern science, and all have met stiff resistance from the
continuing dominance of mass-and-particle Newtonian physics over
scientific thinking. All that is changing now, of course, but Peirce was
far ahead of his time when he argued that a complete analysis of
causality must include *both* the push of efficient causes and the
pull of final causes (as well as the non-temporal or synchronic causes
constituted by form and matter).
One of the more amusing aspects of the present situation, to me at
least, is the way final-cause thinking has gone underground -- people
use it all the time but are afraid to speak its name. Evolutionary
psychology, for instance, is completely pervaded by final-cause
thinking, and yet those same thinkers rarely miss a chance to sneer at
teleological concepts such as final causes.
That's all for now until i meet my deadline.
gary
}The actual world cannot be distinguished from a world of imagination by
any description. [Peirce]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] Re: Peirce and Prigogine
Ben,
Yes, i was taking too much for granted when i started using the term
here. Especially as the name dissipative structure is not especially
well-chosen -- partly for the reasons you mention, and partly because
it's really about systems (and thus involves processes) and not merely
structures. I imagine Peirce would fault Prigogine on his nomenclature.
If i may generalize from the selections that Gary R. has been posting
(and sending to me offline), i'd say that where Prigogine overlaps with
Peirce is in the conviction that no set of laws operating
mechanistically and deterministically is sufficient to explain
biological phenomena; or to put it another way, there must be more to
causality than cause and effect (Aristotle's efficient cause). That
of course is where final cause comes in, though i don't think Prigogine
made as much use of that concept as did Robert Rosen, (ecologist) Bob
Ulanowicz, and Stan Salthe. Also, Prigogine and Peirce seem to agree
that the distinction between living and nonliving systems is not
absolute but somewhat fuzzy. Peirce seems to have arrived at these ideas
via logic, while Prigogine's route was more empirical; but i think their
inquiries were similarly motivated.
However i still don't find anything in Peirce resembling current notions
of self-organizing processes, nonequilibrium thermodynamics, or
dissipative structures. The analogy i tried to make the other day is
still the closest Peirce gets to those physical concepts, as far as i
can see.
gary
}To become full, be hollow. [Waley, Tao Te Ching 22]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
- Original Message -
Gary,
I started to think, from reading your response below, that maybe the
problem was my understanding of the word dissipative. So I looked up
dissipative on the Web and found out what the misunderstanding was. I
took it to mean simply smoothing energy out, making it more random,
producing an increase in entropy, etc. I didn't know that it had a
special meaning for Prigogine and others.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=enlr=safe=offoi=definerq=define:dissipative+structuresdefl=en
dissipative system (or dissipative structure) is an open system which
is operating far from thermodynamic equilibrium within an environment
that exchanges energy, matter or entropy. A dissipative system is
characterized by the spontaneous appearance of a complex, sometimes
chaotic, structure. The term dissipative structures was coined by Ilya
Prigogine.
Best, Ben
---
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[peirce-l] Re: Peirce and Prigogine
Kirsti and Gary, i'll have to get back to you later -- i've decided to
limit myself to one post a day here.
Victoria N. Alexander writes,
[[ Eric Schneider and Dorian Sagan recently published a book with this
idea as the thesis, _Into the Cool_. ]]
Yes, i read _Into the Cool_ last year, and it's probably the most
popular book on the subject yet (i.e. the most accessible to
nonspecialists). My own ideas on the subject i owe mostly to Stanley N.
Salthe, whose take on the subject differs somewhat from Schneider and
Sagan's. Salthe and i recently published an article on it in Cosmos and
History,
http://www.cosmosandhistory.org/index.php/journal/article/view/44 ,
which was written (except for some final revisions) before _Into the
Cool_ came out -- in fact Stan first drafted it in 2002.
[[ I question the appropriateness of saying that the reduction of the
gradient is the purpose of the universe or the purpose of any
organism. ]]
A good question to raise, i think, because it prompts us to do some
concerted thinking about what purpose is -- something that Peirce had
a lot to say about. I'm not going to propose any answers at the moment
(my earlier post didn't use the word purpose); but Salthe and i did
take up the question of teleology in our Cosmos and History article.
[[ I'd like to discuss the subtle differences of Peirce's view of final
cause. ]]
Me too ... starting maybe with selection 9 in EP2 (On Science and
Natural Classes, CP 1.203-37), but also considering this paragraph from
New Elements (EP2, 315-16):
[[[ As everybody else but Mill and his school more or less clearly
understands the word [cause], it is a highly useful one. That which is
caused, the *causatum*, is, not the entire event, but such abstracted
element of an event as is expressible in a proposition, or what we call
a fact. The cause is another fact. Namely, it is, in the first
place, a fact which could, within the range of possibility, have its
being without the being of the *causatum*; but, secondly, it could not
be a real fact while a certain third complementary fact, expressed or
understood, was realized, without the being of the causatum; and
thirdly, although the actually realized causatum might perhaps be
realized by other causes or by accident, yet the existence of the entire
possible causatum could not be realized without the cause in question.
It may be added that a part of a cause, if a part in that respect in
which the cause is a cause, is also called a *cause*. In other respects,
too, the scope of the word will be somewhat widened in the sequel. If
the cause so defined is a part of the causatum, in the sense that the
causatum could not logically be without the cause, it is called an
*internal cause*; otherwise, it is called an *external cause*. If the
cause is of the nature of an individual thing or fact, and the other
factor requisite to the necessitation of the *causatum* is a general
principle, I would call the cause a *minor*, or *individuating*, or
perhaps a *physical cause*. If, on the other hand, it is the general
principle which is regarded as the cause and the individual fact to
which it is applied is taken as the understood factor, I would call the
cause a *major*, or *defining*, or perhaps a *psychical cause*. The
individuating internal cause is called the *material cause*. Thus the
integrant parts of a subject or fact form its *matter*, or material
cause. The individuating external cause is called the *efficient*, or
*efficient cause*; and the causatum is called the *effect*. The defining
internal cause is called the *formal* /316/ cause, or *form*. All those
facts which constitute the definition of a subject or fact make up its
form. The defining external cause is called the *final cause*, or
*end*. ]]
[[ I'm currently organizing a conference panel on the topic, to be held
in NYC in Nov 2006. Both Schneider and Sagan will be featured. There
will also be a Peirce-biosemiotics session. ]]
That's good to hear -- especially the last part, as i think biosemiotics
has been somewhat neglected on this side of the Atlantic. If travelling
to conferences were an option for me, i wouldn't want to miss that one.
gary F.
}It takes a long time to learn that life is short. [gnox]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] Re: (offlist)
Jerry,
[[ I find this paragraph fragment to be highly controversial. ]]
I wouldn't argue with that, but your message doesn't explain *your*
reasons for finding it controversial. Your description of the chemical
processes involved is irrelevant, because nothing i said denies that
they *are* involved; but there's a lot more to life than chemistry. If
you want to understand dissipative structures you have to look at energy
flows in whole systems -- organisms and, at the higher scale,
ecosystems. Only part of the action is visible at the microscopic scale.
[[ If one considers the food web of ecologies and the role plants play
in fueling the food chain (including us), one can ponder the logical
consequences of such casual beliefs. ]]
Sorry, i have no idea what you're driving at here. (Perhaps you meant
causal rather than casual, but that still doesn't clarify what
logical consequences you have in mind.)
[[ In my personal opinion, such narratives are only used by individuals
with a very very limited knowledge of life (and the chemical sciences)
itself. ]]
Not sure what narratives you're referring to here, but i think you'd
be wise to look into the basic concepts of nonequilibrium thermodynamics
(and, more generally, of systems) before venturing to comment on them. I
could suggest some sources ...
(And if it's life itself you are interested in, try Robert Rosen's
book of that title!)
gary
}It takes a long time to learn that life is short. [gnox]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] Re: Peirce and Prigogine
Apologies to Jerry and to the list -- i marked my message offlist
and then stupidly sent it to the list! (So now i've broken my own role
twice today ... *sigh*)
But as long as i'm here, let me insert a couple of remarks that might
clear up or head off certain confusions. First, Victoria wrote that the
appropriateness of saying that the reduction of the gradient is the
purpose of the universe or the purpose of any organism. -- and then
went on to connect this idea with Peirce's view of final cause,
although i hadn't made that connection in my post. Here we should keep
in mind what Peirce says at CP 1.211:
[[ It is, as I was saying, a widespread error to think that a final
cause is necessarily a purpose. A purpose is merely that form of final
cause which is most familiar to our experience. The signification of the
phrase final cause must be determined by its use in the statement of
Aristotle that all causation divides into two grand branches, the
efficient, or forceful; and the ideal, or final. If we are to conserve
the truth of that statement, we must understand by final causation that
mode of bringing facts about according to which a general description of
result is made to come about, quite irrespective of any compulsion for
it to come about in this or that particular way; although the means may
be adapted to the end. The general result may be brought about at one
time in one way, and at another time in another way. Final causation
does not determine in what particular way it is to be brought about, but
only that the result shall have a certain general character. ]]
Also in reference to Victoria's remark, Ben writes:
[[ It's like saying that wooden furniture's end is to use up efforts,
wood, to get worn out, etc. The increase of entropy _within_ any
isolated system seems an aspect of the material cause, an _internal_
cause. ]]
Perhaps i should clarify that a dissipative structure *cannot* be an
isolated system in the thermodynamic sense (though it may be closed in
other senses). The only isolated system involved here is the universe
itself; and obviously all causes are internal to the universe.
Dissipative structures self-organize (create internal order) by
exporting entropy. The question is *why?* -- and the answer, the final
cause of their self-organizing, is a defining *external* cause, as
Peirce says -- external to them, though internal to the universe.
Entropy production is one obvious candidate to consider for that role,
since it seems to be one thing that such processes always end up doing;
but i wouldn't call it a purpose.
gary F.
}It takes a long time to learn that life is short. [gnox]{
gnusystems }{ Pam Jackson Gary Fuhrman }{ Manitoulin University
}{ [EMAIL PROTECTED] }{ http://users.vianet.ca/gnox/ }{
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[peirce-l] Re: Peirce and Prigogine
Ben,
[[ I wonder what you mean by thermodynamically isolated. I've taken it
to mean a system with no matter or energy interaction with an outside
system. ]]
That's pretty much it. All organisms are open in that sense -- they
require inputs and outputs of energy/matter -- and all organisms are
dissipative structures. Some nonliving things, such as hurricanes, are
also dissipative structures, but i don't think a solar system would
qualify. It would however be isolated enough to treat as
thermodynamically closed for theoretical purposes, because its
interchanges of energy with the rest of the universe (or the galaxy)
take place at a scale too far removed from us (the theorists) to be
measurable or to make any significant difference to the theory.
Strictly speaking, entropy is only defined for isolated systems, but the
fact that our measurements and our usage are necessarily imprecise does
not invalidate the concept -- as Peirce often pointed out in reference
to other concepts. Still, many theorists in ecology (including Schneider
and Sagan) prefer to focus on energy flows and gradient reduction
rather than entropy. In those terms, the final cause of life on earth
might be to reduce the solar gradient as thoroughly as possible. That
would *not* be the final cause of any individual organism or species, or
even of evolutionary processes; but it would be relevant to the
origin-of-life question.
gary F.
- Original Message -
Gary wrote,
Perhaps i should clarify that a dissipative structure *cannot* be an
isolated system in the thermodynamic sense (though it may be closed
in other senses
That's news to me.
I wonder what you mean by thermodynamically isolated. I've taken it to
mean a system with no matter or energy interaction with an outside
system. A solar system in a universe otherwise empty would still run
down.
Best, Ben
}To become full, be hollow. [Waley, Tao Te Ching 22]{
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[peirce-l] Re: Peirce and Prigogine
perhaps in a single sentence,-- as if, for
example, it was at least questionable whether any Real flower was ever
born to blush unseen, and waste its sweetness on the desert air. But,
beyond question, such there are, which would have been found if inquiry
could have been, and had been, sufficiently pushed in the right
direction, although, in fact, it was not; and of things in which we
rightly but vaguely believe, the immense majority are similarly unknown;
and this majority grows relatively (and not merely numerically) larger
the further inquiry is pushed, and we cannot, in any sense, look forward
to a state of things in which such beliefs as that any stone let fall
from the hand would drop to the earth are to be replaced by such a
knowledge as that every stone that has been let loose has dropped. ]]]
(EP2, 456-7)
gary F.
}Like the concept of zero in mathematics, the idea of a self is useful,
so long as you don't mistake it for a thing. [M.C. Bateson]{
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[peirce-l] Re: Peirce on Epicureanism
There was a question about Peirce's sources concerning Epicurean philosophy
a couple days ago, which i deleted since i didn't know the answer. But today
i noticed that Peirce did write a definition of it for the Century
Dictionary. It still doesn't answer the question, but here's the most
interesting part:
[[[ II. n. 1. A follower of Epicurus, the great sensualistic philosopher of
antiquity (341-270 B.C.), who founded a school at Athens about 307 B.C. He
held, like Bentham, that pleasure is the only possible end of rational
action, and that the ultimate pleasure is freedom from disturbance. In logic
the Epicureans are distinguished from all the other ancient schools, not
only in maintaining an experiential theory of cognition and the validity of
inductive reasoning, but also in denying the value of definitions,
syllogism, and the other apparatus of the apriori method. Like J. S. Mill,
they based induction upon the uniformity of nature. Epicurus was very
strenuous in the advocacy of natural causes for all phenomena, and in
resisting hypotheses of the interference of supernatural beings in nature.
He adopted the atomistic theory of Democritus, while bringing into it the
doctrine of chance, which is the very life of that theory. His views were
thus more like those of a modern scientist than were those of any other
philosopher of antiquity. Owing, however, to the natural repugnance to
doctrines seeming to lower the nature of man, Epicurus and his school have
been much hated and abused; so that an Epicurean has come to mean also a
mere votary of pleasure. ]]]
This of course from http://www.global-language.com/CENTURY/ .
gary F.
}We should trust God as though our salvation were entirely in His hands, and
act as though it were entirely in our own. [al-Ghazali]{
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[peirce-l] Re: What's going on here?
Frances writes,
[[ My access to digital versions of Peircean writings is limited, but it
would be interesting to seek and find out how many occasions the term
intermediate appears in his texts, if indeed it has not already been done
and posted to the list archive. ]]
A search for intermediate in the Collected Papers gives 46 hits. He seems
to use the word mostly in connection with continuity (as per his doctrine of
synechism) and thus with Thirdness. For instance: A fork in a road is a
third, it supposes three ways; a straight road, considered merely as a
connection between two places is second, but so far as it implies passing
through intermediate places it is third Continuity represents Thirdness
almost to perfection (CP 3.337). In CP 4.75 (Thomas's selection) i don't
see a clear distinction between the immediate and the direct, but i do see
an implied contrast between intermediate and direct.
By the way, i came across another paragraph in Peirce that strikes me as
very similar in tone and content to CP.475, though it is differently framed:
[[[ Some persons fancy that bias and counter-bias are favorable to the
extraction of truth--that hot and partisan debate is the way to investigate.
This is the theory of our atrocious legal procedure. But Logic puts its heel
upon this suggestion. It irrefragably demonstrates that knowledge can only
be furthered by the real desire for it, and that the methods of obstinacy,
of authority, and every mode of trying to reach a foregone conclusion, are
absolutely of no value. These things are proved. The reader is at liberty to
think so or not as long as the proof is not set forth, or as long as he
refrains from examining it. Just so, he can preserve, if he likes, his
freedom of opinion in regard to the propositions of geometry; only, in that
case, if he takes a fancy to read Euclid, he will do well to skip whatever
he finds with A, B, C, etc., for, if he reads attentively that disagreeable
matter, the freedom of his opinion about geometry may unhappily be lost
forever. ]]] -- CP 2.635, EP1 193
I wonder, would the proof Peirce refers to here qualify him as an
authority on authority? ;-)
gary F.
}The best things in life aren't things. [Buchwald]{
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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS: So what is it all about?
[JOE] I don't understand yet how these terms are being
used in a way that satisfies me that I understand what those distinctions
really are. I was shocked, for example, to find Peirce saying that no sign
is a real thing, though he does go ahead to explain this in such a way that
it does not seem to involve a retraction of his realism about signs after
all. But I don't really understand that yet.
[gary F] I wonder if Peirce might have cleared this up a little -- without
losing the shock value of no sign is a real thing -- by saying also that
no thing is a real sign. (Since a thing can be at best a *replica* or
token of a sign.)
gary
}The Realized One comes from nowhere and goes nowhere; that is why he is
called the Realized One. [Diamond-Cutter Sutra]{
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[peirce-l] Re: Evolutionary Love and the Implicate Order (Peirce/Bohm)
Gary, thanks for bringing in the Bohm connection -- i haven't read anything
of Bohm's yet (except what you posted) but this seems a lead worth
following.
Let me add one more connection to the mix. Bohm's informal description of
the implicate order reminds me in some respects of Hua-Yen philosophy. I'm
certainly no expert on that (or anything else!), but -- there's a passage in
New Elements which sums up the Hua-Yen view (as i understand it) perfectly.
It's on p. 315 in EP2, where Peirce is objecting to J.S. Mill's usage of the
word cause because Mill speaks of the cause of an event, while
[[[ everybody else speaks of the cause of a fact, which is an element of
the event. But, with Mill, it is the event in its entirety which is caused.
The consequence is that Mill is obliged to define the cause as the totality
of all the circumstances attending the event. This is, strictly speaking,
the Universe of being in its totality. But any event, just as it exists, in
its entirety, is nothing else but the same Universe of being in its
totality. ]]]
Peirce tosses that off that final sentence as if it were too obvious to
require explanation, but as far as i can tell, it strongly resembles an idea
developed at great and weighty length by several Chinese Buddhist
philosophers roughly a millennium ago (see e.g. Thomas Cleary, _Entry into
the Inconceivable_, 1983). Would you agree that it sounds Bohmian too?
gary F.
}Knowledge is a single point, but the ignorant have multiplied it. [Imam
Ali]{
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[peirce-l] Re: NEW ELEMENTS (KAINA STOICHEIA) available at Arisbe
Joe writes (about New Elements):
[[ Overall, I find the rationale of it baffling. It is not a complete paper
of course, but even considered as only an intended preface to a book on the
logic of mathematics, it is seems puzzlingly incomplete, at the least. Why
does he start off with the theory vs. practice distinction? ]]
I tend to think of that distinction as parallel to the action-perception
cycle in animals generally. That is, action is guided by perception and
perception guided (framed, focussed) by action, and the two parts of the
cycle modify each other recursively; and likewise, practice (including
experiment) is guided by theoretical models which are then modified by
practice, or rather by the reaction with reality brought about by
practice. Maybe i'm just revealing my biosemiotic leanings here, but that
distinction seems basic enough to be as good a place to start as any.
Concerning the bigger puzzle, though, i get the feeling -- as i do with many
of Peirce's pieces -- that he set out with a systematic plan in mind, but in
the course of writing, certain lines of thought popped up that just had to
be followed up immediately, and to hell with the plan. Thinks, I can always
sort it out and rearrange it later ... but then later sometimes never
comes ...
And in this case, where he goes with these seeming digressions is very deep
into the roots of his logic/semiotic, maybe deeper than he had himself
foreseen.
gary F.
}Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be
counted counts. [Einstein]{
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